Feature Summary - TPAssist 2007 Capture, Store, Process

TPAssist includes the ability to move content around your various linked project and dashboard maps quickly and easily. This capability is defined under the heading of "Capture / Store / Process" and has the following components:

• Capture Tools (System Tray Icon, Outlook Capture, Send Topic, Link At and Send Map)
• Basket Processor (MindManager add-in)
• Auto-Journal
• Quick Links map
• Temporary Storage of TEXT capture files

These components work together as a team to help you instantly capture, store and process your ideas, tasks, notes and next actions.

Capture Tools (System Tray Icon, Outlook Capture, Send Topic, Link At and Send Map)

TPAssist supports a number of methods for capturing:

1. Firstly ideas, tasks, notes and next actions can be captured via the System Tray Capture (STC) tool (This tool is external to MindManager and installed separately, see TPAssistCapture for Mindjet® MindManager®).
   
2. Secondly, Microsoft Outlook emails and other items can be delivered to your map for processing via the Outlook Capture tool (This tool is external to MindManager and installed separately, see TPAssistCapture for Microsoft® Outlook®)
   
3. Thirdly, you can send topic trees to the capture basket via the Send Topic command (with-in MindManager).
   
4. Also, you can use the capability to automate the process of creating linked topics on dashboards and summary maps via the Link At command (with-in MindManager).
   
5. And finally, the entire mind maps can be sent to the capture basket via the Send Map command (with-in MindManager).

Basket Processor (MindManager add-in)

Basket Processing is performed within MindManager. To process outstanding items, simply open MindManager, then click the TPAssist Process command. TPAssist will now open each captured item, find the associated Quick Link, follow the hyperlink and insert the captured item as a new subtopic at the resulting location.


Auto-Journal

Auto-Journal is a facility provided by TPAssist to help you journal your captured items. The concept being that when you "capture" something you want the fact that it was captured "journalled" when it "lands". This is useful if you capture an action and want it automatically included in a task map with a starting date of when the action was captured. An "Auto-Journal" is effectively a MindManager Callout topic appropriately formatted. When TPAssist comes across this formatted Callout, it will use the TPAssist Options to determine if it is processed just as if you had use the "Journal" tab to enter the topic details.


Quick Links map

The Quick Links map is a MindManager map (compatible with version 6, 7 and 8). Unless otherwise instructed TPAssist, will create and maintain this map in your "My Documents" folder. The map will be saved as "MyTPAssistCaptureQuickLinks.mmap"

Quick Links are "instructions" that specify two things: Firstly, the Quick Link name or topic title is the Category or Tag that is used to organize your notes during the capture process. Secondly, associated with each Quick Links is a Hyper Link to another mind map and topic. It is these hyper linked topics which will "receive" your notes as new subtopics during Basket Processing.


Temporary Storage of TEXT capture files


TPAssist's Capture / Store / Process facility uses TEXT files to store captured items. These captures are stored locally in a sub folder of your "My Documents" folder. You can configure where TPAssistCapture stores these files.

Introducing TPAssistCapture For Mindjet® MindManager®: How Does it work?

TPAssistCapture For Mindjet® MindManager®
Instantly capture, store and process your ideas, tasks, notes and next actions.

The purpose of TPAssistCapture is to help you keep focused on the task at hand, by giving you the means to instantly capture, store and process your ideas, tasks, notes and next actions(1).

How does TPAssistCapture Work?

TPAssistCapture operates on Quick Links which is a method to send ideas, tasks, notes and next actions directly to the mind map you use to manage them (STEP 1).

You start by configuring your categories or tags and defining where in your mind maps these items should be delivered. As you uncover, discover or receive ideas, tasks, notes and next actions, you simply use TPAssistCapture to store them to a basket for processing (STEP 2).

Then when ready, you use TPAssistCapture to extract the items from the queue and send them to your mind maps (STEP 3).

TPAssistCapture uses a mind map, the "Quick Links Map" to store and manage your capture categories/tags. The capture process is performed by the Capture Tools (i.e. System Tray icon, and the Send Topic and Send Map capabilities in MindManager). These capture tools are purposely "decoupled" from MindManager for efficiency and speed, and also so that you can work away in MindManager on key focus items independently of your capture process.

Download TPAssistCapture For Mindjet® MindManager® right now... its FREE!

