more than 1 contact/ meeting

[jaspervb]

Hello all,

As a consultant I use AGENDUS as my most favorite contact management tool. I use it to track my meetings and to find out with whom I've spoken on what date etc. BUT, I can't select more than 1 contact name per meeting and most of the times I speak with several persons at the same time.
Is it possible to select multiple contacts for a meeting? and if so, how can i realize this?

Thanx in advance

Jasper van Buuren
The Netherlands

[paulmasters]

I raised this about 12 months ago, when I first started using Agendus, but was not picked up on. THis would be realy useful for me too!

[Srclaytonjr]

This would be extremely useful for me also.

[imaestro]

This has been a popular request from just about day one... (And not only for version 6.x ...)

As I understand it, this is a limitation of the Palm OS Datebook; since Agendus uses that built-in database, it is pretty much limited to what it provides in the way of data-storage...

I've seen elsewhere (mainly in the Feature Request forum) where Iambic has addressed this issue directly, but I don't recall off-hand where that might be. If I remember correctly, they said they were trying to implement it for a "Future Version", which to me means "Maybe for Version 6.z, but Probably 7(+).x"...

If I were to take a guess as to how they might implement it, it would probably be through the use of Notes attached to the Meeting/Call/Todo just like colors and icons are now. So that probably means if you use another software title to browse your Datebook (e.g. - Palm Desktop), you'll see all the notation in the notes section, whereas Agendus would be able to "hide" that notation from view just as it does now, only marking a meeting as having a note attached if it's NOT simply for Agendus' use.

The bear (for the programmer) would be to handle the parsing of each Notes field to find that "special notation" when it comes to running a Contact History... Not impossible, but something I'd rather not have to personally code. ;)

The trade off is that b/c it's parsing all the notes for Contact History information, even if there's no additional contacts selected for any particular meeting, it still adds that additional "look-up" time, making the overall application slower, albeit "more" powerful.

-e :cool:

[james]

Correct this has been requested for a while.

The contact on a meeting, call or to do is linked by encoding the contact in the description or notes field of that meeting call or to do in one of the following formats:

-Agendus (default)
-TimeMatters
-Act! Palm Pilot Link
-CompanionLink
-Intellisync

These formats are described in detail in the manual.

Note: The Agendus format is just the default one used, the Agendus for Windows conduit does not handle the synchronization of PIM data. If using Agendus for Windows, then the synchronization of PIM data is handled by the Palm conduit if using Palm Desktop as the datasource. Or if using Outlook as the datasource then the synchronization is handled by whichever 3rd party conduit to Outlook you have installed. Many users have version of PocketMirror that came free with their palm and this conduit does NOT have a contact linking format that it supports.

What this all means is that it would be possible to encode additional contact links for meetings, calls and to dos and this would synchronize to your PC as long as you used the native palm conduit and palm desktop as your datasource in Agendus for Windows. Users of every other desktop application and conduit would be unable to use this feature because these third party conduits do not have support for more than one contact per meeting, call or to do.

If you are aware of any conduits that do support multiple contact links per record please let us know.

[Schanzel]

Okay.......... If multiple contact for meeting and todos are possible only under the Palm condiut, why not provide it and warn users of other conduits it won't work.

Creating the ability to turn the feature off and on, would also solve the issue.

I'm estatic to find out this is doable, but disapointed you haven't done it.

Come on, features are funtionallity. Please keep adding functionallity - not pretty wallpaper.

[Burkhard]

I couldn't agree more with Schanzel's comment. Why worry about some wierd third party synch conduit if thisd would work with the standard tools ??

Make it available for the quazillion of users that wait for this eagerly and use the standard conduit.

Let then the customers of third party products put pressure on their respective software suppliers to get this into thaose respective products.

Lets do it soon !!!

Burkhard

[mcr_61]

I'm waiting for the "more than one contact link capability". I see it's not in the future of agendus. The only way for me is changing to other software that can do it.

:down:

[Burkhard]

Are you aware of any software that can do it ??

[RevBanker]

If what you want to do is record the meeting for each of the people participating you could use the logging feature.

1. Open the meeting and place a person's name in the contact blank, then pull down the menu and select log.
2. Leave the meeting open and replace the contact name, then log it again.
3. Repeat for each person.

