I think a calendar sync feature (with Google, Exchange) would make the product a complete solution.

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Nick DeLong
  • updated
  • Completed
I have been searching for a task management tool that would let me plan at all levels - long term, month, week, day and hour. WeekPlan comes very close to what I want, but I'd like to add the ability to plan my day in a more granular way. I have meetings, etc to plan around, and I'd like to be able to sync with my calendars to see what time slots I have open to devote to tasks in my todo list. That is a feature I would happily pay a premium price for. 

Thanks for a great product! 
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Aymeric Founder
  • Under review
Thanks for the feedback. The main issue with better integrating with calendars is on the design side. How to show event conflicts, events vs tasks without over complicating the planner.

I have a question: how would you describe your ideal long term goal planner? I would like to have that in weekplan, but haven't found an elegant solution yet.
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Nick DeLong
I use the parking lot feature for long term plans, which I think works pretty well for me. I never plan tasks more than 2 weeks ahead, so anything longer term than that I put in the parking lot. 

As for calendar integration, what I would envision is that when you click on the day name, where you currently see the quadrants view, there would be a second option to see the day planner view instead. This would be similar to the day view on gmail's calendar, and would show any meetings or events that I have on my external calendars. I could then drag my planned tasks for that day onto particular timeslots that are empty. If there are conflicts, I would just put them side by side, again similar to gmail's calendar. 

These are suggestions, but I already love the tool as it is. Thanks!
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Aymeric Founder
Quote from Nick DeLong
I use the parking lot feature for long term plans, which I think works pretty well for me. I never plan tasks more than 2 weeks ahead, so anything longer term than that I put in the parking lot. 

As for calendar integration, what I would envision is that when you click on the day name, where you currently see the quadrants view, there would be a second option to see the day planner view instead. This would be similar to the day view on gmail's calendar, and would show any meetings or events that I have on my external calendars. I could then drag my planned tasks for that day onto particular timeslots that are empty. If there are conflicts, I would just put them side by side, again similar to gmail's calendar. 

These are suggestions, but I already love the tool as it is. Thanks!
I see, maybe there is a need for an alternative day view. Thanks for your feedback.
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Travis Robertson
Adding to this discussion, here's my scenario along with the solution I see in my head:

I would love to have my Google Calendar items pulled into WP (I tried Zapier but it doesn't pull existing items) where I could see a day layout similar to what I think Nick is talking about: it would have time slots similar to GCal's weekly view where they days are side-by-side with a time grid where items could be placed.

That view would show all items on the external calendar (GCal in this case) but would allow me to insert my items onto it from WP. Now...here's where it would be AMAZINGLY awesome - changes made in WP would alter my GCal since that is what I use to manage my main schedule and what my assistant and my team use to track my appointments/locations.

For example, if I add a goal or task from WP to the calendar and place it to begin at 5:30am on a Tues (an item such as "Exercise"), it would show up on my GCal so I would get alerts via my phone's calendar. Recurring items created in WP would also copy over to GCal. And...any recurring items created by my assistant in GCal (or any item for that matter) would copy over to WP so that when I open up WP to plan my week or review my goals, I see appointments I might need to schedule around.

I REALLY want this to work for my situation - the problem I've had is that Zapier doesn't bring times over to WP from GCal and the view in WP doesn't show me gaps in the days where I can place activities that are important to me. Also, copying a task from WP to GCal does work but if I create a goal, Zapier doesn't move it to GCal - it seems to ignore goals that are added to a day on WP. I also got a weird infinite loop when I tried to send items from WP to Gcal and vice versa - they just kept recreating themselves over and over and cluttering up my calendar.

Does this make sense? Is this something that can be done? If you need more clarification, I'm happy to provide more details.

Thanks!
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Uwe “Oova” Kleinschmidt
It seems "Under Review" just means parking lot. Aymeric, it would be better if you don't create the impression you are working on it. You have way too many items under review and create the wrong impression that 'under review' actually might make it into the product. After 11 months you should know by now what you want to do. I can tell you that I like your product and would consider introducing it for the whole company, but the missing Google Calendar integration and your lax way of dealing with new requests will lead to limited use for just a few people.
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Aymeric Founder
Quote from Uwe “Oova” Kleinschmidt
It seems "Under Review" just means parking lot. Aymeric, it would be better if you don't create the impression you are working on it. You have way too many items under review and create the wrong impression that 'under review' actually might make it into the product. After 11 months you should know by now what you want to do. I can tell you that I like your product and would consider introducing it for the whole company, but the missing Google Calendar integration and your lax way of dealing with new requests will lead to limited use for just a few people.
UserEcho automatically puts an item as "Under Review" every time I reply to an item (even when I reply via email)

