When I use the tablet pc for inking purposes, my use primarily revolves around two applications: Franklin Covey's TabletPlanner 3.0 and Mindjet's MindManager. Picture your paper-based Franklin Planner on your tablet, and you can pretty much imagine what TabletPlanner is like.

TabletPlanner was designed from the ground up as an ink application and it shows. I've been using TabletPlanner since 1.0 and have beta tested both the 2.0 and 3.0 releases. Version 3.0 is the best yet.

Initial Screen

The screen below shows what the application looks like when first opened. As you can see, it has the standard Franklin Covey layout (task on the left, appointments in the middle, and Daily Notes to the right). Above the calendar are tabs that have Calendar, Contacts, Mission / Values, and then your EBinder tabs.

EBinder

The EBinder is where you store all of your notes. You can create general categories for the tabs, then create an infinite number of folders within folders for organizing your notes. In addition, you print anything to the TabletPlanner printer for storage in a Ebinder folder. I use this a lot for printing web site purchase receipts, web pages, etc.

Inking

The great thing about TabletPlanner is that you can do everything in ink and it can stay ink! You can ink your tasks, appointments, contacts. You can also write notes on those same items.

Outlook Syncronization

For those of you who use Outlook or are tied to an Exchange Server, TabletPlanner synchronizes with Outlook either by the network or by Outlook For Web Access. It does a fair job of converting the ink to text upon synchronization. I do have a fair number of entries that I cannot read in Outlook due to the ink / text conversion.

I wish that the synchronization were more integrated so that I could read my ink annotation from within Outlook.

Import / Export

Version 3.0 includes a feature that lets you import / export items from TabletPlanner to share with other TabletPlanner users. To share your notes with non-Tablet Planner users, you can email the item to them as a .tiff or as a .mht web page.

 

Franklin Covey Time Management

Version 3.0 integrated Franklin Covey's time management practices. There is a section for Mission / Values, Goals, and Weekly Planning (compass, rocks, etc).

Pros:

  • Sync with Outlook
  • Create notes (ink or text) for tasks, appointments, contacts, and notebook.
  • Ability to print to the EBinder.
  • Import / Export function
  • Create folders within folders
  • Navigation is much improved over 2.0
  • Franklin Covey time management is in integrated (Mission, goals, compass).
  • Custom skins to allow you apply your own logo to the note pages and change the color schemes (I'll address this as a Tip in the Software section next week).

Cons:

  • Contact Management is very poor.
  • Email support is poor at best.
    • Need ability to drag and drop items from email to calendar and tasks.
    • Need ability to work with email from within TabletPlanner
  • Need ability to integrate audio recordings
  • Need way to move a Daily Note to the EBinder more easily than cutting / pasting.


Buzz Meter: 4 out of 5

Tablet Planner costs $129.95 or $64.95 to upgrade from 2.0

Download the trial at -
http://www.franklincovey.com/downloads/tabletplanner/trial.html?c=Home_TextLinks_TabletPlanner

More information on the Tablet Planner web-site -
http://www.franklincovey.com/tabletplanner/index.html