In this tutorial I will show you how you can use your BlackBerry device to send a task to yourself and have it automatically show up in your BlackBerry Calendar. I will assume that you use Google Apps - especially the Google Calendar.

I assign a lot of to-dos to myself during the day and have recently started using the DeskMail feature. When I send a task out via email (through my BlackBerry), I would also want it to show up in my BlackBerry Calendar so that I can keep a track of it’s due date while I am traveling.

So, here it is. Follow these simple steps and you will soon be able to see your tasks on your BlackBerry Calendar…

Google Apps For Blackberry
Ok, so the first thing you need to do is to setup Google Apps for your BlackBerry. The entire suite of Google Apps for BlackBerry can be downloaded from m.google.com.

Google Sync - Google Calendar to BlackBerry Calendar
Google Apps comes with a Sync tool that will let you sync your BlackBerry Calendar with your Google account. After you run Sync (manually for the first time, and set it to run automatically thereafter) you should see your Google Calendar events on your BlackBerry Calendar.

Subscribe your DeskAway Calendar to your Google Calendar
Next, we want to subscribe to our DeskAway Calendar from Google Calendar. Follow the steps here.
Your DeskAway events should start to show up in your Google Calendar and the next time the Sync happens, they should start showing up on your BlackBerry Calendar as well.

That’s it. You are almost done. Lets test this out. Add a task to yourself with a due date either from your DeskAway account or using the DeskMail feature. Again, make sure you put the due date on the task. Check to see if it shows up on your DeskAway Calendar for that date.

The next time Google Sync runs, you should see this task on your BlackBerry Calendar on the day it was due! The task traveled from your BlackBerry, your DeskAway account, Google Calendar and finally to your BlackBerry Calendar! Even when people in your team assign you tasks, they would now show up on your BlackBerry Calendar. Great way to be on top of your tasks when you are mobile.

Hope this works for you. Feel free to drop me a line if you have suggestions or issues getting this started.

If you are managing your work on DeskAway, the blog feature available in there can be a blessing in disguise. It helps you: constantly communicate with teams - inform & get feedback; share, discuss & facilitate - knowledge / ideas & innovation; create comfort & build loyalties.

So, what all can one use the Blog feature on DeskAway for?

Here are a few usage suggestions:

• Announcements / notice board: Post important internal announcements, news coverage, or other relevant company-related announcements here.
• Newsletter: Publish your newsletter in the blog space on DeskAway. This can be a very important internal communication tool, specially so for remote teams.
• Information Sharing: Super Users and Project Leads can utilize this feature to share information relevant to their area of expertise. Write them yourself or link other references.
• Brain-storming: Get new ideas for execution and company-wide involvement. Invite people to suggest, think of ideas and discuss new initiatives. This is great for remote teams!
• Opinions and Fun: Use it as a personal blog to publish your opinions- business or otherwise. This can be a reflection of you in your workspace on DeskAway.

The blog feature can be used in various ways to increase productivity as well as build engagement among teams.

As a Super-User, you can create standard categories (from the main Settings tab) and each blog post can be tagged under a particular category.

If you are creating a blog or you are a Super-User, you can also determine who all you want to notify or share it with. So, if you’ve written something that pertains to only a particular team, you can monitor it at the notifications level.

DeskAway has a couple of cool utilities added to the Blog feature.
• BlogIT: Reading something interesting that you’d like to share with your team on DeskAway? Do that with just a click with the BlogIT bookmarklet. Just drag-drop the BlogIT link to your bookmarks toolbar from the “Write a Blog” page. So, you can start blogging about different websites without being on the blog page.

• RSS feature: Your team members can now get updates of the blogs and comments from your DeskAway account by subscribing to the RSS feed.

So, how have you been using the Blog’s feature on DeskAway? Have a story to share? Please do so through your comments!

Want to know how best you can use the features available on DeskAway? Want to ensure that all your team-mates use DeskAway optimally? If yes, then it’s best that you keep the “Display Help Tip” option turned on, in your account.

What is it?

Help Tip is a series of Tips on how you can use a particular feature on DeskAway optimally. It tells you what you can do and how. It also gives your details about the section with the help of a Demo Video. This tip is present on all sections of your DeskAway account.

Where can I find it?

To the right hand side of the screen below “Quickies”:

How is it useful?

