1Soft offers both Active Life, a Personal Information Manager, and 1 Team, Group Productivity Software. 1 Team has all the features of Active LIfe, plus additional workgroup features. This section details those additional features.
1. With 1 Team you can view and update multiple schedules on the same screen in overlapping windows. One or more of these schedules can be based on local area network (LAN) servers.
2. With 1 Team you can delegate tasks easily by "cutting" items from your schedule and "pasting" them into the schedules of co-workers.
3. You can check on the status of tasks being performed by others in the group. If the task is completed you'll see it marked done, if it is coming up, you can see when the person plans to get to do it.
4. 1 Team enables you to easily schedule meetings when a group of others (and yourself) are available.
5. You can post electronic mail by inserting notes into another person's schedule.
6. Users can be restricted in accessing and updating selected schedules. This can be done by setting read/write permission through the Network administration software already running on your LAN.
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4.02 Activating Users
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In order to look at or update others schedules you must first "activate" the users, which means that their schedules will appear on your screen. A list of the "active" users can displayed by selecting the Schedules menu. You may "activate" users as follows:
If you are using Windows: from the Program Manager select File: Run and type a command line such as:
Team Bob.pak Karen.pak Jim.pak
where Bob.pak Karen.pak and Jim.pak are the data files of the people whose schedules you wish to activate. You may also create an icon with a command line such as the one above, or create one icon for each 1 Team user's schedule. Then, to Activate a user, you could simply double-click on their icon.
If you are running DOS without Windows, you will type the command line at the DOS prompt, or place it in a batch file if more convenient. Since the .pak extension is the default, you could optionally enter the above example as:
Team Bob Karen Jim
This assumes both team.exe and all 3 data files exist in the current directory. If, on the other hand, the data files are in 3 different directories, the command line might look something like this:
Team k:\bob\timedata m:\karen\timedata p:\jim\timedata
The file timedata.pak is the default name used by 1 Team if you don't give a filename when you start it. Your datafiles can be renamed and moved any time you wish.
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4.03 Major Features
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1 Team is an exciting new product which is designed to enhance group productivity, 1 Team is available in three PC editions:
1 Team for MS-DOS 3.0+
1 Team for Microsoft Windows 3.0
1 Team for OS/2 PM 1.2+
Datafiles are interchangeable across all platforms, so users on the same LAN can be running any mix of DOS, Windows, or OS/2 workstations and still share scheduling information transparently.
Designed for a workgroup to use over a LAN, 1 Team has three major features not available in Active Life:
1. Workload Balancing
2. Status Query
3. Meeting Maker
Details begin on the next page.
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4.04 Workload Balancing
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Supervisors who assign work can monitor the workload and priorities of each worker in a precise way. 1 Team schedules show clearly the workload on each day, in percentages, amounts, and even graphically with use of color on a month-at-a-glance view.
Supervisors know ahead of time when a worker is running out of things to do, or on the other hand, if too much work is piling up.
Supervisors can see when workers will be getting to particular tasks, and shift the work sequence based on new priorities.
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4.05 Status Query
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Supervisors can check the completion status of any task at anytime, without interrupting the worker. The worker doesn't even have to be available, which is important if they are working at another location, at lunch, on the phone, out sick, or on another shift. This is an enormous time saver. If the supervisor finds the task has not been completed, he can also see when the worker has planned to get to it.
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4.06 Meeting Maker
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Meetings for several 1 Team users can be planned jointly. The cost of trying to find out when everyone in the group is free is normally quite high, because of the amount of time it takes to interview each person in the group and have them check their schedules, and recheck their schedules for alternate slots. That hassle is eliminated with 1 Team's Meeting Maker, because anyone with access to all the schedules needed can plan a meeting that is conflict-free. When a joint meeting is scheduled, the item is posted on the schedules of each of the attendees.
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4.07 How to Use the Meeting Maker
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The Meeting Maker feature will find blocks of free time which are common to all the 1 Team users whose schedules are currently active on the screen of the person who is scheduling the meeting. The Schedules menu will display a list of the users who are active. For information on how to activate selected users, see the section entitled "Activating 1 Team Users".
When the "Arrange a Meeting" command is selected, a dialog box will appear. The 1 Team users which are active will be listed in the box labeled "Attendees".
Enter the title of the meeting as you would like it to appear on the attendees schedules. Enter the duration of the meeting if different from the default duration. Select the appropriate check boxe(s) for the day(s) fo the week that the meeting can occur.
The "Search Bounds" are the time constraints for when the meeting can be scheduled. The "Start Date" is the earliest date that the meeting could be scheduled. Enter the desired search bounds and start date if different from those shown.
When the "Search" command is selected, 1 Team will search the attendees schedules for a block of free time of the specified duration, between the search bounds, and after the start date. The first potential meeting date will appear in the box below the "Search" command button. The block of free time which is common to all attendees on that date will appear in the "Open Range" box. A suggested begin time will appear in the "Begin Time" box. If the open range is longer than the meeting duration, you may specify an alternate begin time within the open range.
If the first potential meeting date and open time range is not to your liking, simply select the "Next" command. 1 Team will search for the next block of free time (of the duration specified) which is common to all attendees. To return to the first potential meeting date select the "Search" command again.
When the suggested meeting date and begin time is to your liking, select the "Schedule" command and the meeting will be added to each attendee's schedule. To exit the Meeting Maker select the "Exit" button.
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