In the current versions, ResultsManager can integrate with Microsoft® Outlook through MindManager's link to Outlook (MindManager Pro  editions only).

 

You can synchronise ResultsManager activities in specifically-designed Dashboard maps using  MindManager Button | Export | Synchronize Microsoft Outlook Tasks. Note that Outlook does not receive information about Contexts or Areas, and does not discriminate between Projects, Results or Actions.

 

Not directly. Currently, ResultsManager uses MindManager's built-in synchronisation with Microsoft Outlook. This only accesses common Outlook fields and does not interact with any special data used by the "GTD" Add-in. Solutions to this are under review.

 

New action items often arrive in the form of e-mails. If you have MindManager Pro, you can select the mail in Outlook and click the toolbar button labelled "Export Selected items to MindManager". This will create a new Topic under the currently selected Topic. You can then click the ResultsManager tab | Activity group | Edit Activity to turn this into an actionable item that ResultsManager can track.

 

ResultsManager allows you to visualise projects and automatically keep track of Next Actions. Visualising projects lets you focus on outcomes and achievements, which are more difficult to see when working exclusively with lists. You can also embed action items in documents such as brainstorm captures, meeting minutes, keeping them in the context of other information.

 

In a future version of ResultsManager, we will provide more sophisticated integration with Outlook, allowing you to use Outlook for distribution of Activities by e-mail, and keeping the Task list synchronised with your activities.

 

If you are using MindManager Pro, you can use  MindManager Button | Import | Import Microsoft Outlook Tasks to import Outlook tasks into a MindManager map. Task and category information is preserved, and you can then reorganise the map into projects and edit the activities further with ResultsManager. ResultsManager can then create a dashboard from this map.

 

Yes, but the dashboard map must meet the following requirements:

 

• The dashboard template must be pre-synchronised with Outlook, otherwise the only thing that MindManager can do is re-export tasks to Outlook again. This causes duplication of existing tasks, because MindManager does not recognise the existing sync information in a task.
• The dashboard map must contain each task only once. Most dashboard maps will show a task more than once. For example, a next action might appear in the Calendar section, and also under the Contexts lists. If a newly-added task appears twice in a dashboard map, then MindManager will create two copies of it in Outlook at the next synchronisation. Dashboard maps that are designed for synchronisation with Outlook must always be designed so that each task appears once only.

 

 

Yes, but make sure that you disable the option for importing new tasks from Outlook, otherwise you will import everything else into your project map as well:

 

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At the time of writing, MindManager does not remember these settings between uses, so you must re-establish them each time. 

 

Note that if you synchronise an individual project map with Outlook, you will not get the parent project name appearing as a ~Category value. This information is only created when ResultsManager creates a Dashboard map.

 

(ResultsManager Professional Edition only)

 

Generating an Outlook Sync Dashboard without enabling support

 

This happens if you try to generate one of the Outlook Synchronisation dashboards without first enabling the support for Outlook Synchronisation in  the ResultsManager tab | Options group | Options | ResultsManager Options.

 

Some versions of Outlook will display a warning message when another programme tries to access it. This is because it is common for viruses to use Outlook as a means of sending e-mails without the user's knowledge. 

 

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To allow synchronisation to complete, check the "Allow access" box and click Yes. This can also be configured in Outlook's security settings.

 

If this warning appears when you have not requested synchronisation with MindManager, then please ensure that there are no Gyronix email addresses in your address book, because we already receive enough virus emails and don't need any more.

 

Tasks will be duplicated in Outlook if you forget to use the Send Dashboard Changes command after synchronising a Dashboard map. (This command is at the ResultsManager tab | Dashboard group | Send Changes).

 

When MindManager synchronises a map with Outlook, it writes special information to the Topics to record that fact that the task is now synchronised with Outlook. When synchronising a Dashboard map, this information is written into the Dashboard map. To transfer this information back to the project maps for use next time, changes must be sent back from the Dashboard map. Otherwise, the next time the dashboard is generated, the same tasks will appear to be unsynchronised with Outlook, and will be recreated in the Outlook task list, duplicating their previous entries.

 

To clean up after this has happened, do the following:

• Close the current Dashboard map.
• In Outlook, delete both copies of all tasks that are duplicated. You may lose a little information, if you have updated tasks in Outlook but not synchronised them with MindManager.
• Regenerate the Outlook Synchronisation Dashboard map, and click  MindManager Button | Export | Synchronize Microsoft Outlook Tasks. If MindManager complains that tasks have been deleted in Outlook, choose the option to have them restored to Outlook from MindManager.
• Finally, the most important part: run the Send Dashboard Changes command. Now the fact that these tasks are synchronised with Outlook will be recorded in the original project maps too, and the activities will not be duplicated in Outlook at the next synchronisation.

 

Outlook has no mechanism for marking tasks as Committed or Someday-Maybe. This means that if you add a new task to Outlook, ResultsManager will regard it as a Someday-Maybe task under all conditions. If you are exclusively using the Committed dashboard for synchronising only Committed tasks with Outlook, then any new Someday-Maybe task should be deleted from Outlook once it has been synchronised with ResultsManager and the changes sent back to a project map. Otherwise, the task will be recreated in MindManager again, as it will not appear in subsequent dashboards since is it not Committed.

 

MindManager does not include a command for breaking Outlook synchronisation. However, the ResultsManager installation includes a utility to help manage maps that are synchronised with Outlook.

 

 

Task information	Synchronisation behaviour (via ResultsManager Dashboard map)
Task name / subject	Synchronised (plain text only)
Task Notes	Synchronised (plain text only)
Task Owner(s)	Not synchronised
Start date	Synchronised: is set to match the Due date if no Start date is defined
Due date	Synchronised: is set to match the Start date if no Due date is defined
Task Percent complete	Synchronised
Percent complete	Synchronised
Priority	Synchronised, but "No Priority" gets converted to Priority 2 on a round trip
Categories	Synchronised
Context	Synchronised via @Categories (ResultsManager option)
Area	Synchronised via ^Categories (ResultsManager option)
"Committed" marker	Not synchronised
Action / Result / Project marker	Not synchronised: all activities appear as tasks in Outlook
Hyperlink	Not synchronised
Parent Result or Project name	Visible in the ~Categories (ResultsManager option) but not synchronised both ways

 

Other Outlook fields (e.g. Status, Contacts, Private flag) are not synchronised.

 

MindManager's synchronisation with Outlook sometimes reports that a task has changed on both sides simultaneously, even when it hasn't. This is a known issue and is under investigation.

 

When MindManager synchronises tasks with Outlook, the Priority setting is transferred as follows:

• MindManager priority 3 or below corresponds to "Low Priority" in Outlook
• MindManager priority 2, or no priority, corresponds to "Normal Priority" in Outlook
• MindManager priority 1 corresponds to "High Priority" in Outlook

This means that activities with no priority in MindManager will eventually become Priority 2 when synchronised with Outlook more than once. This is a known issue with MindManager's Outlook synchronisation feature.

 

A Dashboard map is no different to any other map created by MindManager. You can send it to a PDA using MindManager Mobile, so that you have your latest action items with you at all times. Alternatively you may be able to synchronise information on your PDA with Microsoft Outlook.

 

The following data is synchronised between MindManager desktop and MindManager Mobile editions:

• Topic text
• Topic text Bold setting
• Topic text colour setting
• Topic text fill colour setting
• Topic notes (but no rich text markup, e.g. hyperlinks or text formatting)
• Priority setting numerical value
• Percent-complete numerical value
• Stock Icons, but not custom Icons. This means that the ResultsManager Project  and Result   icons are not synchronised, but other icons are.