While I use DeskAway to manage my work-related projects, I also use Outlook to manage my Mails and Outlook Calendar to keep track of my other appointments that fall outside of the work I manage on DeskAway.

DeskAway also has a very helpful Calendar, which helps me track my deadlines, milestones, events and important dates related to my projects.

As I used both DeskAway Calendar and Outlook Calendar, there was one problem that I faced sometime back. If I forgot to lookup the Calendar on my DeskAway account, I found myself slipping on an important event or a deadline. I figured out the reason for this was that I was used to the “Reminder Pop-ups” that my Outlook had, which was not there on my DeskAway.

This is when I found out about Subscribe to iCalendar feature available on DeskAway. This allows me to sync my Deskaway Calendar with my Outlook Calendar in just one click. Now that I have subscribed to iCalendar, I can view my DeskAway Calendar on my Outlook. I can now get reminders of my DA tasks too from my Outlook.

However, the DeskAway calendar on Outlook is ‘view only’. If I have to make modification, I will have to do it on my DeskAway calendar. Any changes made on my DeskAway calendar will automatically sync with Outlook.

DeskAway also gives you an option to manually sync the DeskAway calendar with any program that supports .ics format.

Now, after syncing my DeskAway calendar with my Outlook, I am totally in control of various deadlines and events that I manage on DeskAway. As a user, one thing I like a lot about business offerings is their ability to morph themselves into places I frequent, into applications I use extensively. This increases my adaptability and usage of that product or service.

Quickies: are personal notes that can be added, edited and deleted in a jiffy! Only you can see your notes.

You can use quickies to make quick reference notes, note down ideas, followups, notes while on a call - which can be translated to tasks, etc later. Quickies is like your personal notepad where you can pen down thoughts, things of reference for yourself!

You can edit these personal notes to update / modify them OR delete them.

I have been using Deskaway (DA) for the last 6 months. Having used Base Camp and Zoho for a while in the past, I migrated to DA and the experience has been better than the other two.

As part of my professional work, I not only use DA to collaborate and coordinate within my company (MVP), but I also have the responsibility of getting all the companies as part of our Portfolio on DA. This is a huge challenge, especially because various teams or individuals have their own methods of dealing with projects, tasks and their work in all.

Here’s a technique I used to get a portfolio company- a startup onto DA, very recently:

The CEO, lets call him Mike, is someone who believes that making lists on paper is a good way of tracking his personal tasks, meeting deadlines and achieving milestones. And this method is loosely followed by others in his team. I believe that it’s a great start (considering that I have met many people in responsible positions in large companies, who do not use even physical lists). This method worked really well for Mike and his team, when they were starting off their company. Today, the business has grown considerably and Mike has to manage a total of 2 teams and 10 people with different tasks, different clients, varied work times and multiple locations. Soon, I noticed that a few important tasks were being forgotten and deadlines were slipping.

I had spoken to Mike about DA in the past and had casually tried to get him and his team onto DA, but in vain. This time, I employed a different method.

Everyone who has worked on a project/ assignment individually or in groups understands the following:

- Tasks: Things to do
- Milestones: Things to achieve before a particular date / Important Dates

With this as the basis, I explained to Mike the importance of having a tool to track the things he needs to do that will help him achieve his milestones and progress in his projects. I used the below representation to explain and get Mike on DA

The premise here is that when you have any project ( Any activity that has a definitive business outcome. It can be anything from what a team is working on internally to a client assignment) to execute at hand, there are a few important dates attached to it. This can be release of a new website, launch of a new product, publishing the next magazine edition, etc. These are Milestones.  Attached to these Milestones are various tasks. These are things-to-do that help achieve the important dates. All these tasks collectively make a Task List.

So basically you can create a New Project on DA, let’s call it “Marketing Website”. One important Milestone attached to this is “Beta Launch on 1 Jan, 2009″. There are a set of tasks that are required to be done to achieve this milestone, these make for Task Lists (TL) - Product Development TL, Technology Development TL, Marketing TL. Each of these TL has a set of tasks listed below it.

It’s very simple. You could add more details to each task by attaching a start date/ end date, how long the task will take, assigning it to a team member, adding comments and sending yourself email reminders for the same.

Mike and his teammates have now started using DA to plan and manage their tasks. It has organized their work to a large extent. They are taking on more initiatives as a company now, since they have a tool that helps them plan and execute.

Mike now has better visibility on what is happening across teams in the company, as he gets a snapshot view of what everyone is working on and can monitor the Project’s health on a daily basis on DA. Mike now has enabled the “Automatic Email Reminder” option - this generates daily email updates to him and his team about their approaching deadlines and over due tasks.

Now, Mike and his team look at the My Tasks Tab on their DA dashboard to see what they have to do, instead of looking into their handwritten lists, depending upon their memories or waiting on their manager or teammate to assign them a task!

So, getting started on DA is as easy as listing your tasks on an excel sheet or on paper! Only, DA has many more advantages in helping you deal with multiple and complex projects.

Have you been successful in getting your team to use DA regularly? Please share your adoption techniques. Are you one of those who have repeatedly tried but have not been able to get your team to use DA? Do let us know what the reasons are or common complaints are.