The next Zoho application to run through is Zoho Planner. I don't know what to expect going in, but I do know I am looking forward to a planner that can help me track to do items online. Zoho describes the application as in beta and simply as Online Organizer.

When you open the application it loads without any delay. There is no loading message and it instantly appears. You're going to see a screen such as the one below, which seems a little sparse to start. My suggestion is to go ahead and change your timezone on the left hand side.

When you click on the option to change your time zone a new screen appears and you can select the proper time zone. There is a confirmation message that appears when you change the time zone, but the screen remains. This is a good thing since you can also change your skin from here. Looking down further you'll see export options to icalendar and RSS feeds. Clicking the Home Page option on the left returns you to the start page.

Now, I mentioned it's sparse. I didn't understand the concept of the planner until I started playing around. It's laid out like a single page view with everything on one page. Enetering the information is easy. You click on the type of information you'd like to add, enter the details and submit. The information instantly shows up on your page.

The following are the information types you can enter:

To-Dos: These are specific tasks you need to accomplish. They can have dates assigned to them or not and whether you should be reminded about them. They show up as a list on the Home Page and can be reordered.

Appointments: These are meetings or calls you need to attend. They have dates assigned to them, you can select to have them repeat and you can set a reminder.

Notes: A free form area to add information you would like to remember. If you enter a URL it automatically makes it live. There is no option to format your text, though. You cannot change the fonts, size, etc.

Attachments: This is a pretty cool feature where you can upload, less than 10 megabytes total, a photo, document or anything else that you need to refer to or use.

Tags: This allows you to tag your page. To be honest, I have no idea what tags are used for in this context. There is no help to research further.

On the left hand side you'll see more options. You can list your pages, look at pages that have been shared to you or the public and see a calendar overview of your To-Dos.

The first thing that struck me as odd was the lack views. While I understand the page metaphor of the planner, which I think is a good, linear way or looking at things, I think it would help to have a calendar view. At minimum allow the To-Dos view from the left hand side embed in your page, because the ^superscript showing the number of to-dos is ingenious.

Once I cleared that hurdle it became a productive tool. It is a simple tool, but one that has great growth potential. You're really going to enjoy the following features:

Reordering lists: This one was confusing at first due to the language used. When you are in a list there are two options at the end of the list ADD LIST ITEM and REORDER. When you click on REORDER it appears nothing happens. It took me a good two minutes to realize my cursor changed when I moved it onto the list. YES! The lists are drag and droppable. This makes moving things around much easier.

Reminder emails: There are no audio reminders, which can be a pain if you are used to them. What does rock is Zoho Planner's emailing of your reminders. When the time comes for your To-Dos or appointments you receive an email. I didn't know it was going to happen, but was happy when it did. The email comes from noreplay@zohoplanner.com, but it made it through the GMAIL filter without an issue.

Email items: This feature is fantastic. Every Zoho Planner page has an associated email address. By using a simple command structure you can email items to your planner pages. It is very quick in delivering and posting items. From a GMAIL account it took less than five seconds for a new note to show up. The only missing information was any audit trail of where the note came from. If you are sharing a page it'd be nice to see if someone other than you added something.

The following items are things you'll notice are missing or don't work like you'd think:

Lack of search: Maybe I am blind, but I couldn't find a way to search my pages. I could see this as a necessary function if I have various planner pagers for different websites I work on. If I add a note to one page and forget about it, I'd like to search for it.

No tabs on top: After the treat of having multiple documents tabbed in Zoho Write, it was disappointing not to see the tabs in Zoho Planner. It would make perfect sense it you run with a page metaphor as opposed to a calendar.

Reordering the page: Again, with the page metaphor you gain some productivity, but you cannot reorder the page itself. For me the notes are more important than the ToDos, but there is no way to force them to the top of the page. Then again, it took me two minutes to realize how the reorder function worked, so maybe I missed it.

Overall, I found Zoho Planner to be a good start to a web enabled planning tool. The metaphor of using pages seems unbalanced at first, but when you dig in to using you won't miss a calendar view. The lack of search limits the functionality of multiple pages, but I am sure I either missed it or it will be added. 

The true value of Zoho Planner is the email component. It just works, which is the best thing you can say about a web enabled application.  

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