Manage Your Life from the Palm of Your Hand with Agenda Fusion 8 [Archive]

Phillip Dyson

10-25-2006, 04:00 PM

<img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/ss_agendafusion8_main_anim.gif" /> Product Category: Productivity software Manufacturer: <a href="http://www.developerone.com/">Developer One</a> Where to Buy: <a href="http://www.mobihand.com/pocketpcthoughts/product.asp?id=420">Pocket PC Thoughts Store powered by Mobihand</a> Price: $29.95 USD System Requirements: Will work with all Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC & Pocket PC Phone Editions and Pocket PC 2002/2003 devices. Pros: <li>Plenty of views to choose from;<li>Project View. Cons: <li>No Softkey Navigation;<li>Spotty One-handed navigation support;<li>Limited options to customize views. Summary: If you've been using a Windows Mobile device for any length of time, you've either used or encountered the two giants of Personal Information Management. One being PocketInformant and the other being the subject of this review, Agenda Fusion. These two applications have been in an aggressive race to become the #1 PIM tool of the Windows Mobile market for a few years. In the interest of full disclosure, I've been a regular user of PocketInformant for most of that time. The purpose of this review is not to provide a product comparison between these two powerhouses, but merely to take an unbiased (hopefully) look into Agenda Fusion. Let's see how this works out. Read on for the full review!<!> <PAGEBREAK> Into the Belly of the Beast When I started evaluating Agenda Fusion I discovered that this application is jammed packed with a whopping 11 views to choose from. It was then that I realized this was quickly turning into an endurance run. It also became obvious to me that there is no way that I'll be able to cover every feature here, but hopefully I can give enough of a view into this application to help you determine whether it's worth an try. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-ViewList.jpg" /> Figure 1: List of available views. Out of these 11 views, seven of them are calendar specific views. You can quickly switch between them by clicking on the Calendar tab on the toolbar. I have no doubt that if there's a certain way that you like to see your appointments, you'll find it here. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-CalendarViewList.jpg" /> Figure 2: List of available calendar views. It should be said here, that right out of the gate, you'll notice that there are no softkeys present at the bottom of the view. This might not be a large issue for some, but having been using Windows Mobile 5 for several months now, I'm surprised that Developer One has not even provided an option to switch between the toolbar and softkeys. The Today View The first thing you'll see when starting Agenda Fusion is the Today View and it looks suspiciously like the regular Windows Mobile today screen. In fact if it wasn't for the toolbar at the bottom I would have thought that it was mine. Theme and all. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-TodayView.jpg" /> Figure 3: The Today View. The Today view gives you a quick look at today's appointments and a list of incomplete tasks to help you manage your day. This view appears with the same theme specified in your today settings, but you change them in by using the Customize View option. So, if it looks like the standard today screen, then what’s point? I'm glad you asked, because I was wondering the very same thing. To answer this I had to actually load up the default Calendar and Task plug-ins, since I haven't used them in a long time. For starters, neither the default calendar plug-in nor the tasks plug-in allow you to scroll through individual items. In fact the task plug-in only gives you a count of what you've got. The Agenda Fusion Today View gives you all of that and more. You have access to a full context menu for a given item. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-TodayView-ContextMenu.jpg" /> Figure 4: The appointment context menu. You can also filter what you see on this view by category. Agenda Fusion also gives you the ability to create custom filters of your own. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-CustomCategoryFilters.jpg" /> Figure 5: The Custom Category filter editor. <PAGEBREAK> The Hourly Day View There are no surprises here. The Hourly Day view gives you the ability to view your appointments as they would appear on a schedule. This is probably the view that I find most useful since I can see what time everything is, where my free time is, and when I have scheduling conflicts. All right here. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-HourlyDayViewt.jpg" /> Figure 6: The Hourly Day view. My only complaint here is the inability to scroll line-by-line. Without this, the only way to select an appointment is to touch the screen. Tapping and holding brings up the appointment context menu (see figure 4). Selecting the edit option brings up the Appointment Edit view. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-AppointmentEditView.jpg" /> Figure 7: The Appointment Edit view. This view allows you to modify all of the basic attributes of an appointment. Unfortunately there is no way to navigate this view without touching the screen. I tried the my scroll wheel, d-pad, and even the tab key on my keyboard. Ultimately I ended up pulling out my stylus. New in Agenda Fusion 8 is the ability to create a secondary alarm for your appointments. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-AppointmentEditView-SecondaryAlarm.jpg" /> Figure 8: Secondary Alarm Edit view. The tabs along the bottom of the view allow you to setup a re-occurring appointment, edit the body, select categories, link other PIM objects, and select the attendees for your appointment. All of these are pretty standard, except for the second to last tab. The PIM object link tab. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-AppointmentEditView-LinkTab.jpg" /> Figure 9: Link tab. Here you can associate other PIM objects with your appointment. In addition to that you can link files and URLs. This seems like a great feature because in the real world, appointments, tasks and contacts are often associated with each other. By linking items together you have direct access to associated items no matter which one you start with. <PAGEBREAK> The Hourly Week View There isn't much room for detail in this view, but you can at least see what time is blocked versus what time is free. Tapping on an appointment causes a detail window to pop up briefly. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-HourlyWeekViewWithDetail.jpg" /> Figure 10: Hourly Week View, Appointment detail shown at the top. The Week View <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-WeekView.jpg" /> Figure 11: The week view. The Agenda View The Agenda view gives you a list of your daily appointments. The number of days is configurable. Unlike the views that we've seen so far, you can actually scroll through each line item and holding down the select button on the D-pad brings up the context menu (see figure 4). Score 1 for one-handed navigation! <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-AgendaView.jpg" /> Figure 12: The Agenda View. The Month View At first, the view looks unimpressive. Great, a calendar. It doesn't even show any details on the grid. And of course the scroll wheel yields no response. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-MonthView.jpg" /> Figure 13: Month View. I quickly discovered that by using the select function of either my scroll wheel, D-pad, or by just navigating using my D-Pad that there is a secondary detail view which lists the appointments of the selected day. Another select with scroll wheel and I can scroll through the listed appointments. