Drag and Drop Tasks In Outlook With Kanban Task Manager

I have mentioned the new, fascinating kalmstrom.com project Kanban Task Manager for Outlook several times earlier in this blog, Now the application is coming together, and today I could try the "drag and drop tasks" feature for the first time.

Drag and Drop Outlook Tasks
It was a joy to finally could open the Kanban Task Manager folder in Outlook and see the nice user interface. I quickly created some Projects, Phases and Tasks to try how it was to drag and drop them, and it worked just fine! We will of course create more elaborate video demonstrations later, but II made a short demo to show how it works.



Visualize progress and blockers
Kanban Task Manager takes the idea from the traditional kanban board, where cards on a board symbolize different tasks of a project. The kanban board makes it easy to see what has been done and what is still in progress, but to manually putting up cards on a board cannot give all the advantages you get when you move the kanban board into Outlook.

More task features with Outlook
Using Outlook for task management makes it possible to do so much more, like filter for project or responsible or show tasks for several projects at the same time. And in Outlook you may drag and drop the tasks between different phases of a project instead of unpinning a card and then pinning it in another place - and maybe dropping it on the floor or loosing the pin in between!


Automatic and instant synchronization
The most interesting difference between the traditional kanban board and the kalmstrom.com Outlook task manager is probably not the drop and drag or filtering but the synchronization. As soon as one team member has made a change to a task it will be visible to all other members in their PCs. This means that everyone can see how a project is making progress, and the manager or responsible may easily discover problems and blockers.

SharePoint or databases for the sharing
The immediate synchronization of tasks is made possible with one of three options for sharing and storage of tasks and settings: a Microsoft SharePoint site, an MS SQL Server database or an MS Access database. All versions are supported by Kanban Task Manager, and if you don't have any of them you can let the application create an Access database for you.

Soon you will have a chance to try Kanban Task Manager in your own team! We will allow a 30 days evaluation period of the full version, and in May I hope to tell you about the release.

New Developer At kalmstrom.com Fixes Task Manager Reports

I am happy to tell you that we have yet another developer in the team. Priyanka Kokne begun working with us a month ago, and she has already proved that she is an asset to the team.

A talented artist
In the photo to the right Priyanka poses in front of two of her drawings – because Priyanka is not only a skilled developer but also a talented artist. At the bottom of this article you can see an example of what she can do with water colors.

Programmer and tester
Priyanka has a Bachelor of Engineering exam from Shri Vaishnav Institute Of Technology & Science in Indore, and she is also certified in manual and automated software testing. This combination makes her a good programmer, and we are glad that she decided to join the kalmstrom.com team after having worked with application analyze and development for other companies for a couple of years.

Kanban Task Manager Reports
Priyankas first task for kalmstrom.com has been to create the reporting application for our new and not yet released product Kanban Task Manager for Outlook. This add-on helps a team to visualize tasks and co-operate on projects.

The kalmstrom.com developers have added dropdowns for Project, Phase and Responsible to the Outlook Tasks and also made it possible to drag Tasks between different Phases. The data from Projects, Phases and Tasks can be exported to Excel, where they may be studied in different ways. For each project Kanban Task Manager offers various reports:

• Total Tasks per Project
• Total Tasks per Phase
• Time spent per Phase
• Status of Tasks per Phase
• % Completed Tasks per Phase
• Total Tasks per Responsible
• Overdue status of Tasks per Phase

Priyanka has made sure the reports handle the correct data, and she has also added functionality that makes it easy to work with the data and look at them from different angles.

Badminton player
When working developers mostly use the brain, the eyes and the hands, and the rest of the body does not get much exercise. Priyanka keeps in good shape by dancing and playing badminton, and she achieved many badminton prizes at school level. She also enjoys gardening, just like me.


Welcome to kalmstrom.com, Priyanka!

Internet Freedom, SharePoint Tips And People - Popular Blog Posts In March

March gave me many different kinds of blog ideas. Some were read by many, while a few seem to have gone by fairly un-noticed. Let’s concentrate on the positive and have a look at what has been popular!

kalmstrom.com Tips
Peter Kalmstrom, our CEO and creator of the kalmstrom.com products, has made a number of video demonstrations on various topics, and month after month the blog articles about them are among the most visited.

Peter is a Microsoft certified SharePoint Specialist and Trainer, and in March two of his SharePoint tips were the most popular: How to add Javascript to SharePoint and How to Archive SharePoint list items. Many more find their way to the Tips section of the kalmstrom.com website, and we are glad our tips are found useful!
  
Kanban Task Manager
The interest for our new Outlook application for Tasks is still high, and January post about the Kanban board for Outlook is still read by many. This is a good omen for the reception of Kanban Task Manager, when it is released in May.   


