Comments on: ClearContext v5: Prioritization & Views

By: brad

brad — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:05:05 +0000

Levi – please see this post for additional information from our CEO about prioritization and views in v5:

http://online.clearcontext.com/forums/prioritization-and-views-in-clearcontext-v5-t2603.html

By: Levi Smith

Levi Smith — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:00:53 +0000

I think the switch from priority view to priority via categories (or flags, which you’re unwisely considering) is a really bad move. You’ve created the New Coke version of ClearContext with v5. My main issues:

1. tying prioritization to categories, and potentially flags, interferes with the more widely accepted and established purposes for both categories (view topic indicators, not priorities) and flags (due dates, not priorities)
2. you cannot setup an outlook view that will prioritize messages based on category unless you do not use categories for anything other than prioritization. see #1 for why this is a problem.
3. even if you limit your use of categories for prioritization, because outlook cannot weight categories, you’re left with the option to view category priorities at the top/bottom of a list or mixed in with your other messages. This is a step backwards in the productivity department.

What substantially improved productivity in v4 and earlier, over any other product in the marketplace, was the color coding prioritized view. With this change, you’ve taken a step back in productivity and product differentiation in favor of less helpful simplicity. I would venture to say that those requesting more simplicity are not your core users. Your core users, your product evangelists, appreciate ClearContext because it helps them be more productive. I believe the change to category prioritization, and consideration of using flags, shows a disconnect with your core user base. Bring back the priority view and make these users happy again.

By: brad

brad — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 23:48:10 +0000

Kirk – Thanks for the feedback. Please note that if you don’t want to use categories, there are other options for filing including flags and the Outlook priority field. See ClearContext > Options for more detail.

By: Kirk K

Kirk K — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 06:28:45 +0000

I use categories for tagging and other functions. I don’t use many of the cc functions. I was using it to prioritize the inbox. Now I’m on outlook 2010 and it just got a lot harder and less intuitive to use CC. I don’t want CC getting into my categories for the prioritization so I’m out. I’ll stick to using outlook quicksteps, rules, and views to prioritize. I won’t be using CC anymore. It’s becoming too difficult to work with.

By: brad

brad — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:48:53 +0000

Thanks all for the additional feedback. Just to clarify, in v5.0 categories are not required to be used for prioritization or project assignment. Go to ClearContext > Options to select alternative prioritization options that include flags or Outlook message priority. Go to ClearContext > Options > Project Options to turn off Topic duplication to categories.

By: richardb

richardb — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:16:01 +0000

Categories should be left alone for topic/category/project assignment, and not used for priority. I’d prefer to have these not comingled. And now that I have VIP and OK all over my messages, I see certain views by category grouping under these instead of my other assigned categories which are more important to me. I too agree with others that priority is rarely defined by just the sender, but more likely by thread or project/topic.

I too, with many others here, vote for keeping color coding for prioritization. If that’s done with default OL behavior, then just give us some out-of-the-box views.

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:14:18 +0000

Ouch. I made the commitment and paid for v5 as I was very interested in the multiple mail file support. But they removal of topics (which are absolutely not the same as categories for me) and the assumption that prioritization is based primarily on the Sender is a real problem. My email communication is with over 300 people (very few of whom are actually in my address book), on many hundreds conversations covering well over 100 topics. Categories do not equal topics. I may have hundreds of topics but only a few Categories. And other applications use the Outlook Categories. I don’t like to see any application assume it can use Catetegories for its own purposes. For me prioritization has little to do with the Sender as the same people frequently send me very high priorty emails and nearly useless (fyi) emails and everything in between. And for those emails that in fact are high priority due to the Sender I rarely receive emails from those Senders. High priority conversations can often include critical emails from people who, aside from that conversation, I rarely communicate with. And I definitely need multiple levels of priority. Bottom line is that I feel CC has taken a step backwards. This may work for people with a simpler email world. But to me it seems that in the effort to simplify you have removed the flexibility some of us needed to handle our more complex needs. (And, like many large corparations, it may be quite a while before we spend the money for thousands of people to move off of OL 2003.) So it appears I will need to uninstall v5 and move back to v4 or maybe begin looking for another option. I’m pleased for you that others appear to like the changes. But I suspect for some of us you have removed flexibility in the interest of simplicity.

By: brad

brad — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:20:28 +0000

Alan – if I understand correctly the source of your issue is that you have created an AutoAssign rule that is too broad, filing messages that it thinks are LinkedIn Group messages but really aren’t. This doesn’t sound like a CC problem per se, but rather your AutoAssign rule requires tweaking so that it only moves the correct messages?

By: Alan Ferrguson

Alan Ferrguson — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:10:14 +0000

Wrong Categorisation
I probably only use a fraction of ClearContext. I just want to get the less important stuff out of my in box. I have just upgraded to V5 Beta to see if it would fix a niggling problem…and the problem has got worse.
A steady stream of stuff comes in from LinkedIn groups and I have set up an auto assign to move e-mails from that domain to a LinkedIn folder and Topic. If I understand correctly, in V5 I should be talking about Categorise not topics – a welcome simplification.
Both V4 and V5 is assigning far too many e-mails to the LinkedIn Topic/Category. To try to teach ClearContext what to do I change the Topic/Category, even if I am going to delete the e-mail. that was fairly quick in V4. In V5 its impossible.
If I want do delete the e-mail I have to use the file message button to change the Category and then go to that folder and delete the e-mail. That’s a lot slower than just using native Outlook not quicker.
If I want to reply,I can’t change the Category before I reply, for that will file the message (see above). If I click reply, I get a Project icon, which feels counter intuitive replying to an e-mail, isn’t a project.
Am I doing something wrong>?

By: brad

brad — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:21:11 +0000

Scott – this bothered me at first, but with a couple of day’s use I found that I preferred it and appreciate the ability to collapse a really long conversation if I want to.