Make it easier to exchange data with other services (API)

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domicius
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Ideally, one could sync (both ways) with their favorite "other" service (my favorites in this case are Hiveminder and Trello), but it seems to me it would be a lot of work to cater to absolutely all user wishes.


But there are these services like zapier.com and ifttt.com (and hopefully more, if someone knows of another one, please share) which allow bridging the gap between a lot of different services.


What is needed, for example, in case of zapier.com is for someone to make the "zapier app" of WeekPlan: zapier.com/developer/ - it seems easy as long as you already have a RESTful API and a couple of other preconditions.


However, if there are currently no plans for a simple API to WeekPlan, then what I'm effectively asking for is exactly that - an API. Preferrably to the specifications of zapier.com/developer/perfect-api/ or similar.


The beauty is, when there's a simple API to your service, others can help with the other steps. For example, I'm already thinking trying to do one Zapier app for two services that *have* APIs (disclaimer: I'm not a professional developer, so this will be an exercise and a learning curve for me, I'm sure).

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Aymeric Founder
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Domicius,


First of all thank you for a well laid out feature suggestion.


I am aware of zapier but didn't know I could create a connector for it myself, I thought they were the one creating the connectors.


This would be an excellent solution! (although my goal is that you will want to ditch hiveminder at some point because you will find weekplan so much better :))

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Grace
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domicius

 Ok, great then. As long as it's there and on its way to public one day, it's comforting to know. ;)

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Aymeric Founder
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Hi Aymeric, thanks for your comment.


I am aware of zapier but didn't know I could create a connector for it myself, I thought they were the one creating the connectors.

They usually are, but for them to invest time in making and supporting yet another service, they need to at least see a lot of requests for it from their users before they even think about it. However, as of now, there's not even one public request for Hiveminder Zapier app, so they told me I could make it myself (they laid out the instructions, there's really nothing stopping someone with the skills to do it) and then they'll probably review it and mabye even include in the directory for everyone else to use it (we didn't quite discuss the details but I don't see why they wouldn't let everyone else use it if it would be working well for me). You might want to chat with them directly, they're quite receptive.

This would be an excellent solution! (although my goal is that you will want to ditch hiveminder at some point because you will find weekplan so much better :))

Well, at one point in the future, I very well could. :) The question is whether I will remember WeekPlan at that point. No disrespect for you because this is a nice app you've built but for some (many?) it may still not be enough (then again, Hiveminder isn't enough for many - we all have our choices, diversity is great). If we look at the feature requests here, it might be indicative that current WeekPlan users would like WeekPlan to bridge a gap between a mature service like Hiveminder by adding things like support for tags.


Now, thing is, whether you've planned to implement some of these features or not, WeekPlan might still not be a good fit for some of them. We come back to that diversity thing, which is great, remember? ;)


So, I'd say, in the future I'll be using the awesome WeekPlan to envision my missions, long term goals in life and my weeks ahead, Hiveminder to manage dozens of my projects and maybe hunderds of tasks effectively and Trello to be able to get a big picture on all of that, with my team mates - all because all of these services will be able to "play nice" to each other and work with *one set* of my data. Now, I don't know when that future will come (especially the part about one set of my data :)) but not only am I hopeful and optimistic but I'm sure it will come.


So, even if you don't make a Zapier app yourself, I'm hoping there's a simple, mabye even "perfect" API somewhere in the plans down the line for WeekPlan. And I'm of the strong opinion that the API will not cost you business but actually create more of it. There might come someone who'll whip up an unofficial iOS, Android, WP7 (or even webOS (hint, hint!) ;)) client (you might christen any of them as "WeekPlan developer approved" or not), and people like me might end up using your services alongside those of Hiveminder or any other developers, happily (instead of just Hiveminder).

Good luck to you and keep us posted on your plans about an API! :)

There is an rough API already that a WP7 developer is using to create a Windows Phone app.

I am also using the API for the web app and the incoming iphone and android native apps.


I resist putting the API out there simply because I would need to publish docs which I don't have the time for at the moment.

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domicius

Hi Aymeric, thanks for your comment.


I am aware of zapier but didn't know I could create a connector for it myself, I thought they were the one creating the connectors.

They usually are, but for them to invest time in making and supporting yet another service, they need to at least see a lot of requests for it from their users before they even think about it. However, as of now, there's not even one public request for Hiveminder Zapier app, so they told me I could make it myself (they laid out the instructions, there's really nothing stopping someone with the skills to do it) and then they'll probably review it and mabye even include in the directory for everyone else to use it (we didn't quite discuss the details but I don't see why they wouldn't let everyone else use it if it would be working well for me). You might want to chat with them directly, they're quite receptive.

This would be an excellent solution! (although my goal is that you will want to ditch hiveminder at some point because you will find weekplan so much better :))

Well, at one point in the future, I very well could. :) The question is whether I will remember WeekPlan at that point. No disrespect for you because this is a nice app you've built but for some (many?) it may still not be enough (then again, Hiveminder isn't enough for many - we all have our choices, diversity is great). If we look at the feature requests here, it might be indicative that current WeekPlan users would like WeekPlan to bridge a gap between a mature service like Hiveminder by adding things like support for tags.


Now, thing is, whether you've planned to implement some of these features or not, WeekPlan might still not be a good fit for some of them. We come back to that diversity thing, which is great, remember? ;)


So, I'd say, in the future I'll be using the awesome WeekPlan to envision my missions, long term goals in life and my weeks ahead, Hiveminder to manage dozens of my projects and maybe hunderds of tasks effectively and Trello to be able to get a big picture on all of that, with my team mates - all because all of these services will be able to "play nice" to each other and work with *one set* of my data. Now, I don't know when that future will come (especially the part about one set of my data :)) but not only am I hopeful and optimistic but I'm sure it will come.


So, even if you don't make a Zapier app yourself, I'm hoping there's a simple, mabye even "perfect" API somewhere in the plans down the line for WeekPlan. And I'm of the strong opinion that the API will not cost you business but actually create more of it. There might come someone who'll whip up an unofficial iOS, Android, WP7 (or even webOS (hint, hint!) ;)) client (you might christen any of them as "WeekPlan developer approved" or not), and people like me might end up using your services alongside those of Hiveminder or any other developers, happily (instead of just Hiveminder).

Good luck to you and keep us posted on your plans about an API! :)
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domicius

To explain why for example the connection between Hiveminder and WeekPlan would be great:


Hiveminder is almost the ultimate tasks app but what it lacks is better (or shall we say, different) presentation of tasks. I've thought of building a simple "four quadrants" presentation of tasks from Hiveminder myself (it shouldn't be too hard, Hiveminder has great API and when I say presentation I mean *only* presentation so I can have a different view on my tasks) but never had the time to actually do it.


Now I've found WeekPlan, which offers the prospect of visualizing my tasks pretty much the way I always wanted. But it's a sub-par solution to taks management in comparison to Hiveminder (IMHO). So it would be best if one could share data between them, again, IMHO. :)

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Aymeric Founder
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Domicius,


First of all thank you for a well laid out feature suggestion.


I am aware of zapier but didn't know I could create a connector for it myself, I thought they were the one creating the connectors.


This would be an excellent solution! (although my goal is that you will want to ditch hiveminder at some point because you will find weekplan so much better :))


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