Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

Jonathan Hardwick [MSFT] — Tue, 12 Oct 2004 05:20:00 GMT

I forgot another PlanPlus problem that showed up after installing XP SP2 and Office SP1. If I used PlanPlus, Outlook would throw a Dr Watson exception (i.e. ask to report an error to Microsoft) when exiting. I've probably uploaded 50 of the things by now :)

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

Omar Shahine — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 20:50:00 GMT

Hey-

I actually wrote my own GettingThingsDone outlook toolbar if you want to try it.

-Omar

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

Stan — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 03:54:11 GMT

Thanks for the insights. I was about to spend a hundred bucks on something that probably wasn't going to meet my needs. Thought I'd research it first ... glad I did.

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

A Nej — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 20:32:46 GMT

Thank you for your post. I had nought it, installed it, then uninstalled it when having sync. issues; I would think that- by now- they would program out those errors!

I was re-looking at re-purchasing it, but was wondering if those issues still existed; they do- apparently- from your BLOG post.

Thank you for saving me time and aggravation :)

Alex
Aflac Sales Coordinator (Southern California)

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

jonathanh — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 03:18:38 GMT

Hi Alex - My experience was back in 2004. Who knows, they may have fixed it by now :)

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

jim — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 02:42:45 GMT

message sent to franklincovey technicalsupport
yesterday no reply as yet.12-April-2006

Dear Joshua,

To copy everything out of plan plus's apps, is a mamouth task the way you suggest, I have the outlook .pst file backed up and i'd prefer to re-install using that file and creating a new .pst profile then rename after deletion of the data if the detect and repair tool deletes it.

You reminded me of another issue with Outlook Plan plus, the projects folder enters the data onto the task list [where it's not wanted] I havent got into that bit deeply yet, as i didn't like what it did when migrating from Schedule Plus. and I manually copied and pasted 1500 tasks into 110 projects. All the data is still there. [Also private checked folders or tasks are unchecked upon an import under data file management/file import/export in Outlook]

Obviously this is an issue too, because its not desirable to have all the projects showing on the task list in Outlook, because the're 'Projects' and need to be seperated within a Project, under Parent/child tasks from there they can then be bought onto the Goals page, But that is an issue too, the goals page does not allow the user to collate the goals from within thier respective roles unless you create them. However when you create the Roles in the goals page to gain Order over the goals and to associate the roles which drive/govern them, you aren't able to use the parent child task feature as its not built into or activated in the goals page.

This means if one enters a goal it has to be as a Intermeadiate step because the roles have now taken the position of a Goal in the [Goals Page] Now you need to enter tasks for the gaols but you can't make them intermeadiate steps because the option has been used already.

The project parent child task feature is needed in the goals page. And also all the goals are deleted when you re-install anyway. The goals which I changed to represent roles are kept but the Intermeadiate steps are deleted, so I haven't used the goals feature for a while as I lost them on installing a few times ago.

Which is why I contacted you chaps for a fix because I'd been using the compass to act as a roles & goals page

because,

1] it shows all the roles they don't change often,

2] the goals can stay in their roles and roll over where I see them weekly and can assign them to a day and then an activity within that day, except it only works if the roles and their goals, roll over. Intrestingly the roles roll over each week.

I'm currently using an excel spread sheet for the roles and goals and missions are kept in word docs, and I'm learning Microsoft project 2003 to see if it will provide a solution and allow me to apply the Seven habits process from within there.

I did try the fix you suggest having read it on the help index somewhere, but it didn't work.

Thanks for your help anyway maybe the boffins need to take a look at it and provide a fix.

Kind regards

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

joseph — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 02:55:09 GMT

fRANKLIN cOVEY PLAN PLUS for mICROSOFT oUTLOOK 2003 version build 778 NOT WORKING EFFECTIVELY!!

Anyone had Outlook's 2003 plan plus plug-in having a problem holding compass big rocks.

I’ve been trying to search for a fix for a year, I tried all the suggested fixes: Sunday 1st day: check the check boxes in plan plus options: close outlook relaunch : get netframe update, but still no joy.
Ironically I set a joke goal in the sharpen the saw goals in June and it holds that rolling over the weeks. But not the big rocks on 'Sunday' 9th April 2006, in the 10 roles I set for myself.
I think Stephen Covey got it right in the book, but the plug in not working in compass holding big rocks and it's like having a diary again, you have to re-enter your info every week.

There is even a possible solution on Franklin Coveys Technical support pages for Outlook [but its not in Outlook pages you have to search entire site to find it] for Outlook 2003 suggesting that this is a good thing!! Because you need to relook at you life on a weekly basis anyway.
Err No it's Not. But we don't want to move house every week which is what they're suggesting in this gem of a technical fix.
Obviously the employee who wrote that one, ought to have a look at the book again, because having the big rocks in all your roles with you and available anytime anywhere is what Steven Covey teaches, so we can be effective 1st & work on efficiencies second. we don't want to redo things we understand and have delt with in a fundamental way.
This means we are achieving our big rocks and ultimately big goals, dealing with the problems from the root solving for good, things we had been fighting for years.