(1) "Next Actions" are a concept widely associated with the Getting Things Done (GTD) approach developed by David Allen (www.davidco.com http://www.davidco.com/).

Mindjet and MindManager are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Mindjet, LLC in the United States and/or other countries.

GTD and Getting Things Done are registered trademarks of David Allen & Co..

TPAssist Feature Summary - Multi-Map Publish to Microsoft® Excel® and Microsoft® Project

• Microsoft® Excel® Publish - TPAssist 2007 facilitates effective publishing of your task and project maps through a series of pre- formatted Microsoft® Excel® spreadsheets.


• Microsoft® Project Export - TPAssist 2007 Microsoft Project publishing capability allows you to publish work and cost information as well as roll-up or summarise project maps via a single Gantt chart.


• Consolidate and Publish multi-maps - TPAssist 2007's publish to Microsoft® Excel® and Microsoft Project capability are multi-map enabled, allowing you to managing complex projects over multiple maps and produce consolidate Work breakdowns, project schedules and other reports.


• Analyse project plans via Microsoft® Excel® - TPAssist 2007's publish to Microsoft® Excel® capability also provides "pivot source" worksheets, which are flat exports of map topics specifically formatted to facilitate pivot tables, charting and other manipulation to help you analysis and present task and project details.

TPAssist Feature Summary - Task Automation

• Automate Task dates - TPAssist 2007 can be used to automatically create and maintain start and due dates for map topics.


• Link groups of related topics - Known as "Levelling", TPAssist 2007's date automation capability also recognises topic relationship. Relationship can be used to adjust the start and/or end dates of dependant topic tasks.


• Have complete control - TPAssist 2007's Task Automation is enabled at topic level so it can be controlled for an entire map or separately for individual topics and/or topic trees. Further more, topics with-in a group can be individually included or excluded from the group's Task Automation giving you complete control over your task and/or project maps.


• Roll-up across multi-maps - TPAssist 2007's Task Automation works in parallel to the Roll-up capability, such that topic task date details will be automatically copied up the tree and also to linked parent maps.


• Standard tools - TPAssist 2007 supports the typical methods for aligning tasks and groups of tasks (i.e. Finish-to-Start (FS), Start-to-Start (SS), Finish-to-Finish (FF) and Start-To-Finish (SF)). These modifiers can be applied to relationships and to the topic trees allowing you to create and manage even the most complex set of activity or projects.

TPAssist 2007 v1.5 - What's New - Excel Export - "Pivot Source"

In addition to producing a number of "ready to print" reports, TPAssist will export map project and task information to a format suitable for generating pivot tables and charts. This capability unleashes the potential types of reports and analysis possible with mind map details.

In summary, this new feature includes:

• Export to Excel "Pivot Source" worksheet - flat export of mind map end topics to worksheet in a format suitable for pivot tables and charts.




• Export to Excel "Status Source" worksheet - flat export of mind map end topics to worksheet in a format suitable for pivot tables and charts, plus filtering




• Manipulate and analysis task "work", costs and categorises.




• Categorise topics perform detailed analysis with Excel Pivot tables.

TPAssist 2007 v1.5 - What's New - Financial Capabilities

TPAssist's Financial Capabilities allow you to manage estimated, actual and remaining "Work" and topic "Values" directly with-in your map topics.

With the Financial Capabilities turned-on you can:

• Incorporate resource effort "Work" (not just Duration) and other cost management capabilities in topics and have that detail rolled-up to parent topics and maps.




• Manage estimated, actual and remaining work and cost values for topic, topic trees and maps.




• Have your work, costs and other TPAssist "extra" properties displayed directly on the map with automatically populated titles and "Display" custom properties.




• Use Excel to further analyse work and costs using the improved "Pivot Source" Excel Export function.




• Publish work effort and fixed costs into Microsoft Project.

TPAssist Feature Summary - Microsoft® Outlook® Integration

• Automated Task, Calendar & E-mail integration with Microsoft Outlook® - TPAssist 2007 provides integration between mind map topics and Outlook Tasks and Appointments. In addition, Outlook Items can be linked or embedded as attachments to mind map topics.


• Synchronise your map topics - TPAssist 2007 Outlook Integration synchronises information between your mind map topics and Outlook Task and Appointment items.
  In addition to leveraging the powerful task and reminder capabilities of Outlook, TPAssist 2007 Outlook Integration, provides the means to get instance access to your current activities outside of MindManager. Outlook Integration is enabled on a per topic basis, although it can be enabled by default for all mind map topics by changing the TPAssist Document properties. The Outlook Items created by TPAssist will contain the same task details as the original mind map topic, plus the item notes area will contain a summary of the topic details.


