Working with projects
Great program!
Question-
I have made templates for projects that I have. The project starts as an appointment so I set it up in LB by calendar with complte subtasks in order.
CLIA Cert/Recert-XXX Company (by calendar)
?schedule apointment
?File prep review
?Survey
?Post Survey
?Complete Survey forms
?transfer to ACO
?POC returned from facility (by due date)
?DOC returned from facility
?survey complete and uploaded
The system has worked very well, but the whole project may take up to 1 year to complete and with adding 10 new each month, I have many tasks such as "?POC returned from the facility" in my @waiting for place. The system works great in that I can see all the documents I am waiting for and tasks I need to complete, but it would be nice if I could see from whom without having to click on the outline and scroll up. What would be great is if I could see "XXX company" in the task (or note field). Of course I can copy and paste, but each project has 35 tasks required to be checked off prior to completion so that would be lots of copying and pasting.
Also I have some tasks in the list that must be completed within 10 days of the calendar appointment. Currently I manually enter with a due date. Any way to automate this?
Thanks,
Jennifer
Comments
Use Places?
Jennifer,
Are there a lot of Places within this project template? If it's only 2-3 Places (i.e. Calls, Office, Waiting), have you look at using Places to manage things? It requires a little prep time when you add a new project but considering it may take up to 1 year to complete, it may be time well spent.
When you add such and so Company, you would create Places: "Company-Call", "Company-Office", "Company-Waiting". Then include those new places in you main "Call", "Office", and "Waiting" Places.
When you look at "Waiting" you should be able to tell which company based on the Company-Waiting.
"Also I have some tasks in the list that must be completed within 10 days of the calendar appointment. Currently I manually enter with a due date. Any way to automate this?"
Are you currently using the lead time feature?
Not sure if the above help but that's all I can think of if using only LB.
I use LB, Palm, and EPIM to track projects similar to yours except mine are with patients. I use the template in LB, Places for the patient's name (or company); the actual context is included in the tasks (i.e. "@Computer: Review lab results" and "@Call: Call client with lab results"). I can check in LB or Palm to see where I am with each patient (via Places or Categories). When I am working on my computer, I can pull up all @Call in EPIM (via EPIM filter or search). The downside is I can't get a list of all @Call on my Palm (DateBk or LB) --- but that's not crucial in my system. May not work as well with your set-up / needs.
Use Places?
What a great idea!
"When you add such and so Company, you would create Places: "Company-Call", "Company-Office", "Company-Waiting". "
I will try this out. Yes it will add a few more minutes to the set-up, but I can see a huge improvement in my usability of LB.
"Are you currently using the lead time feature?"
Yes I have been, but without the more enhanced places the list was very hard for me to work with and it became easier to just manually enter a due date and then check off everything in the outline. I admit not a very good system.
Let me see if I get your system......If you needed to make a call to a patient it would be set up as "@call- lab results" in the place "patientA-Call"?
Would you consider sharing an exchange file? I am very interested how you use the actual context in tasks.
Thanks,
Jennifer
Not quite since I don't use Places as context much.
"Let me see if I get your system......If you needed to make a call to a patient it would be set up as "@call- lab results" in the place "patientA-Call"?"
Not quite since I don't use Places as context much. I modified the examples to fit your use of LB. I don't work off the To Do List in LB on a day-to-day basis so I don't have a need for a "PatientA-Call" Place. I use LB Places more as a filter to review my patients or projects. For example, I would look at the To Do List for Place "Patients" to see if I have any open items that need to be taken care. Another Place would be "CPA" for all accounting related tasks. Other than that, I use the basic Places (@Calls, @Errands, @Office, @Computer) but not distinguish them between patients (in Places).
To give you an idea:
When on my Treo, I work off Tasks (Palm native app) since most of my tasks have due dates. To confuse you further, I use EPIM (essentialpim) desktop/portable version (on usb key) when I work on the computer. I use LB for organizing and getting the big picture from the outline.
Continuing with your example, if I need to call a client, I enter the task in Tasks (Palm app) (which is how most of my on-the-go data entry is done), complete with the due date, if any:
"#:Smith:a @call lab results"
---- Notes:
#Smith is how I designate a project; in this case, Smith project.
the colons around Smith followed by "a" is my PsLink to the phone number on my Treo. It does not mean anything else.
If I am not being lazy, I would go to category and choose "@Calls"
When I sync my Treo to Palm Desktop/EPIM and LB, the following happens:
1) Palm Desktop/EPIM = the task is synced as usual, nothing special. Except I now have a copy of the task in EPIM to be used at any computer.
2) LB = I have the Outline set up with "InBox" as a TLI where all the imported To Dos are added. The category (@Calls, etc...) are synced over as Places with the same names (@Calls).
During my LB Outline reviews, I move the Tasks from the InBox to the appropriate area in the Outline. In the above example, there would be a TLI (or subtask) for "PatientSmith" (whose Place is "Patients").
So depending on what my needs are, I access the info via my Treo, LB, or EPIM. The task is entered once, it just appears in different format or context based on the platform.
I looked at my template and realized that it may not work well in your situation --- unless you want to manually go through and change each tasks Places to the appropriate Company-Call, etc... The template has the default @Call place when you insert the template; that's not going to help you to identify the company as requested in the initial post. You would have to change each task to the appropriate Company-place. Most of my data entry is done on the Treo (Tasks) under Category so the new task is automatically labeled with the Patient (project) name. I'll take another look at the template to see if there's a way to modify it to meet your needs.
I'll be happy to share the exchange file. Probably better though if you let me see what you have so far or rather let me know how many tasks in your template and I can think of ways to tweak my old outline for you. My current template won't do you much good since it incorporates PsLink markups that may be confusing.