Making Zoot the Single Info Product

< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >

Posted by Daly de Gagne
Jul 9, 2007 at 02:22 AM

As many of us salivate at the prospects of Zoot in its 32-bit form, I am increasingly curious about ways people have chosen to use it as their only, or primary, information product. The question seems relevant now since so many of us here spend a great deal of time and money crimping.

I’d be curious about fairly detailed descriptions of how people make Zoot do it all (or almost all).

Thanks.

Daly

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jul 9, 2007 at 02:38 PM

Daly,

This won’t answer your quesiton, because I don’t use Zoot for everything. I combine it with OneNote and now Debrief. However, I do use Zoot extensively, and for the bulk of my information management. Here is how and why, but first some background. I am responsible for the sales and marketing for the nonprofit publisher I work for. Also part of my job is purchasing printing and books from other publishers which supplement our catalog. I have four important Zoot databases:

1. Tracking orders and payments from printers and other publishers (not to be confused with tracking invoices and orders from our customers, for which we use Quickbooks Enterprise). For this purpose I have a database with the following two folder columns:
- Item # (to identify the product in question). This column is a multiple pick column because sometimes I buy more than one product at a time from the same vendor.
- Vendor. This column is a single pick column for obvious reasons.

When I place an order, I make a note of that order, identifying the product and the vendor (the date is automatically recorded, as well). If I have ordered via e-mail, I only have to zooter the e-mail message into Zoot. Likewise, when I approve payment of an invoice, I add an item to the database. In this way, I can quickly see when I last ordered any item, or check which invoices I’ve paid for any particular vendor, because folders are automatically created for each item and each vendor.

2. Maintaining our catalog copy. I have a database set up as our “catalog.” In it I keep an individual item for each of our products, with the following delimited fields:
- Author
- ISBN
- Price
- Category
- Item #

There is one folder with every item in it and a set of subfolders with rules that capture the items based on category. In this way, I have instant access to our catalog based on category or by price or alphabetically by title. When I want to build our next catalog, I can just copy this material into Word, quickly and easily and it can be organized in any way that makes sense prior to export. The only pain in the neck is having to strip out the delimited field tags; i.e. “Author:”, “ISBN:” etc…

3. Journal. This isn’t my daily journal, which I use Debrief for, but a collection of communications, notes and reminders. Basically, the dumping ground for any information not specifically related to a product or a project. Zoot works well for this because information is so easy to capture and the reminder feature works well. I used to categorize this information with folder columns, but found I didn’t need to do that.

4. Address book. Admittedly, Zoot isn’t the best address book if you want to print labels, but I don’t generally have to do that. So I keep a database with contact information for various people, organizations and agencies. I categorize these by type. For instance, one type is “printers,” and another is “graphic designers.”

But I use other databases for miscellaneous purposes, too. For instance, I have a folder with links to various forms I frequently need in the Startup database. And I use the Atom database for capturing non-work related information I come across and want to keep.

Right now I do not use Zoot for project-related work, but keep that, instead in OneNote. OneNote is great for storing price quotes from vendors, for instance, because I usually get those via e-mail and I just drag the document (PDF, Word doc, or Excel spreadsheet) into OneNote where it gets stored and I have easy access to it.

When Zoot finally gets RTF and the folder limitation goes away, I imagine I will keep my daily journal in Zoot, but until then I’m experimenting with Debrief for that purpose.

I don’t keep a to do list, but could easily do so with Zoot, though Defrief or OneNote would work almost equally as well.

So that’s how I use Zoot. The End.

Steve Z.

Posted by Daly de Gagne
Jul 9, 2007 at 10:46 PM

Steve, ho do you use Debrief, and what do you see it as its strengths. Not too long ago some folk here were critical o the program—and I wonder if you feel there are valid issues that would keep one from using it. I do lik the way it seems to divide up categories,

