In this series of articles we’ll taking a look at a number of time management / personal organizer applications. The first is EssentialPIM Pro.
What Stood Out Immediately
Daily Schedule
The one thing that stood out most as soon as I took a look at this application was the way it generates a daily schedule. There is a view called EPIM Today which looks like this:
From this view it is very easy to see exactly what I intend to be doing that day. If going away from the computer this schedule can be printed out and taking with you like a diary page:
Interactive Calendar
Another feature that made this EPIM stand out was the calendar like schedule view where one can view by day, week, month, and year. This is an interactive calendar much like that one in Microsoft Outlook, meaning you are able to select times and days and insert tasks and appointment directly into the calendar. They will then end up on the master task list accordingly.
Mass Mail
This feature would be of use to someone with an Internet related business. EssentialPIM allows you to send send template composed e-mail to multiple recipients from your Contacts database. The Contacts database within EPIM is quite substantial in terms of data fields. Each contact can have notes, pictures, and file attachments associated with it.
The Task List
The master task-list, or to-do list as it is called in EPIM, can be viewed as tree structure and flat table structure. I find the tree structure more useful as it allows me to see the relationship between tasks, and sub-tasks, or projects and the tasks that make up that project. Here is an example of the tree view in the to-do list:
The data for each task is relatively limited in EssentialPIM, compared to MyLife Organized for instance. Here’s the task edit window:
Importing Data
EPIM handles importing by data type with various formats, as follows:
- Schedule - Ical
- To-do - Ical
- Notes - RTF / Txt, Treepad, Keynote
- Contacts - Outlook Express, CSV, vCard
Exporting Data
EPIM also handles exporting by data type with various formats, as follows:
- Schedule - HTML, iPod
- To-do - HTML, iPod
- Notes - HTML, RTF, Text Files, iPod
- Contacts - Windows Address Book, Comma Separated Values (*.CSV, can be opened by MS Excel or Text Editor), HTML, Rich Text Format, Text Files
All data can be exported one-by one, or you can select multiple entries using CTRL + mouse (for contacts and Notes), or All entries can be exported. In most cases you can even select which fields to export. Most of the export data can be sent to an iPod. I don’t have an iPod so that’s all the info I can give on this.
Synchronizing Data
EssentialPIM is capable of synchronizing its data with Microsoft Outlook, Windows for Mobile devices and Palm OS devices.
Concluding Thoughts
What I like most about EssentialPIM is the daily schedule. My next review is of MyLife Organized. It lacks this feature, whilst having numerous other useful features that EPIM does not have.
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