Not real super slick, but it get's the job done.

To just keep a list of who was at a meeting, I'd add a note. If the group gathers more than once you can save yourself some work as follows.
1. For the first meeting put the names of everyone in the note.
2. Then turn on the repeat feature or tap and hold the meeting and select duplicate. The note will be copied with the meeting.
3. At the meeting open the note and delete the names of those who weren't present or insert a tick mark next to the names of those who were there. (The latter method will work when the meeting does not occur at regular intervals.)

[jorang]

Here is what I do:

Create a group in the addressbook called ie "Marketing forum". Members do I put in a note under the "group"contact.
Than all my meetings are linked to the "group contact"

If anyone fails to appear I add a comment directly in the title of the meeting. Suppose you can do this i a note to, but it becomes less visible that way....

This does the business in my setting (project management)

Any suggestions for improvements - feel free.....

JoranG

[mcr_61]

Burkhard
Junior Member

Registered: Mar 2002
Location: Germany
Posts: 25

Are you aware of any software that can do it ??

----------

Yes, ACT! for Palm OS do it: Link a to-do, meeting.. with more than one contact, as many as you want. The problem for me is that program need more hardware resources than i can supply.

[adriano]

imaestro wrote: As I understand it, this is a limitation of the Palm OS Datebook; since Agendus uses that built-in database, it is pretty much limited to what it provides in the way of data-storage...

Actually that's not the problem. We could store additional contacts in the notes field for example.

The real problem is another: say you can add more than one contact to your meetings, todos, etc. on the palm, what is going to sync them back to the pc?

To my knowledge built in palmdesktop conduits dont's support multiple contacts to meetings, nor do the various 3rd party Outlook conduit sets.

If we support multiple contacts to meetings on the PalmOS side of agendus, then we would need to develop our own conduits to outlook and palmdesktop, which, at present, are still in a galaxy quite far away ;)

- Adriano

[iambic_frey]

Secondary contacts should live safely in the notes section for each meeting.
Just encode them like you do the other contacts, ie:

[Last, First (Company)]

Let the conduits move this data to the PC as text (worst case) or parse it into the appropriate application (best case).

Either way, you'd have to enable the Agendus contact <History> button to search the notes fields of all meetings (any maybe other contacts also ?)

Getting these encoded contacts into the notes field of a contact would help determine who works with/for who, etc...

[imaestro]

Originally posted by jedimaster
Actually that's not the problem. We could store additional contacts in the notes field for example.

The real problem is another: say you can add more than one contact to your meetings, todos, etc. on the palm, what is going to sync them back to the pc?

To my knowledge built in palmdesktop conduits dont's support multiple contacts to meetings, nor do the various 3rd party Outlook conduit sets.

If we support multiple contacts to meetings on the PalmOS side of agendus, then we would need to develop our own conduits to outlook and palmdesktop, which, at present, are still in a galaxy quite far away ;)

- Adriano

Perhaps the problem was I didn't explain it "technically accurate". I DID mention using the notes field as a way of storing additional contacts for meetings... The point I was trying to make was that the built-in databases have a set number of fields to work with, and I don't believe that includes fields for additional contacts for a meeting, which means that you (Iambic) would HAVE to do something like store the additional information in the notes field.

So, my point stands... It is the limitation of the database and not those using the database (e.g. - Iambic).

As iambic_frey mentions (and even what _I_ mentioned way back when), you could store the additional information in the notes field with the "understanding" that only Agendus would recognize the "additional contacts"... (You know, something VERY similar to the way that Agendus is the only one to "recognize" colors and icons for meetings. I don't see the Palm Desktop conduits supporting those and yet Agendus handles them very nicely.)

With _that_ said, there shouldn't be anything keeping you from implementing that unless you see multiple contacts being supported by the basic Palm databases anytime in the near future...

-e :cool:

[sjaves]

I Like the logging of contact history too, but for note taking I use Daynotz. What I do is use Agendus for the scheduling information as to when and where and then go to the Daynotez entry for all the details.

As for multiple contact logging, I can see the problem from both sides -- that's why I would recommend using something else (like Daynotez) for complete information.