Daly

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>Daly,
> >This won’t answer your quesiton, because I don’t use Zoot for everything. I
>combine it with OneNote and now Debrief. However, I do use Zoot extensively, and for
>the bulk of my information management. Here is how and why, but first some background.
>I am responsible for the sales and marketing for the nonprofit publisher I work for.
>Also part of my job is purchasing printing and books from other publishers which
>supplement our catalog. I have four important Zoot databases:
> >1. Tracking orders
>and payments from printers and other publishers (not to be confused with tracking
>invoices and orders from our customers, for which we use Quickbooks Enterprise). For
>this purpose I have a database with the following two folder columns:
>- Item # (to
>identify the product in question). This column is a multiple pick column because
>sometimes I buy more than one product at a time from the same vendor.
>- Vendor. This
>column is a single pick column for obvious reasons.
> >When I place an order, I make a
>note of that order, identifying the product and the vendor (the date is automatically
>recorded, as well). If I have ordered via e-mail, I only have to zooter the e-mail
>message into Zoot. Likewise, when I approve payment of an invoice, I add an item to the
>database. In this way, I can quickly see when I last ordered any item, or check which
>invoices I’ve paid for any particular vendor, because folders are automatically
>created for each item and each vendor.
> >2. Maintaining our catalog copy. I have a
>database set up as our “catalog.” In it I keep an individual item for each of our
>products, with the following delimited fields:
>- Author
>- ISBN
>- Price
>-
>Category
>- Item #
> >There is one folder with every item in it and a set of subfolders
>with rules that capture the items based on category. In this way, I have instant access
>to our catalog based on category or by price or alphabetically by title. When I want to
>build our next catalog, I can just copy this material into Word, quickly and easily and
>it can be organized in any way that makes sense prior to export. The only pain in the neck
>is having to strip out the delimited field tags; i.e. “Author:”, “ISBN:” etc…
> >3.
>Journal. This isn’t my daily journal, which I use Debrief for, but a collection of
>communications, notes and reminders. Basically, the dumping ground for any
>information not specifically related to a product or a project. Zoot works well for
>this because information is so easy to capture and the reminder feature works well. I
>used to categorize this information with folder columns, but found I didn’t need to do
>that.
> >4. Address book. Admittedly, Zoot isn’t the best address book if you want to
>print labels, but I don’t generally have to do that. So I keep a database with contact
>information for various people, organizations and agencies. I categorize these by
>type. For instance, one type is “printers,” and another is “graphic
>designers.”
> >But I use other databases for miscellaneous purposes, too. For
>instance, I have a folder with links to various forms I frequently need in the Startup
>database. And I use the Atom database for capturing non-work related information I
>come across and want to keep.
> >Right now I do not use Zoot for project-related work,
>but keep that, instead in OneNote. OneNote is great for storing price quotes from
>vendors, for instance, because I usually get those via e-mail and I just drag the
>document (PDF, Word doc, or Excel spreadsheet) into OneNote where it gets stored and I
>have easy access to it.
> >When Zoot finally gets RTF and the folder limitation goes
>away, I imagine I will keep my daily journal in Zoot, but until then I’m experimenting
>with Debrief for that purpose.
> >I don’t keep a to do list, but could easily do so with
>Zoot, though Defrief or OneNote would work almost equally as well.
> >So that’s how I
>use Zoot. The End.
> >Steve Z.

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jul 10, 2007 at 01:47 PM

Daly,

You asked about Debrief Notes. I use it for my daily journal, but could use it for more, if I were not already embedded in Zoot. The reason I use it for my daily journal instead of using Zoot is that I like being able to highlight, bold, underline, bullet, etc… in my journal and Zoot does not allow that, of course.

I have to admit that I didn’t understand some of the criticisms of Debrief that I read here… one being that the GUI was too complicated. But I feel that way about UR, so it comes down to a matter of personal preference in many cases. I actually like Debrief’s GUI.

Other strengths of the program are its ability to categorize information in a variety of ways:

1. By folder (or category)
2. By date
3. By index or keyword
4. By attribute (i.e. favorite, needs followup, etc…)

Debrief has schedule and task functions, contacts, references and more. And I think Debrief does a good job of integrating this information, so that you can relate contacts with notes, for instance. However, I must acknowledge that I don’t use these functions, because I do most of this work in Zoot. If Zoot didn’t exist, I think I would be comfortable using Debrief as my main PIM. What Debrief does not do well is capture information from other sources… as far as I can tell, the only way to do so is to cut and paste. So it would not replace Surfulater or OneNote.

Steve Z.

Back to topic list