Tasks and Mobile Computing

Personal information managers (PIMs) have steadily grown in popularity over the past several years. Personal digital assistants (PDAs) are available almost everywhere and can be purchased for less than $100. With this technology explosion, many people every day attempt to use electronic tasks to replace paper planners and sticky notes.

There are two main types of PDAs: Pocket PC devices and Palm devices. Both offer the capability to create and manage tasks and both synchronize with Microsoft Outlook through synchronization programs. Pocket PC devices use ActiveSync from Microsoft, and Palm devices use products such as PocketMirror and Palm HotSync Manager.

Complete instructions for creating tasks on mobile devices are beyond the scope of this book, but you need to know a little about task synchronization in Outlook if you plan to use a PDA.

Synchronization is a two-way process. Items created or updated on the mobile device are updated on the desktop computer, and items created or updated on the desktop computer are transferred to the mobile device. An item updated in both places will usually generate a synchronization conflict message. You need to select which item is the most current. That item will then be copied to both the mobile device and the desktop computer.

Only a small amount of the information about a task is transmitted to the mobile device. In the case of a task created on a Pocket PC device, no information from the Details page is transferred. In addition, there's no way of knowing whether a task has been assigned to you or if it's one you created yourself. You cannot assign a task to another individual from a mobile device. You must create the task on the mobile device and synchronize it to your desktop computer. You can then assign the task to another person.

A number of third-party products to help increase productivity are on the market. Many of these products either write directly to your Outlook tasks or mirror Outlook's task functionality.

NOTE

One popular product that's still widely used is Microsoft Team Manager (www.microsoft.com/TeamManager). Even though this product was cancelled in 1997, it's still in use today. Microsoft does not currently support Team Manager, having replaced many of the features with Microsoft Project. If you rely on Team Manager for your business, carefully test its integration with Outlook 2003.