Review: Role Call Tasks for BlackBerry

How many times have you been told to not bite off more than you can chew? If you take on too many projects, or flood your schedule, chances are something will be forgotten. Without proper management, you will probably neglect an important item of interest. It’s almost a natural reaction to smack your forehead when you realize your mistake. Luckily, your ever faithful BlackBerry is equipped with a Calendar and Tasks list to keep you in line. On the other hand, what if you are reminding yourself of a meeting request that was emailed to you? You could be doing a lot of back and forth navigation between applications to get your reminders straight. The Copy and Paste option isn’t always the easiest solution either.

Role Call Tasks is an incredibly powerful task management tool that builds upon what your native task application started out to do. It allows you to easily create tasks with reminders and various sorting options. If you’re up to the task (pardon the pun), why not check out if Role Call Tasks will help you stay on top and on the task at hand (sorry, another one).

About Role Call Tasks

The application was developed by Blue Sky Analytics LLC, who is also behind Role Call Reminders Lite and Role Call Tasks Lite; a free application that serves as a basic version, of sorts, of Role Call Tasks. I currently have version 1.1.0.1 installed, which takes up 132.1KB. You must be running OS 4.5 or higher to use Role Call Tasks.

The idea behind Role Call Tasks is to give you the power to create a task and manage it, while minimizing the steps taken to do so. As you’ve seen with your native task feature, Role Call makes use of priority, reminder, notes and due date options. Task settings are resolved by entering the task subject and shortcodes all on the same line; rather than scrolling through the various preferences we are used to. This speeds up task entry immensely. The following are shortcuts that you can use:

• “at time” or “for time” allows you to set a due time. “at 12:30” sets the due time for 12:30pm
• “-r number” sets a reminder for the number of minutes you wish, so a 15 minute reminder will be “-r15”
• “. Text” lets you leave notes such as; “.finish review for CrackBerry"
• high and low priority can be set by typing “hi pri” or “low pri” (or “high priority” or “low priority”)

I can then type “hi pri CrackBerry Review at 3:30 –r 20. Don’t forget to post” and create a high priority task due at 3:30 with a 20 minute reminder and notes. Role Call Tasks also has shortcut keys to speed up your application navigation.

Users can view their tasks by date or by category. For viewing by date, I would suggest hiding the days that have no tasks. This will eliminate unnecessary date entries and de-clutters your view of your tasks. The application integrates smoothly into your native Tasks and Calendar. I did like some of the advanced options available as well. If you were unable to complete a task on time, you can use the “Punt” feature to push it forward up to 4 weeks. Also, if you are not sure when a task has to be completed, then you need the Someday option. Someday, lets you insert tasks, without dates, in the Task by Date view. That way they aren’t forgotten completely. Role Call Tasks also includes the ability to send your task lists in a CSV file. Lists can be sent as a detailed or simple list.

Now if you had Role Call Reminders installed as well, you can then create tasks from your call log, emails or contacts; thereby decreasing task entry even further.

Conclusion

Role Call Tasks is a powerful task entry tool indeed, especially when coupled with Role Call Reminder. It offers streamlined task entry and menu navigation that takes the effort out of making and managing tasks. The shortcut text takes a short amount of time to memorize, but in time, it’s faster than scrolling through options. Role Call Tasks can be found in the CrackBerry App Store for $4.99. If you would like to try before you buy, you can download the free Role Call Tasks Lite (less features).

Pros

• Less time entering tasks
• Email task lists in csv format
• Various task list views

Cons

• Requires another app to create tasks from calls, contacts and email

More Info

• Pick up Role Call Tasks for BlackBerry Smartphones >>