• Open your mind map topics from Outlook and update the map - Outlook Task and Appointment items created by TPAssist 2007 can be used to "jump" directly into your mind maps. During the "jump", TPAssist 2007 will automatically read the Outlook Item and then update the mind map topic's task details if needed.


• Manage your e-mails via your mind map - TPAssist 2007 provides the means to track your e-mails, appointments, notes, tasks etc with-in your mind map. This integration not only automatically creates journal entries it also allows you to open the item again from with-in your mind maps. Outlook Items can be linked or embedded. When embedded, they are stored like file attachments and are then available to you directly from the map, allowing you to delete the original from Outlook.


• Create tasks from your e-mail - TPAssist 2007 also offers the ability to auto-create mind map topics directly from your e- mails, appointments, notes, tasks etc.


• Enable Getting-Things-Done (GTD) - TPAssist 2007 also supports Outlook Item categories, making TPAssist 2007 an excellent companion for Outlook methods and tools that make use of item Categories, like the David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology.

TPAssist Feature Summary - A Collaboration companion for teams and enterprises

• Track changes across shared maps - TPAssist automatically journals changes made to task details, including dates, priority, flags, percentage complete, text markers as well as resource assignment so you have a history, or audit trail, of where and when changes were made to the plan.


• "My Tasks" Resource Filtering in Tree Summarisation - The TPAssist 2007 task tree summary capability has a "Resource Filter" which can be used to manage tasks assigned to one or more individuals.


• Use Team Dashboards - TPAssist 2007's Tree Update and Task Summary also work with Multimaps. Dashboards can be built very easily by linking topics to sub-maps and then running TPAssist 2007 Tree Update in Multimap mode.


• Enable Workflow - Use MindManager and TPAssist to construct workflow tasks, set durations/effort and assign ownership. Also linking them with relationships and automated dates. As you progress your workflow, using TPAssist, you can visually track steps taken and yet to be taken. In addition, because your actions are tracked with-in the map, you have an instant audit trail of your workflow progress.


• Manage Financial Information - TPAssist uses custom properties to capture financial estimates and actual values. Financial values captured via TPAssist will be rolled-up the map to provide the visually means to track estimates and actual details across groups of tasks, maps and Multimaps.


• Consolidate and Publish multi-maps - TPAssist 2007's publish to Microsoft® Excel® capability is multi-map enabled, allowing you to managing complex projects over multiple maps and produce consolidate Work breakdowns, project schedules and other reports.


• Microsoft Project Export with Multimap Support - TPAssist 2007 Microsoft Project publishing capability allows you to managing complex projects over multiple maps and produce a single Gantt chart.
  

TPAssist Feature Summary - A Toolkit for Project Managers

• Manage complex projects - TPAssist 2007 can be used to manage simple groups of tasks or very complex projects.


• Keep an Audit Trail - TPAssist automatically journals changes made to task details, including dates, priority, flags, percentage complete, text markers as well as resource assignment so you have a history, or audit trail, of where and when changes were made to the plan.


• Automatically move dates of interdependent tasks - TPAssist 2007 provides the means to create complex project plans of interdependent activities, whereby dates will move automatically when related activities and tasks are updated and completed.
  Known as "Levelling", TPAssist 2007's date automation capability also recognises topic relationship. Relationship can be used to adjust the start and/or end dates of dependant tasks.


• Track and present task status changes - TPAssist provides a Task Status capability that can be used to record and track status for any topic and also the overall map. Changes to status can be painlessly duplicated from topic to map to parent map.


• Track project costs visually - TPAssist uses custom properties to capture financial estimates and actual values. This values will be rolled-up the map to provide the visually means to track any number of financial aspects associated with task, stage/phase, project and portfolio.


• Publish reports to spreadsheets - TPAssist 2007 facilitates effective publishing of your project plans through a series of pre- formatted Microsoft® Excel® spreadsheets.
  The publish to Microsoft® Excel® capability draws on several built-in templates to display Work Breakdown Structures (WBS), team To- Do lists, a Resource Planner/Schedule and project Gantt Chart.


