Task tree view
MS Outlook allows assigning tasks to folders and sub-folders; however, it displays Task List and Folder List separately. On the task list you see a plain list of tasks and on the folder list you see a hierarchy of folders and sub-folders. Such separation doesn’t allow users to aggregate and calculate values, ex.: total percentage of complete tasks, total actual hours spent on tasks, etc. Such summary values are very important when folders stand for projects or processes and sub-folders stand for project phases and process steps.
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VIP Task Manager lets users plan task and folders both separately and jointly. It features Task List view and Task Group panel which display tasks and folders separately and also it has Task Tree view which shows the hierarchy of tasks and folders. Folders on Task Tree view can show total completion, total estimated and total actual time, the earliest start date and the latest finish date of tasks. |
Custom fields
Users can create various custom fields in MS Outlook for planning many useful task attributes like price, cost, duration, etc. However, these custom fields can be assigned to tasks only. If there is a need to create custom fields for folders, there is no possibility to do it. As a result, users can not display total or average, min or max values of task attributes planned in custom fields at a higher level. |
VIP Task Manager allows assigning custom fields to both tasks and folders. It provides users with standard aggregation functions and unique mathematic, statistic and logical formulas to process task data for high level planning. For example, users can plan key performance indicators for the folders and then compare actual results with estimated values. |
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Setting Permissions
MS Outlook allows setting folder permission in Public Folders. All users get access to tasks in shared folders depending on their roles. Often shared folders contain tasks which should not be seen by certain users, but there is no possibility to set permissions per task. The only way is to move such task to another folder, access to which is not allowed for this user, but usually it is not good because it forces users to create multiple folders and leads to chaos in folders structure.
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VIP Task Manager lets users set both folder permissions and task permissions by using Permissions Panel. They can set default permissions to folders and subfolders, and then if needed, set individual permissions to tasks which should be seen, edited, or deleted only by authorized roles or individual users. This is a more flexible solution which allows preserving original folders structure.
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Templates
Folder List of MS Outlook can be used for creating templates of tasks by copying existing tasks to a new folder. All parameters of existing tasks will be copied, so you will get the same tasks only in new folder. Still such parameter as Date and Time should be changed automatically in templates, while in MS Outlook users have to change Date and Time manually for each task, which is very time consuming.
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VIP Task Manager allows duplicating templates and automatic recalculation of task dates based on new date of the first or the last task. If the target date of the template is the date of the conference, VIP Task Manager will automatically set the date of the first task backwards, for example, to 180 days before the conference, the second task to 150 days before the conference, and so on. The same way the program will recalculate dates forward, for example, if the tasks should take place in 5, 10, 30, etc. days after the conference beginning.
MS Outlook task tracking vs. VIP Task Manager task tracking |
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