A calendar is needed

[david]

I'd love to see a calendar in the next release.

Collanos is a great piece of software but for us it's useless without a calendar.

[Franco Dal Molin]

Thanks, David. Calendar functionality is certainly an important area we are working on. We will deliver this gradually. While a full-fledged P2P group calendar is a powerful killer application, it also raises additional quite complex issues, such as integration into your "other standard calendar appplications", such as Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes. We can not (yet) deliver all possible integration plug-in's into every propular calendar app available on Windows, Mac and Linux.

For the next major release, you can expect more features around "Tasks", including alarms/notifications. The current Task object will evolve and become smarter. You will be able to get notified of due tasks and alarmed if a Task you had assigned to somebody else is overdue. Also, we will provide better overviews to manage all your Tasks across all your workspaces, e.g. "all my due tasks" type of global overviews.

David, would Task features as described above be enough for you? If not, what specific Calendaring functions would be the most important for you? What specific use scenarios would you like to support with it?

Thanks and best regards,
Franco
Collanos Software

[foverton]

My preference regarding calendars would be as follows:
1. Share an standard XML calendar file in a folder (i.e. Mozilla iCalendar)

2. Make use of all the "application work" going into Calendar sharing using the client/server model (CalDav, SyncML, Chandler etc.)

3. Focus your efforts on the P2P file sharing infrastructure as well as synchronizing XML files internally. (i.e. http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~harmony/ )

Finally, I would very much like to install and run the backend of your software as a service so that when I access the shared information throught the front end or through another application it is all ready up-to-date. Similarly, I don't wouldn't have to launch your application simply to share file changes I made with my Calendar editor.

Frank

[Gil Heiman]

Great input Frank!

Hope you don't mind we contact you once we start exploring calendar integration options.

[foverton]

The ability to: 1) run your software as a service, 2) access the shared files with existing applications 3) automagically share files updated by 3rd partty apps       are features that extend well beyond "Calendars".

Do you intend to offer this type of service functionality to 3rd party apps?

(Your comments sound like you are going down the path of creating your own world of apps... tasks, calendars etc.)

[Mike_Coxon]

[sdpearl]

Overall I really like Collanos.  I run a 100 person volunteer communications team in my county and Collanos solves a major problem without me needing to get into the cost of Groove or the complexity of web hosting.  I simply set up one machine as the "hub" server to insure that everything is replicated and backed up regularly and the rest log in and out as available.

ON THE CALENDAR...

Recognizing that turning Collanos into Outlook or Notes is not the goal, I think the biggest Calendar help is a calendar by workspace.  In other words, turning the tasks into a Calendar rather than a list.  This would at least help you see graphically how the milestones within a folder are organized.  Consolidation of multiple calendars across workspaces would be ideal, but I'll take baby steps for now.

GREAT PRODUCT!

[wonder_trout]

I'd go one step further and say that it should evolve (over time as has been pointed out before in this and other threads) to include multiple LAYERS of calendar. That is, there are all kinds of calendar data that users work with these days - personal, portable, project, group, business unit, organisation, industry, public (as in public holidays and national events). The ability to create a multi-layered calendar function that shows overlaps and conflicts easily would be a huge (long term) boon for users. Using some of the open calendar formats that are out there these days (again, referenced in this and other threads) it should be possible to focus on the visualisation/rendering of the calendaring functionality rather than the functionality itself.

This would at some point definitely be a MSFT killer

[Figueiredo]

Hello

Why don't you consider icalendar like Mozillas Sunbird (they are very stable) and is possible to import/export or be used via network.

We do not use Microsoft software anymore due latest "spyware" update features. So we decided to cancel programs like Outlook in order to use programs like Mozilla.

The format is *.ICS. The technology is there and simple to be used.

[Pier Paolo Ramon]

I just started to use collanos today... and its fantastic.
Calendar function should be perfect, but I have some ideas to share.
Why shouldntyou create a calendar which is integrated with online calendare services such google calendar or others?
Its obvious that vCal and iCal formats will be supported (isnt it? ), but i think collanos should also create a v/iCal file to support sharing. For example, if you give the program ftp acces and a location where to put the file, should be awesome and easy to create that sharing option
The multilayer issue is important as well, but if you want to create a msoft killer then you should create even a email client in collanos. Collanos would became the most powerfull application for office and team working at all.

[Figueiredo]

Yep!!

I bought Groove and one week later it was a Microsoft software. As we do not accept MS software due to the spyywarre (see recent comments about a German anti virus co.) we stopped using it.

Collanos seems to be very good but a calendar would due some good like gant charts.

We are small event company and a calendar is mandatory in order to put our services and avoid overbookings.

Mozilla Sunbird seens nice but us informed thay still have some problems with time zones between different countries.

[squidfishes]

I'm with Mike_Coxon... add mind mapping and all would be well with the world....

[lory]

I agree.  I am looking for software that will help me and my team manage a long list of creative projects.  However without an ability to directly link to Outlook (which all our assistants use to schedule us in meetings, etc), even with a calendar feature in Collanos, it will be a tough sell to my company; everyone would need to check two different schedules (one in Collanos and one in Outlook) to arrange a meeting or find out where they're supposed to be from one moment to the next.

That said, the fact that your program operates on mac as well as PC, makes your software far more viable to us than Groove.

What are you plans in terms of MS Outlook linking/integration?

Lory

[ricky]

Calendar link to MS Outlook is most ideal. Not because its the best time management software but because there already a huge user base. That is to say by creating an Outlook compatible module would provide Collanos a huge user base ergo create a huge market for your product.

By using a link to Outlook, your product would remain an easy to use collaborative software as no extra learning would be necessary.

No one wants to duplicate their efforts, meaning entering datat in several calendars doesn't make any sense. Moreover, people use the time scheduling software already so its best to modify the software so that it works the way users work. Users would simply enter their schedule as they normally do and simply click an add-on (button) that  would export to Collanos' agenda or vice versa.

Hence, from a marketing perspective and a user perspective, intergrating Collanos to existing agenda products such as Outlook makes the most sense. Since Outlook has the biggest user base, it make sense to start there.

[mhe]

The calendar should work with different calendars.

From my point I would prefare an iCal integration (integration for todo's and events)

Idea:
Maybe it's a good wa to support the common calendar format (icalendar) to synchronize the local calendar with the Collanos Workplace