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-MonthViewWithDetail.jpg" /> Figure 14: Month View with a day selected. The Year View <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-YearView.jpg" /> Figure 15: The Year View <PAGEBREAK> The Task View <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-TaskView.jpg" /> Figure 16: The Task View. The Task Edit View The task edit view has all the standard fields as you would expect. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-TaskEditView.jpg" /> Figure 17: The Task Edit View. The tabs along the bottom represent the Reoccurrence, Notes, Category, and Link. As with the appointment view, there is no support for moving between fields using the D-Pad. The Contact View <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-ContactView.jpg" /> Figure 18: The Contact View. Bringing up the context menu shows the options that are available to you. One of them is the ability to dial the contact phone number right from the list. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be an option for contacts with multiple numbers and as far as I can tell, the default number is the first number that Agenda encounters. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-ContactView-ContextMenu.jpg" /> Figure 19: The Contact View, with Context Menu. The Edit View allows you enter all manner of contact information. You can even use this view to select a ring tone for a contact. The one field that I found missing was some type of File As field, but there is an icon next to the Tools menu allowing you to select your choice. To my surprise, I can navigate from field to field with either the scroll wheel or D-Pad. That is until I encounter a list box. Then I'm stuck. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-ContactEditView1.jpg" /> Figure 20a: Contact Edit View - Name Info, Business Info. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-ContactEditView2.jpg" /> Figure 20b: Contact Edit View - Telephone Info. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-ContactEditView3.jpg" /> Figure 20c: Contact Edit View - Online Info, Work Address. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-ContactEditView4.jpg" /> Figure 20d: Contact Edit View - Home Address, Other Address. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-ContactEditView5.jpg" /> Figure 20e: Contact Edit View - Other Address, Personal Info. <PAGEBREAK> New in Agenda Fusion 8 is the ability to organize your Contacts by Anniversaries and Birthdays. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-ContactView-OrganizationOptions.jpg" /> Figure 21: Contact Organization options menu. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-ContactView-OrganizationOptions-byBirthday.jpg" /> Figure 22: Contacts sorted by birthdays. New in Agenda Fusion 8, the integrated call log. Agenda has given you the ability to view your call log for a given Contact directly from the Contacts view. Simply double tap on a contact and scroll to the bottom. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-ContactView-CallLogt.jpg" /> Figure 23: Contact View Call log. The Alarm Notes View The Alarm notes view allows you to create and manage notes created within Agenda Fusion. As to its namesake, you can also add alarms. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-AlarmNoteView.jpg" /> Figure 24: Alarm notes view. The Project View It seems for as long as PIM management software has existed for Windows Mobile, there have been people looking for a good way to group their appointments, contacts, and tasks together into a single view. Agenda Fusion has sought to answer that call. Since this is the first application that I've ever used with a project view, I thought to create a project for the purposes of this review. I beg your indulgence. 0X When coming to the Project View, naturally there's nothing there. But a quick tap on the New button brings us to the edit view. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-ProjectView-Empty.jpg" /> Figure 25: Empty Project View. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-ProjectView-EditTab.jpg" /> Figure 26: Project Edit View. As with other views we have the Notes tab, and Links tab. The Links tab is the basis for building your project. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-ProjectView-EditTab-Notes.jpg" /> Figure 27: Notes tab. <PAGEBREAK> <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-ProjectView-EditTab-Links.jpg" /> Figure 28: Links tab. When I first went to the Links tab I found that there were gaps in my list. Then I realized that it wasn't displaying company names. This is probably some kind of bug in the view, and strangely enough it doesn't happen on other views (see figure 9). If you are a heavy project view user this is probably a big issue. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-ProjectView-EditTab-Links-noCompaniesInContacts.jpg" /> Figure 29: Project View Links tab, Missing company names. Next up is the Timer Tab. Here is where I believe the Project View becomes more than just visual organization. As you work on your project, you can actually track your time. The first list box allows you to pick which item you want to charge time to, and the second list allows you categorize the time. When first entering the tab, the category list only included one category called "Misc". Ideally this list would include your existing list of categories, but that is not the case. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-ProjectView-EditTab-ChargeTime.jpg" /> Figure 30: Timer View. And finally, so you can actually see what's going on with your project, we have the Report View. There's no way to select any of this text, but Agenda Fusion does allow you to save the report into a RTF format. Just thinking here... but a .xls format could have interesting possibilities for graphing time and attributes of the project. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-ProjectView-EditTab-Report.jpg" /> Figure 31: Report View. Below is the Project view with my project in all its glory (sans Company contacts), and a couple of shots showing context menu options. Tapping on any item in the view will bring up the default editor for that item. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-ProjectView.jpg" /> Figure 32: The Project View. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-ProjectView-ProjectContextMenu.jpg" /> Figure 33: Project context menu. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/dyson-agendafusion8-ProjectView-contextMenu.jpg" /> Figure 34: Item context menu. Conclusions Agenda Fusion is an application jam-packed with features for organizing your life. Whether it's your personal life, professional life, or a mix of both, if you need advanced features you won't go wrong picking Agenda Fusion 8. With 11 views to choose from, there's got to be at least one in here for you. It's surprising that DeveloperOne has not at least added the option for Softkey support given that they are one of the flagship features of Windows Mobile 5. I also wish there were more options to customize the look and behavior of the views. If you're a long time user of the other advanced PIM application, PocketInformant, there may not be enough to make you switch. Unless you have to have the Project View. But if you're in the market for a PIM application with advanced features, Agenda Fusion 8 should be on your trial list. For a complete list of what’s new in version 8 check out the link <a href="http://www.developerone.com/agendafusion/agendafusion8.htm">here</a>. When Phillip is not leading his software development team at work, he enjoys reading Science Fiction and Fantasy novels, tinkering with Heighliner (his home-made PVR) and keeping up on the latest in news about tech toys... uh ... tools. He's even been known to partake in an RPG video game on occasion.