• Consolidate and Publish multi-maps - TPAssist 2007's publish to Microsoft® Excel® capability is multi-map enabled, allowing you to managing complex projects over multiple maps and produce consolidate Work breakdowns, project schedules and other reports.


• Analyse project plans via Excel - TPAssist 2007's publish to Microsoft® Excel® capability also provides "pivot source" worksheets, which are flat exports of map topics specifically formatted to facilitate pivot tables, charting and other manipulation to help you analysis and present project details.


• Summarise your resource and project cost estimates in Excel - TPAssist 2007 adds the ability to capture resource costs and then publish the resulting plans into a "quote" style spreadsheet.


• Managed project information - Through TPAssist's semi- structured notes capability, information can be easily embedded in your project maps and then exposed via the Excel based publishing tool.


• Resource Filtering in Tree Summarisation - The TPAssist 2007 task tree summary capability has a "Resource Filter" which can be used to manage tasks assigned to one or more individuals.


• Microsoft® Project Export with Multimap Support - TPAssist 2007 Microsoft Project publishing capability allows you to managing complex projects over multiple maps and produce a single Gantt chart.

TPAssist Feature Summary - Dashboards & Reporting

• Visualise your progress - TPAssist 2007 is designed to provide you with the visual cues to track and manage the various requests and activities that fill your day.


• Summarise your next action - TPAssist 2007 has a straight-forward reporting tool that can be used to easily identify and manage your tasks based on due date proximity, priorities and flag.


• Work with Multimaps - TPAssist 2007's Tree Update and Task Summary also work with Multimaps. Dashboards can be built very easily by linking topics to sub-maps and then running TPAssist 2007 Tree Update in Multimap mode.

TPAssist Feature Summary - Capture and Roll-up of Financial Information

• Capture Financial Details- TPAssist uses custom properties to capture financial estimates and actual values.




• Manage "Work" as well as Duration - Incorporate resource effort (Work), as well as Duration, in task topics.




• Manage topic "value" - Manage estimated, actual and remaining topic "values" for topic, topic trees and maps. This value can represent the cost of task, perhaps weekly sales figures or even expenses.




• Roll-up Financial Details - Financial values captured via TPAssist will be rolled-up the map to provide the visually means to track estimates and actual details across groups of tasks, maps and Multimaps.




• Expose financial values on the map - Work, costs and other TPAssist "extra" properties can be displayed directly on the map with automatically populated titles, callouts and "Display" custom properties.




• Publish Work and Cost to Microsoft® Excel® and Microsoft® Project - Resource effort (Work) and topic value can be published to Microsoft® Excel® and Microsoft® Project for analysis, publication and distribution.

TPAssist Feature Summary - Workflow Support

• Visualise your workflow - Use MindManager and TPAssist to construct workflow tasks, linking them with relationships and automated dates.


• Operator/Execute your workflow - TPAssist 2007 automatically records or "journals" your actions and task configuration changes with-in the topic notes. Your actions are also noted in context to which it related, i.e. all parent topics and linked maps.


• Review/Audit your workflow history - As you progress your workflow, using TPAssist, you can visually track steps taken and yet to be taken. In addition, because your actions are tracked with-in the map, you have an instant audit trail of your workflow progress.


• Create templates and re-use your workflows - Use TPAssist to take existing task trees and turn them into new ready to use workflow task trees.

TPAssist Feature Summary - Roll-up of Task Information

• Take a Birds Eye View - The ease at which individual topic status is rolled- up to a centralised view ensures you can quickly see what has to be done and give you instant satisfaction regarding what you have already achieved.


• Uncover buried task information - Topic Task information with-in your map can become buried when you collapse and filter the hierarchy. You may have Priorities, percentage complete, flags and dates assigned to topics, but none of this will be obvious unless you expand the specific tree.


• Roll-up task details on demand - TPAssist 2007's Tree Update capability rolls-up priorities, percentage complete, dates and flags.


• Roll-up task details automatically - As well as manually, the Tree Update function is performed automatically whenever TPAssist is used to change the priority, percent complete, Start Date, Due Date or Flag.

TPAssist Feature Summary - Supercharged Task Lists

• Take the pain away from tracking your activities - TPAssist 2007 automatically records or "journals" your actions and task configuration changes with-in the topic notes. Your actions are also noted in context to which it related, i.e. all parent topics and linked maps.


• See your achievement for any given day - TPAssist 2007 also builds and maintains a Journal summary tree. This tree tracks your activities by date and is grouped by year, month and day.


