Don Tolson
04-11-2007, 04:00 PM
<img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-logo.jpg" /><br /><br /><b>Product Category:</b> Software – PIM<br /><b>Manufacturer:</b> <A HREF = "http://www.iambic.com/agenduspro/wmppc/" target = "blank"> Iambic</A><br /><b>Where to Buy:</b> <A HREF = "http://www.mobihand.com/pocketpcthoughts/product.asp?id=9688" target = "blank"> MobiHand (affiliate link)</A><br /><b>Price:</b> $24.95USD for the Professional Edition. $19.95USD for the Standard Edition. A fully functioning 10-day trial is available.<br /><b>System Requirements:</b> Windows Mobile 5 or above (PPC, PPC Phone Edition, or Smartphone).<br /><b>Specifications:</b> Application requires 2.5MB of memory. Can be installed to main memory or storage card.<br /><br /><b>Pros:</b><br /><li>Well featured for a first release;<li>Small memory footprint;<li>Quick navigation between screens.<br /><br /><b>Cons:</b><br /><li>Preferences selection held in a single, large menu;<li>Sometimes difficult to find features due to screen organization, or only available from tap&hold menus;<li>No native email support.<br /><br /><b>Summary:</b><br />In a world dominated by Pocket Informant and Agenda Fusion, Iambic has boldly proclaimed their entry into the Pocket PC Personal Information Management arena with Agendus. Based on the award-winning Palm OS version, Agendus claims to provide a full-featured PIM, “...optimized to handle the dynamics of your everyday life, and provide a level of proactive personal assistance that so far has only been available from a 'real life' assistant...” That's a pretty tall order, and Iambic has made a good attempt with their first release. But Agendus definitely shows its Palm roots and lack of Windows Mobile sophistication when compared to more mature offerings like Pocket Informant and Agenda Fusion.<br /><br />Read on for the full review!<!><br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>Introduction</b></span><br />From what I understand on the forums, Agendus and its predecessor, ActionNames, have been part of the Palm OS world for quite a while. So, bringing a product with this heritage to the Windows Mobile platform brings up interesting questions. “How much of its Palm-centered functionality can it retain?” and “Can it compete with mature PIM applications which have grown up natively on the PPC/WM platform?” Well, let's take a look...<br /><br />Two versions of Agendus are available. The Standard Edition provides all the capabilities we have come to expect from a PIM, but spends more time and effort in the Contacts management area (more on this later). For a little bit more money, you can acquire the Professional Edition which provides Over-The-Air update capability plus better management of appointment attendees and call roll-overs. The Professional Edition also supports font-effects (underline, strike-through, etc.) for calls, tasks, and appointments. To be honest, I wasn't sure exactly what 'Over-The-Air' updates meant, but I think it refers to the ability of Agendus to make use of available Internet connections to gather updates for weather, quotes, etc. to the Agenda view and obtaining maps for contact addresses.<br /><br />Although I won't be able to go through all the features of Agendus or compare them to PI and AF in this review, I hope to give you a good idea of the basic flow of the application and its overall capabilities.<br /><br /><span><b>Installation</b></span><br />Installation of Agendus is simple and straightforward, using the typical Activesync-engaging executable on the PC. I didn't see an option for a downloadable .CAB file on the Iambic web site.<br /><br />Like other PIMs, Agendus uses the same database as Outlook, so navigation from screen to screen is fairly brisk. When first starting up, there is a very short (1 to 2 second) initialization routine. The default when you first start Agendus is the Agenda view, which looks considerably different from the version in Outlook, but not so much from what we have come to expect from third party PIMS. Included in the view are appointments for the current (and next days), tasks (current and future) and other general information such as Quotes, Historic Facts and Local Weather.<br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-main.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 1: First starting up Agendus.</i><br /><br />Along the bottom of the screen is the tray of icons which act as 'fast keys' to the various parts of the application. Iambic has done a good job of selecting intuitive icons so it's relatively easy guess where each of these goes. From left to right, they are Agenda View, Daily View, Weekly View, and Monthly View. Each of these can be customized to a couple of options, but we'll go into that in more detail later. Then comes Contacts (silhouette), Tasks (checkmark), and Email (envelope). On the Day, Week and Month views, an additional icon with an arrow pointing to the calendar brings up a date selector for moving to a particular date.<br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-dateselect.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 2: Date Selector. Note there are a number of ways provided to move around the calendar. The apostrophes show which days have activities on them.</i><br /><br />Unfortunately, just tapping on the desired day doesn't take you to the Day view. You have to tap the Done button on the bottom of the screen.<br /><br />The Magnifying Glass is, of course, the Search routine, and the Screwdriver brings up what would be known as the Preferences screen in other applications.<br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>Contacts</b></span><br />Clearly, the Contacts area is where Agendus has focused most of its attention – attempting to provide a more complete Contact/Relationship Management experience than is available with other products.<br /><br />Contacts can be grouped, or not, based on a preferences setting or by a selection from the Contacts screen. If not grouped, the display is similar to that seen in Pocket Outlook with tabs along the top to select the first letter of the 'filed' name.<br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-contactsnogroup.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 3: Display of ungrouped Contacts.</i><br /><br />Multiple tapping of the tab doesn't move the list to the next letter as we are used to in Outlook (e.g. Double-tapping the 'def' tab doesn't take you from starting at 'd' to starting at 'e'). You need to scroll through the list to get to the desired entry. Entries can be grouped by name, company, city, state, country and zip code – depending upon the selection from the drop-down list in the top left. Grouping by company for instance, shows the number of entries within each company, plus the typical side arrow/down arrow icon to display the next level of hierarchy (i.e. Everyone in a given company)<br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-groupbyco.