daS

10-25-2006, 05:57 PM

Excellent review Phillip. Especially since it's always hard to objectively review a product that competes with one that you are used to. (I know because I've tried it myself. :wink: )

There is one thing that I wanted to point out that you seem to have missed:

In the month view you can select from a number of optional items to appear in each box including time bars (to show free and busy times) category icons (as seen in the first screen shot) and even text (shown in the second screen shot.)

On a VGA screen - in landscape mode, the text actually works surprisingly well. I use that as my default screen. Unfortunately, you can only see the first couple of appointments in that mode, but still it's a nice touch.

Month view screen shots from the DeveloperOne web site:
http://www.developerone.com/agendafusion/screenshots/agendafusion_8_month.gif http://www.developerone.com/agendafusion/screenshots/agendafusion_8_monthmenu.gif

I have been using Agenda Fusion for some time now and one of the features that I also found important (added a few versions back) is the ability to save and restore the PIM item links and configuration settings. This is great for those of us that need to reset our devices (or ActiveSync) once in a while.

mv

10-25-2006, 10:51 PM

I used to have AF. I bougth PI 4.63 a few years ago, and then upgrade to 5, then to 2005 and then to 2007. I tried AF8 but i think PI has a cleaner interface.

Marcel_Proust

10-25-2006, 11:47 PM

Great informative review.
I like the interface of AF better than PI, but have ended up switching to PI a while back.
What are the latest memory requirements of AF. When I switched, I found it took forever to load, and then took a lot of memory, quite the hog, and the wm5 systems are limited in memory. PI was leaner and somewhat more stable. As well, PI, has great support, with good online forums populated with developers. What has been your experience with their support?

Phillip Dyson

10-26-2006, 05:08 PM

Thanks for the feedback.
I'm glad you found it informative.

My biggest concern was trying not to miss any of the major features. Especially anything that might make AF 8 standout.

As to support, I don't have any experience with. I do personally use some of their other products and they do work pretty well.

dh

10-29-2006, 03:41 PM

Hi Phillip, very nice review - thanks.

I've always been a PI user, other than my time in exile with Linux and Smartphone. Now I'm back with PI with my new HP 6940.

The feature included in AF that seems really interesting to me is being able to manage projects. I know Alex has built integration with Franklin Covey into the latest version of PI, but I'm not about to run out and invest in this.

Since I only recently re-purchased PI, I'm not planning to drop it and buy AF, but I'd really like to see project management in a future PI version - hint hint Alex!!

Edit - I must be being a bit of a nuss-head here because it looks as though a lot of the Franklin Covey features are already available in PI without having to fork out for the software. Maybe I should read the manual if there is one.