• Turn your ideas in to action plans - TPAssist 2007 provides straight-forward techniques for taking Brainstorming ideas and turn them into Task maps ready to track and act-on.


• Track your activities with-in any number of sub maps - TPAssist 2007 is multi-map enabled supporting task status rollout and also tracking of task and activity progress.

TPAssist Dashboard, Practical Tips for Taking Control of your workplace responsibilities - Create sub-templates of activities you repeat all the time.

MindManager is great for facilitating routine activities and repeated work processes. In maximising the use of your time, you don't want to 're-invent the wheel' every time you have a set of activities to complete. You will want to make use of your past experience to make you more effective and efficient in every task. Further more, if you have some important process that you repeat often, you don't want to miss the odd step in the process and find yourself with further work to do correcting the mistake.

This short piece looks at how you can make use of topic tree templates to make you more effective at completing routine activities and repeated work processes.

You can also see a video presentation of this material via our video gallery.

We promote the use of proven process. Trying to build templates for sets of activities that you haven't complete at least once isn't the best use of your time. We'd recommend only building topic tree templates for activities that you've repeat at least one, and possibly a few more times if you'd not convinced you did it perfectly the first time around.

Once you have found a repeating set of activities, the process to create a topic tree template is very straight-forward.

Firstly, find a place to store your template (in video illustration, I created a template place holder with-in the focus area); You could also filter out any unwanted topics.

Secondly, you copy the topic structure to the clipboard. Now paste the topics as "text only", thereby removing any notes and other tracking details specific to the source tree.

We now convert the topic list to a task tree. At this point you could also add date automation, a vast topic that we explore in other presentations.

To conclude, make the template placeholder a "Research" topic to keep is clean and ensure that none of the TPAssist's tree roll-up automation is performed on this template.

Once we have a topic tree template, using it is even more straight-forward. All we do is copy the topic tree into the focus area we mean to use it and set the details on the first activity.

In Summary, we recommend using templates to make you more effective at completing routine activities and repeated work processes, the steps in that process are:

• Use proven process as the basis of your template.


• And create templates in-place with-in your maps to make them easy to find.

TPAssist Dashboard, Practical Tips for Taking Control of your workplace responsibilities - Quick Bird's Eye View - Daily Activity Reviews

Staying ultimately productive and enjoying your work at the same time is difficult enough without the added interruption of "task reminders".

Instead of having to "react" to reminders, we would recommend a proactive approach. Staying on-top of your commitments without reminders is easier said than done, because if your outstanding tasks don't come looking for you, you need to go looking for them!

This short piece looks at how you'd move from being a task reminder slave to a proactive commander of your own time.

You can also see a video presentation of this material via our video gallery.

One approach to being proactive in your activity management is the use of visual cues. We promote the use of three existing MindManager icon markers: flags, priorities and percent complete. These icon markers make great visual cues on individual topics.

An even more powerful extension is rolling up these Flags, priorities and percent complete icons to parent topics and maps. You can then quickly zoom in on items that need attention. This automation is provided by TPAssist 2007.

Another approach to proactively managing and finding your next action is the use of TPAssist's Task Summary view on a daily basis.

The Task Summary provides a view of all outstanding and approaching actions found with-in your Dashboard. When executed regularly, you'll find the 7 day horizon view an excellent alternative to the dozen task reminder appearing in your face every 5 minutes. Instead, you can go looking for your next action when you are ready, holding comfort in the fact that if you get drawn away from a task for a period, you'll easily find it again later via the Task Summary.

Using the Task Summary and/or visual clues in your Dashboard assumes you are using your map to plan your actions. Therefore at a minimum you need to ensure your map includes everything you need to do. If you forget to include some action you may find yourself not trusting the Task Summary or visual clues.

In Summary, our recommended approach to becoming a proactive commander of your own time is as follows:

• Use flags, priorities and percent complete as visual cues.


• Use the Task Summary daily to set your priorities for the day and see where you are going.


• And at a minimum capture everything you need to do in your map.

TPAssist Dashboard, Practical Tips for Taking Control of your workplace responsibilities -Sensible Approach to Task Tracking

The objective of task tracking is to recall what you have said, done, promised or been promised.

However it just isn't practical to track everything, so we must focus on aspects of our day that deliver the greatest benefit whilst minimising our exposure to overwhelm.

