Windows Phone Thoughts: Built for Need: Agenda Fusion 7

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Friday, April 8, 2005

Built for Need: Agenda Fusion 7

Posted by Steve Sharp in "SOFTWARE" @ 09:00 AM




Figure 6: The user can customize the icons for various categories of items that are displayed task view or project view.

Moving right along, we have the Tasks View. To its credit, Developer One makes this sound easy to use, and I've been accused of being slightly thick on more than one occasion, so maybe it's just me. But, I had some trouble getting my Tasks View to work as it's supposed to. The idea is that tasks can be grouped by status, date, category, etc. and can be consolidated into a common view. I'm sure that it was operator error, but this never quite worked as I hoped and didn't feel very user-friendly to set up, in my opinion. Users can also change or segregate items by category. Along these same lines, categories can be hidden from the viewable list. So, if you don't want prying eyes to discover that you take Fluffy to the Bow Wow Boutique each Wednesday afternoon, this can be categorized as "personal" and hidden from the main view. A strong element to Agenda Fusion 7 involves contacts and tools for managing contacts. Agenda Fusion provides a contact editor for contact listings, an "attendees list" for meetings, and custom sorting of entries in the contact listing. Agenda Fusion 7 also supports a "Favorites" group for commonly used functions, and this feature works much like the bookmarks in a web browser.


Figure 7: The new Project View is the centerpiece of Agenda Fusion 7.

At last, we come to the previously mentioned Project View. Yes, I tossed it out there as a key feature, earlier, but I wanted to talk a bit more about this. The Project View enables the user to see, either in general terms or in specific detail, all of the subprojects and tasks that are going on under a primary project or projects. The all-inclusive "tree view" display is very convenient for seeing "the big picture" and provides an easy means of checking any aspect of any item that is listed. From this perspective, the Project View is the centerpiece of the Agenda Fusion 7 program.

Odds and Ends
There’s no way to offer a comprehensive analysis of all the things that Agenda Fusion 7 will do, or evaluate how well each function works. Almost as soon as version 7 was released, Developer One identified and corrected several bugs, and the current version is officially version 7.1. I didn’t encounter any bugs, and the only problems that I encountered were likely attributable to my lack of intellect. From a user standpoint, I can anticipate two main criticisms of this product, and I’ll address those, right here.

With many of the Pocket PC devices that people commonly carry, main memory is like gold, and folks would sooner chop of their pinky than give up nearly 4 megs of main memory for a single software package. Developer One does advertise that Agenda Fusion can be installed to main or expansion memory, but they also warn that certain features, such as opening Agenda Fusion with a mapped button, may not work if the program isn’t installed to main memory. In addition to this, I can hear the naysayers grumbling about the $29.95 price tag and rattling off a list free programs that will do "everything they need" and at a small faction of the size. Well, if you only need one or two functions that Agenda Fusion 7 provides, then by all means, download a free copy of whatever program will serve your purposes. You wouldn't likely go out and buy Oracle to create a shopping list, and so it goes that Agenda Fusion 7 is overkill if you only have a minimal amount of data to organize.

Conclusions
Agenda Fusion 7 is a large program, but it’s also a very powerful program, for those who can benefit from the large-scale capabilities that it provides. It requires some patience to learn to use, and then some more time to set up projects and tasks. Once set up, it worked well for items that I was able to set up. Agenda Fusion 7 provides many features and functions that a project manager or supervisor will likely find helpful. But, these features and functionality don’t come without a price. Like most comprehensive software packages, it costs money, and it occupies some space. Be that as it may, it worked fine on my MDA II or O2 XDA II, if you prefer. But this is not a program for the garden-variety, casual-user. Developer One has identified the needs of those who manage people, tasks, and schedules, and they have geared this product toward that market. There’s much power in the code of Agenda Fusion, but there’s a steep learning curve as well. If you need the program, and you’re willing to commit yourself to learning the nuances of its workings, are willing to obligate a few megs of space to this application, and can spare the price, then it’s a wonderful program to have. A free trial of the program is available at Developer One, Handango, and PocketGear. If Agenda Fusion 7 sounds like something you need, then by all means give it a try.

Steve Sharp is a senior system analyst by day, and a freelance writer by night. Steve is 38 years old and a native and life-long resident of Huntsville, Alabama. His first book The Art of Managing Everyday Conflict was released in May, 2004 by Praeger Publishing.

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