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 4: Contacts grouped by company.</i><br /><br />You can also display contacts by Categories, if you have assigned them to each other, by selecting the desired category from the drop-down list at the top right. This brings up another oddity in the interface. When a drop-down list is displayed in Agendus, there doesn't appear to be any way to dismiss the list without making a selection (fortunately, most come with a 'no-selection' option) and all of the lists use a checkmark to identify the current selected option, implying that there is a capability to multi-select options in the list to combine categories, companies, etc. However, this is not the case. Only one option is allowed from the drop-down list at a time.<br /><br />Tapping on an entry's name displays the Contact edit screen.<br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-editcontact.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 5: Editing a Contact's info. The Unfiled button at the bottom lets you know that this contact has not been associated with a Category. :roll: </i><br /><br />Again, things are a bit different from what we are used to seeing, since portions of the data associated with a contact are separated by menu items across the top, rather than tabs along the bottom.<br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-contactaddress.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 6: The address portion of the contact info. I do like the way they've used the same input interface, but separated each of the address types.</i><br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-contactdates.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 7: Assigning dates to the Contact.</i><br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-contacttel.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 8: Editing the phone numbers associated with a Contact. If you tap on a the telephone icon to the right (at least on a PPC-phone edition) Agendus offers to dial the number. The same thing will happen if you tap a phone number in the Contacts listing.</i><br /><br />Tapping and holding a contact name presents a menu of options for the contact. In fact, this seems to be a general modus operandi for the application, and in some cases the number of options available on the menu can get quite extensive – taking up the entire vertical landscape.<br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-contaxtmenu.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 9: The menu which appears when you tap & hold a contact.</i><br /><br />One option from the Contact tap&hold menu is the Contact History, which shows all contacts with that person via appointments, phone calls, etc.<br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-contacthistory.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 10: Contact History screen.</i><br /><br />Unfortunately, I couldn't get this to work for me. I'm not really sure how this is updated, since it didn't seem to be changed by existing Call History (in the phone) or appointments. Perhaps it comes from contacts, etc. made within Agendus? Unfortunately, some of the features (such as Contact History) are only available from the tap & hold menus.<br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>Appointments</b></span><br />As with other tools, Agendus provides the normal Agenda, Daily, Weekly and Monthly views.<br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-agenda.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 11: Agenda view.</i><br /><br />The Agenda (or Today) view can be configured to show one or many days in the future. It also includes a Quote of the Day, this Day in History event, and Weather Forecast which are downloaded from the Internet, if a connection is available. I had a a couple of problems with the Agenda view though. One was with the Tasks displayed, since it's not able to show all Active tasks including both the dated and undated tasks. Anniversaries associated with Contacts also showed up which had long since past. I'm not sure why, but I had to delete them from the Contact information to make them disappear.<br /><br />There is also limited linkage from the Today screen to other areas. For example, tapping the Tasks icon does not take you to the Tasks display and tapping on the day name on the Agenda view doesn't take you to the Day view. Tapping on an appointment line in Agenda view <i>does</i> take you to the edit screen for appointments and it is possible to navigate from Month view to Day view by tapping on the appropriate day.<br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-day.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 12: Day view.</i><br /><br />Two versions of the Week view are available – the Week list, in which a week's worth of appointments are presented in a list, separated by day.<br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-week.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 13: Week List View.</i><br /><br />The second is a Week Block view, where the week is shown in a 'week at a time' view, with meeting times blocked off.<br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-weekblock.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 14: Week Block View.</i><br /><PAGEBREAK><br />There are also two ways of viewing each month. The Month List view presents a typical calendar representation of the Month, with the time and first couple of characters of each entry shown in the appropriate day. Unfortunately, this becomes so filled as to be almost unusable if you are even moderately busy.<br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-monthlist.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 15: Month List View.</i><br /><br />The Month Icon view again uses a calendar display for the days of the month, but instead, shows a clock with the various portions of non-available time filled in on two morning and afternoon clock faces. Personally, I found the clock version of the Month view hard to use, since the clocks were so small.<br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-monthclock.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 16: Month Clock View.</i><br /><br />There is also a Month icon view, in which the calendar is filled with icons you have added to your various meetings, appointments and events, etc. This could be helpful to keep track of important anniversaries, birthdays, and special events, but I think it would be a lot of work to attach them.