But not when you lose your big rocks that you didn’t complete last week and will most likely have another crack at this week if only you could see it in this weeks compass and not forget it because it don't roll over.'

when I bought 'the seven habits of highly effective people' book, it boasted 10 million copies sold in 17 languages ish, so at least that number will be encountering this problem eventually, and its one that needs a fix because its so pivotal to the work. Tools need to do their job or they get replaced.

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

Leon — Sat, 13 May 2006 02:24:18 GMT

I just purchased PlanPlus v5.0 for XP for my new Palm TX. I had so many problems getting it to sync correctly that I am uninstalling the product. I have lost my $50 and I am not happy with FranklinCovey.

I had the FranklinCovey Tech Support people help me (they are helpful) Nevertheless, I must have spent 24 hours following their instruction to install, uninstall, re-install, sync, re-sync and so on.

I would NOT recommend the PPW5 product to anyone. I felt sorry for their tech team; the product is terrible (assuming you want it to work with your handheld).

I purchased the PlanPlus v5.0 for XP and did not try to sync with Outlook.

The FranklinCovey technical support webpages are pathetic. Go directly to conduct a chat session with the Tech Staff. You will get an answer there.

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

Joseph — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 13:34:12 GMT

Leon, I'll take your PlanPlus v5 off your hands and reimburse you. Leave a msg with your contact info so I can talk to ya.

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

Esteban — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 16:22:45 GMT

Hello: first of all, sorry for my poor english.
I'm searching for a program like the PPv5 (but without problems like Leon said), that have a good interfase Palm-PC. Is there anybody who knows about one? Regards and thanks, E.

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

Lynne — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 21:38:20 GMT

Two things:

I am confused about the difference of PlanPlus for Outlook and Plan plus for XP as an "upgrade".

I have Plan Plus for Outlook and find it cluncky slow. The wizards do not save the input after an hour of planning your life. Their tech support said it is a known glitch but no remedy. Any remedies out there?

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

jonathanh — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 04:09:19 GMT

Lynne - I believe the difference is that PlanPlus for XP is a standalone tool, whereas PlanPlus for Outlook is an addon.

I hear you on the clunkiness, though. I have few regrets about ditching PlanPlus...

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

Dave — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 22:49:12 GMT

I downloaded the demo and spent most of the day trying to get it to work reliably with Outlook 2003. 1) It blows my folders out often - making me quit and restart outlook. 2) Also the task status indicators don't sync reliably. 3) It corrupted outlook once where I had to rebuild it. 4) I reinstalled in 3x. It just is too flaky to use and rely on - I am REALLY dissapointed becuase I like the FranklinCovey System a LOT. I tried this SW a few years ago and it was flaky then - I can't beleive it still is. I bough a palm PC and the Pocket Informant Side is terrific - unfortunately if you want the full frankin support you must use the franklin Sw on the PC side.

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

Ralph — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 18:47:36 GMT

I just purchased the PP 4.0 and it is still as buggy as ever. I am so disgusted with this company and product. FOr any problem the tech support has you uninstall and reinstall many times. This is so ludicrous. I want my money back.

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

Laura — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 03:41:25 GMT

Does anyone know of a system similar to PlanPlus? I am having a lot of speed issues with my demo copy but really like some of the features and would love to research some other options.

Thanks!

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

Joan — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 21:41:26 GMT

I also lost $50 on an upgrade to PlanPlus for Outlook 4.0. I was successfully using 3 but 4.0 Home Page is soooooooo slow and when dragging an email to task, it no longer saves the email text as a note in the task. FC first told me to reinstall which I did several times, then told me this was a 'feature' and gave me instructions for attaching the email to the task.

I have now uninstalled it. I have gone back to just plain old Outlook. May go back to 3 but I liked Pocket Informant on my iPAQ.

I would not recommend buying this.

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

Keith — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 03:04:03 GMT

What with the new year, I was about to plunk down some bucks to see if Franklin Covey had fixed their software since the days when I used it. Every time I stopped using it, the cause was the bugs. (My latest versions are Franklin Planner software Ver 7.1 1999, and Franklin Planner for Microsoft Outlook. Also 1999) Thank you for letting me know that it is still the same (or at least similar) bugs. I will go check for info on the competition that you mentioned above.

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

Mike — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 05:22:55 GMT

Disappointing. I'd like to use this product again - had it years ago.

I was planning on PlanPlus 4 and Outlook 2003 - looks like it doesn't work. Lots of bad reviews on Amazon too from those that insisted on trying it.

