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People- vs. Project-Centric Email Workflow
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Posted by Ken
Dec 8, 2021 at 03:44 PM
MadaboutDana wrote:
Ha, yes, everything you say is spot on. We experimented with SharePoint
>a few years ago, and after desperately trying to control the
>efflorescence, I finally gave up and sacked it.
>
>We even had a special extranet running on SharePoint for one of our
>major clients at the time (part of Sony); it had lots of useful info on
>it, including archives of advertising/marketing material and all sorts.
>Did anybody ever use it? Nope. Members of the client’s marketing
>department would visit it, admire it… and then leave it alone.
>
>There’s something basically confusing about SharePoint; it’s
>what I would call a “fuzzy” app, something that appears to
>be friendly but isn’t really. Craft, a wonderful, gorgeous app for
>macOS/iOS, is similar – the structures are fuzzy, making it
>quite difficult to organise things in logical ways. But at least Craft
>has a really great search function (now that they’ve upgraded it),
>whereas the SharePoint search function almost feels bolted on as an
>afterthought. Or it did – I must confess I haven’t used SP
>in anger for several years.
>
>And I shouldn’t really criticise Craft; it’s brand new, and
>its developers produce new, improved features at a stonking pace,
>whereas SP? Just seems to get fuzzier and fuzzier…
>
>Cheers!
>Bill
Don’t even get me started on SP. Fuzzy would be a kind word for it if I was to describe it at length. I would say that having Teams as a “front end” to it helps a bit, but it still is a kludge as far as friendliness and UI.
—Ken
Posted by MadaboutDana
Dec 14, 2021 at 09:24 AM
This exchange caused me to go back and take another look at a piece of software I experimented with many years ago: EssentialPIM (available for Windows, Android, iOS), a very capable three-pane outliner (on Windows; on Android and iOS it’s more like a one-pane/two-pane outliner).
I was pleased to see (a) that it’s still up and running, and (b) that it appears to be making steady progress.
It’s an alternative to the Microsoft all-in-one approach originally envisioned in Outlook. Of course Microsoft’s solution has now been profoundly compromised (especially on Mac) as they appear to be trying to drive users into using their online versions of the software – with typically Microsoft-fragmented solutions and results. Enraging!
But EssentialPIM still bundles everything together: task management, contacts, rich-text notes, passwords – and yes, e-mail as well. It’s a remarkably comprehensive package, and can also be run by a small business using a Firebird server (running on Linux, macOS or Windows: Firebird is open-source and cross-platform). This allows you to share most of the data with colleagues across your LAN. EssentialPIM supply a user-friendly version that’s very easy to install and set up.
It’s much cheaper than comparable packages, and uses an excellent rich-text editor for notes across all its modules.
I wouldn’t say it’s suitable for use in big-business environments, but certainly a very reasonable alternative for SMEs. More info on essentialpim.com (for a comparison of Pro with Free editions – yes, there is a free edition – see https://www.essentialpim.com/pc-version/pro-vs-free).
There is even an online offering (EPIM Cloud), although I’ve not tried it.
Cheers,
Bill
Posted by Daly de Gagne
Dec 14, 2021 at 02:40 PM
Coincidentally Bill, I got an email post today from Essential PIM announcing release of version 10. It looks good.
https://www.essentialpim.com/blog-and-news
Posted by Ken
Dec 14, 2021 at 03:18 PM
I do remember Essential PIM and am glad to see it has survived through the years.
—Ken