<br /><br />As with the Contacts area, tapping and holding on an entry or blank space in any one of the calendar views presents a menu to add a new appointment, new task or new call. You can also create a new entry by selecting 'New' from the Menu (right) softkey options list.<br /><br />The screens for new appointments/meetings use a similar interface to that presented for new tasks. A series of buttons along the top of the screen take you to the various parts of the appointment entry.<br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-newappt.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 17: Creating a new appointment/meeting.</i><br /><br />For me, this set of screens wasn't as well laid out as the Contacts entry. Things were located in places I wouldn't have expected them, and naming conventions were a bit odd. For instance... to set the time and date of the meeting, you need to tap the 'Today' button at the top of the screen. The Unfiled dropdown in the lower right refers to adding a Category to the meeting. Meeting location is on the double-checkmark screen. I'm not really sure what 'Roll-over' refers to, but it appears from the screen that it is for meetings that span multiple days. And there seems to be an option to create a 'no time' meeting? These show up as events displayed before the regular start time and come across to desktop Outlook at all-day events.<br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>Tasks</b></span><br />I found this area of Agendus confusing since, as I mentioned, it wasn't possible to show the same 'active' task list including both the undated and dated tasks that I get from Pocket Outlook. There are lots of options for showing tasks due in the future or past, but no way to combine them.<br /><br />Adding a new task entry uses the same top menu tabs/selections interface as found in the Contacts, to go to the various parts of the Task.<br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-newtask.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 18: Adding a new Task.</i><br /><br />Agendus provides an interesting way of assigning importance/urgency attributes to a task. I wasn't familiar with the four-corner box, but it's an interesting concept.<br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-taskprio.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 19: Setting the Importance/Urgency of a Task.</i><br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-taskrepeat.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 20: Although there was some concern mentioned in the forums about a lack of repeatability/recurrence features for tasks and meetings, they worked fine for me.</i><br /><br /><span><b>Calls</b></span><br />Calls are basically reminders to phone someone (preferably in your Contacts list). They look very similar to inputting a new Task and in fact, are stored and processed the same way as a dated Task. They are even transferable to the desktop version of Outlook – coming across as Tasks.<br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-newcall.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 21: Add a new Call screen.</i><br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>Email</b></span><br />The email functions within Agendus provide fairly simple, straightforward support of emails from Outlook. In fact, the email icon on Agendus' tray simply connects to Pocket Outlook's email function. I won't bother repeating those here.<br /><br /><span><b>Preferences</b></span><br />Setting individual preferences for Agendus is accessed via the tools icon in the lower right of the screen or from the Menu (right) softkey. At first blush, the screens displayed here are deceptively simplistic, since it only shows the settings for the current view (Contacts, Appts, Email, etc.)<br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-taskprefs.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 22: Tasks Preferences.</i><br /><br />And this is another one of the places where Agendus has taken the most significant shift away from the normal Windows Mobile interface. The others preferences screens are only available from a sizable menu list on the Menu (right) soft key which takes up most of the screen.<br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-onlinesetting.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 23: Today Screen Services preferences.</i><br /><br /><span><b>Other Tools</b></span><br />Back on the view screens, an Icon Manager function is also available. With it, you can change the icons associated with various contact #'s, appointment types, etc.<br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-iconmgmt.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 24: Icon Manager.</i><br /><br />The search capability is fairly powerful, being able to scan for specific types of items like contacts, appointments,tasks, calls, etc. using the keywords provided. The response time to queries was very speedy (typically less than a couple of seconds), even with my two years of appointments and old tasks.<br /><br /><img src = "http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/don-mar07-agendus-search.gif" border="1"><br /><i>Figure 25: Search screen.</i><br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>Documentation</b></span><br />The user manual for Agendus for Windows Mobile has just been made available, but wasn't ready in time for the review. In a couple of areas though, I suspect you'll need it to explain what's happening.<br /><br /><span><b>Conclusions</b></span><br />Is this a PI or AF killer? Not yet. It's got a fair way to go to match the power and capabilities of these much more mature products. It <i>is</i> a worthy first release, however, and shows some promising new approaches.<br /><br />As far as programming style goes, Iambic has attempted to keep more of the Palm look and feel in the product by ignoring some of the standard Windows Mobile style sheets. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since some of the best innovations in ergonomics come when you throw out the rule book (e.g. Apple). However when you do this, you have to come up with something that is just as or more intuitive that what was there before. Agendus isn't quite there yet. With all the preferences in long menu lists and some options only available from tap & hold menus, Agendus is not optimized for one-handed operation, especially on a Phone Edition Pocket PC.<br /><br />It will be interesting to see where Iambic takes this product over the next few releases.<br /><br /><i>Don is an Associate Director with Fujitsu Consulting and a member of its Enterprise Mobility Community. He has been an avid 'alternative' PIM user since his early SHARP Wizard days, but still not found one thats 'just right'...</i>