Franklin Planner 1.4 for MS Outlook

List Price: $49.95

Customer Reviews:

Run (don't walk) from this product [Posted on 2000-07-20]
I have to say that this product-which is a wonderful idea-is the single worst software package that I have ever purchased. I have not see a product as poorly designed since I bought a Coleco (I hope spelled it right) Adam 15 or so years ago.

My experiences started with an installation that took multiple days (I have been a programmer for 15+ years). My irritation increased, as features that I felt should be better integrated (ie. The Weekly Compass feature doesn't sync with my PalmPilot, poor printing capabilities...). After duplicating my contacts-increasing them from 300 to 600-multiple times, dropping meetings from my PalmPilot and conflicting with other PalmPilot software, I chose to cut my losses and de-install this product. This was after half a year of trying to make it work!

As a "7 Habits" reader who believes in the message that Steven Covey has sent forth, I cannot believe that this product made it to the Market. As a positive, the people who provided technical support provided excellent support-making the software work as best it could.

Paraphrasing business writer Tom Peters "stick with your knitting." In this case, I would recommend that you buy software from Palm Computing and day planners from Franklin Covey.

very skimpy manual [Posted on 2000-08-21]
i bought the version of FP for Oulook and Palm... and have been regreting my decision ever since. note that if you have Outlook 2000 -- which i have recently upgraded to -- it is incompatible; it also happens to be incompatible w/the Palm Pocketmirror sync ultility.

tech support was helpful and i was eventually able to upgrade FP for Outlook 2000 but the procedure was LABORIOUS.

one of the most useless function is the Master Task List, MTL, which i thought would act as an overview of the Daily Task List, DTL (the DTL only pops up on the completion date but only within the DTL on the Palm and NOT on the calendar)... it is not. the MTL will only work if you don't assign a start date to the task/project (??!!). i also have the same problem mentioned by the over reviewer about duplicated contacts and entries. this was a real annoyance to correct.

as i have noted on the subject line and mentioned by other reviewers, FP is not intuitive to set up or modify. i can only recommend a look if you have used/enjoyed Franklin Covey's products, otherwise i would stay away.

Worst software I have ever seen... [Posted on 2000-10-26]
This is far and away the worst, most bug-ridden, and poorly tested software I have ever used. The current software has downloadable patches to try and fix some of the problems, but costs far to much in time to fix all the data coruption problems with it.

My advice, do not buy this software. There is good shareware software available to do the same thing.

Pass on this and save yourself some heartache [Posted on 2000-11-30]
I bought this and really wanted it to work for me. Nothing but heartache. I installed the first time, had a ton of problems, then uninstalled it out of disappointment, and which caused even more problems, which led me to have to completely uninstall all of my Palm software plus reinstall Outlook 2000 to get back to where I was before I started.

Amazingly, when they came out with an updated version, I tried again, with similar, though not as disastous results, mostly because I pulled the plug on the product before it could do much more damage. I have the CD sitting in my drawer, and I look at wistfully because I want it to do what it promises, but it just doesn't work.

Lose-Lose Proposition [Posted on 2002-02-10]
To be brief, the worst software I have ever purchased. I wish I could give the software less than 1 star.

Click here for more details and discount information...