We are currently working on the google calendar synchronization actually. We will first release a one way Google Calendar to WeekPlan feature while we implement the second way. It is almost there.
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Uwe “Oova” Kleinschmidt
I am trying to run a SaaS company myself and every time somebody tells me "I am working on it.", my neck hair starts standing up. Why? It means normally "I have no clue when I am going to be done, I am unable or unwilling to commit to an ETA and you have to get back to me countless times to get an update". I as the customer (internal or external) will find out that the feature is implemented when it is released. No planning possible, no accountability. Any chance you can publish a roadmap with the list of features ordered by priority?
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Aymeric Founder
Quote from Uwe “Oova” Kleinschmidt
I am trying to run a SaaS company myself and every time somebody tells me "I am working on it.", my neck hair starts standing up. Why? It means normally "I have no clue when I am going to be done, I am unable or unwilling to commit to an ETA and you have to get back to me countless times to get an update". I as the customer (internal or external) will find out that the feature is implemented when it is released. No planning possible, no accountability. Any chance you can publish a roadmap with the list of features ordered by priority?
> I have no clue when I am going to be done

This is true. You probably know how software development estimates are rarely accurate.

> I am unable or unwilling to commit to an ETA

This is also true. Because I don't know when something will be done, especially since someone else is currently developing that feature, I don't want to set the wrong expectations to the users.

> have to get back to me countless times to get an update

Users get notified of new features inside the application with popups, and sometimes via the blog / mailing list (depending on the importance of the feature).

Google calendar integration is something that isn't high in the vote ranking of UserEcho and yet I feel many people would use it. This is why we are working on it, and why I will notify people when we are done.

Regarding the roadmap, the way I choose what to work on next is based on feedback from users and feedback from metrics. If I see the bottleneck of my SaaS company is conversion rate from free to paid users, I will decide to work on that. Because each piece of work influences the feedback from users and metrics, the roadmap keeps changing.

Right now, I am working on native Android app, Google Calendar synchronization, educational videos, and blogging.

Next, I am considering making a day view (hours breakdown), translating to other languages, making a Gmail extension but this is likely to change.

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Uwe “Oova” Kleinschmidt
thanks. If I used your model we would have no customers anymore, but we don't build a horizontal product as you do.
Do you have a bowling alley or other go-to market models or how do you judge value to your customers and enter the market? What determines the importance of your features? It seems like you use the user echo feedback as prioritization. This is like online focus groups. Have you identified customer profiles, where your product would bring high value to them and their organization? Or is a customer, who is not paying but present online in high volume higher prioritized than the paying customers? then your company would just be a hobby and no clear direction is possible to identify. Just food for thought. If you consider paying individuals and companies, whose staff is embracing the four quadrant method and the weekly goal setting as accepted best practice to improve productivity, you could grow your company faster, hire more developers and make more people satisfied. thanks for listening. As for me, I have to wait and consider alternatives, more integrated solutions.
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Aymeric Founder
Quote from Uwe “Oova” Kleinschmidt
thanks. If I used your model we would have no customers anymore, but we don't build a horizontal product as you do.
Do you have a bowling alley or other go-to market models or how do you judge value to your customers and enter the market? What determines the importance of your features? It seems like you use the user echo feedback as prioritization. This is like online focus groups. Have you identified customer profiles, where your product would bring high value to them and their organization? Or is a customer, who is not paying but present online in high volume higher prioritized than the paying customers? then your company would just be a hobby and no clear direction is possible to identify. Just food for thought. If you consider paying individuals and companies, whose staff is embracing the four quadrant method and the weekly goal setting as accepted best practice to improve productivity, you could grow your company faster, hire more developers and make more people satisfied. thanks for listening. As for me, I have to wait and consider alternatives, more integrated solutions.
actually I am glad you are referring to the "Crossing the chasm" because I wanted to explain that WeekPlan's customer profile evolves as I get closer to the chasm. It started with 7 habits individuals but now I have many users you haven't read the book and I am starting to have teams as well. Each new feature seems to attract a slightly different kind of customer every time.

You say you need a more integrated solution, what would you need exactly for WeekPlan to work for you?

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