Downlaod. US - GMP PLANPLUS 3.0 FOR MICROSOFT ( 29565 ) - 3 stars (Delivers as Advertised, but Lacklus...- downlaod

GMP PLANPLUS 3.0 FOR MICROSOFT ( 29565 ) review:3 stars (Delivers as Advertised, but Lackluster Performance) - GMP/FranklinCovey PlanPlus for Microsoft Outlook 3.0 works as promised. However, there were minor problems and annoyances that got me to uninstall the software. For example, the software relies heavily on the .NET framework, and this often caused lockups that required Outlook to be restarted. I liked the single view of my calendar, e-mail, tasks, and notes, but the interface needs updating to provide the look, feel, and funtionality of Outlook 2003. It was obviously designed around Outlook 2000 & 2002/XP, and therefore didn't harness some of the features of Outlook 2003. Overall, it was an average product that I give 3 stars.1 stars (swtester) - If you want your HP printer driver to be USELESS, then buy PlanPlus. I purchased version 3.0 hoping the solution would be fixed -- it was not and after four years of having time to fix the problem.

Readers beware PlanPlus sw has had a bug in it (some say on purpose) to shut down most HP printers for the last four years unless you use a generic driver for the printer. Why is this the case? Well it is not hard to understand when you note the company makes great profit on its hardcopy planner page sales. Having SW that can print out planner pages, while they are trying to sell their own pages, was probably a bad idea by the company and their only solution is to sell the software but make it conflict with printing software.2 stars (If you have a Palm, stick with Version 2.0.2--3.0 and 4.0 (xp) don't sync) - Like many others, I too am a Franklin user. I started with PlanPlus 1.0, and while it did work, I found that the 2.0.2 release of PlanPlus was reasonably stable.

For Pocket PC users, there seem to be no synchronization problems with the Version 3.0 and 4.0--not so for PalmOS.

Bottom line, Franklin has yet to fix palm synchronization errors with Version 3.0 and 4.0. If you've got a palm, buy V2.0 to get the license, and install the 2.0.2 trial version and register it with the 2.0 license code (the 3.0 license code does NOT work with V2.0).

With Version 3.0 and PalmOS, you can synchronize a new Daily Record entry exactly once from the Palm handheld to the desktop. After that, you can modify the Daily record entry on the desktop, and it will sync down, but only when there is NO existing record on the desktop will it sync from hand held up to the desktop.

The task lists (daily and master) present their own problems in version 3.0. Early on (mostly fixed...mostly), if you modified a task by moving it to a different day, or to or from the master task list, it would start duplicating on the palm until you deleted all of the copies on the palm, and all but one copy on the desktop, then the synchronization from the desktop down to the palm would occasionally work. A remaining issue (not fixed in build 778) is disappearing tasks. The synchronization program strips out one of the two dates that Outlook uses, start date and due date (due date remains if I remember), but not both when a task is moved from a daily list to the master list. Thus, if the due date remains, but the Start date is blank, the task will disappear in the daily and weekly planning views. You can find it by looking directly at the Outlook tasks folder, but spotting the missing record is tricky. The preceeding anomalies apply to version 3.0, your mileage may vary.

My suggestion is buy an old license for version 2.0 and stick with that.

A tip on getting V2.0 to synchronize reliably: If the sync seems to be stuck, bring up the Windows task manager (control-alt-delete) and tell it to switch to the "hot sync" program. This will usually break the race condition that has the sync stuck. Sometimes, all that you need to do is bring up the task manager, and the sync will resume.

Another Daily Record observation: sometimes, if you modify the Daily Record entries on the desktop, your bullets will be converted to asterisks when you sync. It's non-fatal, but it's not pretty.

If your Exchange server is heavily loaded, and synchronization is taking a long time, set your outlook folders for "off-line access" (lookup "ost" in the Microsoft Help for details). Then, exit Outlook and let it do it's "send/receive" step. Unplug yourself from the network, restart Outlook in "off-line" mode, and then perform your hot sync to your palm. For overloaded Exchange servers, this can reduce your sync time from 10 minutes to about 1-2 minutes.

Also, don't count on preserving your data for the Daily Records when you upgrade or down grade. It's best to just print them out, or capture them one day at a time into the palm note application and put them back after you upgrade.

If your task list becomes confused, set your hot sync to have the desktop overwrite the palm and sync. This will probably set all of the tasks on the Palm to "unfilled", then adjust the hot sync setting back to "synchronize" and hot sync again. The second sync will push back down the categories list into the Palm, and update the tasks, setting the tasks back to the categories listed on the desktop.

For Franklin Planning Software Users, the "What Matters Most" items (roles, compass, mission & values) do not sync to the Palm.

If you can find an old version of PlanPlus 1.0, there was a calendar application which replaced the standard Palm calendar and was able to read the Task list rather than the "to-do" list data in the original palm database. It will work with the Version 2 Palm software, but it's difficult to find. It did have some unusual behavior, and was not very consistent about which category it would display by default on the combined day and task view, but I do miss that app.

For Palm, use V2.0.2... sad, I know.

3 stars (Delivers as Advertised, but Lacklus ...