Help Tip guides you with details of all the things you can do on any particular section on DeskAway. It also has quick, short tips on how to use a particular section - if you are one of those who are pressed with time. Having this on yourself and asking your team to keep it on and referring to it, will help you optimize your DeskAway usage.

However, you do have an option of hiding it at any given point in time, so once you have gone through all the tips, do go ahead and hide it, you can turn it on to refer to it anytime you want. You also have an option of turning it off, which means that you will not get to see these tips again.

I find the Help Tip really useful; their quick tips help me get through most of the new features they add on a regular basis. I dig into their Demo Video on days when I have more time on my hand, to make the most of what DeskAway has to offer!

Did you know that if you used the customization options on DeskAway, it can help build a strong brand identity for your business among your internal customers (employees) and external customers (partners)?

The “Settings” Tab on your DeskAway account allows you to customize the look and feel of your account pages and much more. Here is how:

Through the “General Settings” section you can upload a logo of your business that will be displayed on all pages of your account - a start to claiming ownership of the DeskAway account as your own.

The “Themes” tab allows you to personalize your DeskAway account theme, syncing it with your company colors. Creating an environment that reflects your brand and your business.

You can also customize and categorize various interaction points of all your users to create a seamless experience of using your DeskAway account.  You can create default categories of Projects, Departments and Blogs - making it easy for teams to just click and select from these pre-set categories. You can also set permissions and modify alters from the “General Settings” tab, making it intuitive for the team members to access and get reminders for their tasks and milestones, as required. Thus, building a positive association about your business in the user’s minds.

The internal user is as important as the external user for any business. These small changes in your DeskAway account will create an online environment which reflects the attitude and the philosophy of the company, thus making it a pleasant experience for your employees and teammates using DeskAway. Perhaps, this could also drive more usage of your DeskAway account.

I went around asking a few of the startups I work with about DeskAway & how they use it. I was mainly interested in finding out:

•    What are the features that they use most on DeskAway
•    How do they motivate their teams in using DeskAway regularly
•    What is it about DeskAway that they like the most

I spoke with three startup guys who manage their teams and partners on DeskAway. Sameer Guglani, Founding Partner, MVP: A typical early-adopter and influencer, motivates teams he works with to use new tools, and is quick with his feedback. Rizwan Iqbal, co-founder, Sutra Services Pvt. Ltd: A tech geek, who is a part of a company who evaluates various tools before closing on one and ensures that the team uses them. Pankaj, an entrepreneur who is working on a startup in the space of customer experience and feedback (in stealth mode): He is someone who uses tools and mechanisms only when he sees a direct value to his business.

Here is what I found, some of which can be tips to Owners / Team Leads on DeskAway.

Most Used Features on DeskAway:

Tasks and Task Lists. At its basic level managing a project is all about organizing one’s tasks and task lists. All of them found DeskAway’s interface to managing, assigning and handling tasks to be very easy. Some of these users and their teams use task list for managing not only things related to specific projects, but also have their own personal task lists and optimize their time by managing all that they do on DeskAway.

Getting your team to use DeskAway regularly:

All the users I spoke to were using DeskAway quite regularly to manage their work and interact with their teams. A few techniques they have employed and have worked for them are:

•    Getting all work related communication onto DeskAway. Using the tasks, milestones, notifications, notes and file-sharing on DeskAway only and keeping away from emails & phone. This works well, shares one of the users, especially when dealing with remote teammates, as this is the most efficient way of collaborating.
•    “If I see them (a task) on DeskAway, they aren’t done yet” is what one of the users shared. Their technique is that any task assigned to them has to be dealt with on DeskAway, this ensures that all of them check back on things assigned to them on DeskAway and act on it there.
•    Making it a part of the process, building usage of DeskAway as part of the various things teams do. Identifying the advantages of getting onto DeskAway and educating the teams about it.

Though, all of them do think that once the teammates see the advantages of getting on to DeskAway, there has been no looking back.

The best thing about DeskAway:

•    The UI is very simple and easy to understand
•    The navigation flow is very good, it does not need an extra effort to learn things
•    DeskAway team keep adding to the already extensive feature set, which makes it all the more interesting to use the tool. To quote a user, “ It’s like you think of something (feature) and a few weeks later, its already there on DeskAway”

All these teams believe that DeskAway has made managing their teams and projects easy and more efficient. One of the teams owes it to DeskAway, as it became easy for them to get into a structure through DeskAway, which was missing earlier.