Important women and men
Articles about people always get many visits, and in March we had Peter’s post on the International Women’s Day on women who had meant much to him. I wrote about our new Developer Anshul Takalkar and of baby Rimza – son of the kalmstrom.com Lead Developer. And the February story about the engagement of kalmstrom.com Developer Kanak Joshi was much read also in March.


Skype and Internet freedom
I try to cover general subjects within the kalmstrom business area, and in March the post about the incredible growth of Skype after the Microsoft requisition arouse interest.

I also wrote two articles about the UNHRC panel discussion on internet freedom on the last day of February. It was so popular that I wrote a follow up where I reported about the results of the meeting. This article was not as much read as the first one, maybe because I was early with the news the day the discussion was held. Probably people read about the discussion more in detail in news media after seeing my article and were not as interested the second time.

  
German and Swedish growth
In February I told you that the kalmstrom.com Blog was most read in the US and UK, and it was the same in March. But then there is a change: where we earlier had India and China on the second position we now have those two plus Germany and my home country Sweden.

In February the third group of countries with many blog readers were mostly European, but in March we find Brazil and Canada here also. I am not surprised at Canada, because we have several Members of kalmstrom.com Community there, but Brazil is a happy surprise. Maybe we soon may welcome our first Brazilian Community Member?

New kalmstrom.com Developer With A Flare For The Dramatic

kalmstrom.com Business Solutions has a new developer at the Indian office. His name is Anshul Takalkar, and he has been with us since February.

Master of Computer Applications
After his Bachelor of Computer Science exam Anshul went for the Master of Computer Applications degree, and two years ago he begun working as a software developer specialized on web and Windows applications. His education and experience qualified him for a position in the kalmstrom.com team, and we were all glad when he agreed to join us.

Kanban Task Manager
After the first introduction period Anshul has done a great job with the JQuery-based User Interface of our new project, Kanban Task Manager for Outlook. With this application a workgroup can co-operate on tasks and projects inside Outlook, and Anshul is making sure that we can sort, filter and of course drag & drop the tasks in a user-friendly and snappy way.

Mahabharat actor
Anshul is interested in drama and performed in several plays during his school time. One of them was the great Indian epic Mahabharat, where Anshul played the warrior Bheema.

Mahabharat is one of the world's most influencial texts, on the same level as the Bible and the Koran or the works of Shakespeare and Homer. It is about the war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas but it also has a strong philosophical content. Anshul's drawing below shows the victorious Lord Krishna (in the middle) and the rest of the Pandavas: Bheema, Arjun, Nakul, Yudhishthir and Sahdev.

Common interests
Anshul shares his interest in drama with the kalmstrom.com CEO, Peter, who both directed and acted before his fascination for software development took over. Anshul and I also have interests in common – to write and sing.

Anshul Takalkar has already shown that he is a skilled developer and a good team worker, so we all wish him a warm welcome to kalmstrom.com!

From Engagement Ceremony to G-Drive – Popular Blog Posts in February

Six months ago it became possible for me to spend more time on the kalmstrom.com blog, and this has led to a significant increase of readers. As I don’t always write about the kalmstrom.com Office applications but want to discuss other things too, I have a varied group of visitors. It is interesting to see what most of them like to read about.

Engagement and work from home
In the beginning of February Microsoft Sweden proclaimed a “Work from home” day, and my first article about the event was widely spread. I therefore wrote a follow-up post also, to tell how it turned out, but that article was not as popular as the first one. People were probably more interested in the concept than in the result of this special event.

In another much read blog post I congratulated kalmstrom.com developer Kanak Joshi, who got engaged recently. Kanak and her fiancé are Indian, and as I told some about Hindu customs I assume this post was interesting to more than just Kanak’s friends and relatives. Even if she is a nice girl she cannot have that many of them!

Tips and kalmstrom.com news
After these two most popular articles in February came articles who are more into the kalmstrom.com line of business. They are news about a product update – Calendar Browser V7.1 – and about our exciting new project, the Kanban Task Manager for Outlook.

Popular month after month are also the kalmstrom.com Tips. In February most people wanted to know how to add JavaScript to a SharePoint site and how to archive SharePoint list items. Peter Kalmstrom, our CEO, is a SharePoint expert that has earned all Microsoft’s certifications for SharePoint 2010, so of course he has a lot of useful information to share. It is a joy to see that so many take advantage of it.
 

Of interest to the branch
The third group of popular articles are those who concerns the kalmstrom.com branch rather than our own products. This month my report on useful tools when giving support service was read by many, just as my comments on G-Drive, the Google challenge to Dropbox and SkyDrive. After I wrote that blog post I have seen a massive Microsoft campaign for use of SkyDrive with Windows 8, so I am sure I will have reason to come back to this subject.