For now - it will be the simple Outlook task lists. Alternative is to run my life with MS Project - an interesting exercise I suppose.

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

Bob — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 06:16:40 GMT

Unbelievable system resource hog...

I received an eval copy of PlanPlus v5 along with my tablet PC from Lenovo. I thought it would be great to be able to write my tasks onscreen, but with PlanPlus loaded the 1.5Ghz processor slows to a crawl. So I added more RAM, but it did not help.

Foolishly, I got a copy for my desktop machine, which runs a P4 @ 3.2GHz with a RAID 0 array. Usually a very snappy machine, but PlanPlus still runs like a dog. So I opened the task manager to keep an eye on Binder.exe, the PlanPlus task. I was stunned: after clicking through the various windows (planner, tasks, goals, contacts, etc.) I noticed that Binder.exe was taking a whopping 248,000K of memory. Either they have a MONSTER memory leak, or this is the worst cobbled together bunch of separate tasks I've ever seen. Adobe Photoshop, arguably one of the most robust pieces of software available, only sucks 50,000K at idle. And Outlook, Word, and a SQLServer task for Business Contact manager run with half the overhead of PlanPlus.

I'm going to uninstall the software. PlanPlus is a good idea very poorly executed.

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

Calvin — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 07:28:42 GMT

For those of you struggling with FC's PlanPlus products, try Achieve Planner (www.effexis.com). You will definitely be glad you did!

Calvin

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

Wiz Kid — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 13:06:58 GMT

Man, I couldn't agree more with the posts knocking Plan Plus for Outlook software. I'm using PP for Outlook 3.0.778 on an HP laptop running XP. The software is *MADDENING*. It runs slow, it's buggy as all hell, it crashes routinely on an otherwise super-fast, super-clean machine and I've spent more frustrating hours trying to get the damn piece of crap running right than I have getting my planning done. I've never used the stand-alone (for XP) program but I'd recommend trying that first to anyone who's considering using PP for Outlook. Also, here's another possible workaround: They make a piece of software that lets you print your own forms modeled after their paper-planning pages. Sure, it's not nearly as fast as the all-digital realm and certain functionality diminishes (such as handling e-mail efficiently). But as far as your planning goes: roles, big rocks, goals, tasklists, etc. it represents a step above doing everything on paper by hand. (Obviously, this is for the unrelentingly dedicated Franklin Covey fan,who doesn't want to use any other system, which I am). That software is called "Forms Wizard" and can be found on their website. Finally, they also have an online planning system which I just discovered on their website (PlanPlus Online). Hmmmm???......

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

Carmen Natschke — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 19:21:42 GMT

I've been using Franklin Covey software since 2001 and their paper system for seven years prior to that so I would be considered a loyal fan of the system but after suffering serious data loss, productivity stand-stills and consistent pc crashes (on a powerful laptop) after upgrading to Franklin Covey Plan Plus for Outlook V.4 - I've decided to search for another planning and productivity solution that actually works.

For those interested in a handheld planning system I've found Pocket Informant 2007 and I've been happy with its functionality. Now I just need to find a desktop planning tool to replace the Franklin Covey PPO Version 4.0. Any suggestions?

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

michael — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 07:33:19 GMT

Hi. I find the comments on PP for Outlook interesting. I must say that's it does tend to slow down outlook. I can't seem to see a preview of my email in planplus home. I should be able to see the email on my right but it's simply not appearing. I need to switch to outlook inbox to view it. I'm using office 2003. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

hans from amsterdam / treo650 — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 15:11:12 GMT

I tried planplus for outlook 2.x, 3.x and 4.x.

I also tried planplus for XP.

It has been a hell, and now after recognising most of the issues described above, I'll stop using it.

They never have released something stable enough that it becomes usable. Instead of working on stability they throw in new features to make you pay for a new upgrade.

The advise their support will give you is always surrounded by words like: reboot, repair, reinstall palmplus, sync, sync again and even reinstall palm desktop.

Maybe they should pay me for the fact that I've been their beta test user :(

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

smc — Tue, 22 May 2007 21:11:14 GMT

The customer support policies at FC are not customer friendly. I own a copy of PPOv.3, had good luck using it with OutlookPro2003 for about a year. Recently it stopped working, CSR at FC say that a security update to Outlook causes PPOv3 to loose functionality. CSR says I need to purchase the upgrade to v.4. They provided no other solution. Wow! DO NOT BUY IT!

re: Review of FranklinCovey's PlanPlus

Chris — Fri, 25 May 2007 10:30:29 GMT

I'm having the usual problems with PP for Outlook and I really don't like Pocket Informant. On my Pocket PC, the font is so tiny that I need a magnifying glass to read things. It is way too busy of a program and I don't really like it, despite what many people seem to think. Is there something I'm missing about that program?