In other words we don't want to be overburdened with the management of loads of low priority tasks and reminders.

This piece illustrates a sensible approach to task tracking.

You can also see a video presentation of this material via our video gallery.

When you find something that impacts your job responsibilities directly, use your task trees to visually track progress.

Don't be afraid of having too many topics in your map, you can always create linked sub- maps if a mini- project becomes a big- project.

When something comes your way which may cause you concern at some later point, make a note of it and give it plenty of time to resolve.

This best guess time-frame approach to items at the perimeter of your responsibility, ensure, whilst on your radar, the item will hopefully stay out of the way of your primary activities.

Use "General" topics to track activities for items outside your direct line of responsibility, but indirectly linked to your ability to work productively.

An example might be receiving notice of an update to the company Holiday's policy. You may want to record a note of the change for next time you are planning some time away.

In Summary, our recommended approach to task tracking is as follows:

• Use new topics generously for aspects that directly impact your responsibilities.


• Use best guess time-frames for aspects at the perimeter of your responsibilities.


• Use topics with a Priority of 5 to capture peripheral activities.

TPAssist Dashboard, Practical Tips for Taking Control of your workplace responsibilities - Free your mind - "Set and Forget"

An important part of working productively is dealing with interruptions, whether they be external, like a phone call or e-mail, or be they of your own creation, like a new great idea.

This short piece looks at how your Dashboard can be used to effectively manage interruptions.

You can also see a video presentation of this material via our video gallery.

When an idea or requests land at your feet, spend a small amount of time assessing the steps or activities required to complete the request.

Put that list into the context to which it belongs. Then turn these steps or activities into mini- projects with automatic dates.

Before you move onto something else, always put a date on the next activity. This date is typically either when you you'll have time to address the request or when you next need to assess the status.

Every item in the Dashboard can be picked up by the Task Summary, so now that you have dates on your actions, you can put them out of your mind and get back to being productive.

So to summarise, our approach to Freeing your mind is follows:

• List actions and creating mini-plans


• Put a date on the next action or "check- point"And use the Task Summary to drive your productivity

TPAssist 2007 v1.4 - Release Notes

TPAssist 2007 version 1.4 is now available for download.

This update could be considered part 2 of our usability initative, which started with version 1.3 where we updated features based on knowledge gained from case studies and feedback from our growing communicate of subscribers.

The update includes improvement in some key areas and a small number of fixes.

Improvements to existing Features:

• The Publish Tab of TPAssist Console re-organised such that it is more intuitive and that the most used features are more accessible. The popup window has been re-designed to provide maximum accessibility to the capabilities that are used most often. You can obtain the lesser used capabilities by clicking the ">>>" button. Likewise, hiding the advanced options is achieved by clicking the "<<" button.
• The Tree Update Tab of TPAssist Console re-organised such that it is more intuitive and that the most used features are more accessible. The popup window has been re-designed to provide maximum accessibility to the capabilities that are used most often. You can obtain the lesser used capabilities by clicking the ">>>" button. Likewise, hiding the advanced options is achieved by clicking the "<<" button.
• The Progress popup has improved message to provide clearer indication of status. For example, the Tree Update and multimap Journal functionality now informs you when it is fetching maps from linked topics.

Fixes:

• Outlook Add-in compatibility verification (installer wont install the Outlook Add-in if the MindManager version isn't matched).
• The Document Properties "Advanced Options" choice is now remembered correctly.
• Improved instructions in "First Time Usage" message, when a TPAssist 2007 command is used on existing (non-TPAssist) mind maps.

Other Notes:

• This update has been built for MindManager 6.2.399 and 7.1.394, these exact versions must be installed in order to make use of the optional Outlook Add-in.
• Whilst this update has been successfully tested with Mindjet Connect, there are some known issues and beta program users should contact us for access to the TPAssist 2007 beta for Mindjet Connect. (http://www.tpassist.com/Support/Default.aspx)

TPAssist 2007 Feature in Focus: Topic Node Concat

TPAssist 2007 Topic Node Concat or just Topic Concat, is one of the added bonuses designed to make working with MindManager ultimately productive.

The tool is available via the Right-Click context menu on map topics. It has one purpose and many uses.

The purpose of the tool is to concatenate the text of sub topics into a parent single topic.

One of the key uses, and the reason the tool was originally developed is for use with TabletPC and MindManager “Pen mode”. Pen mode, especially when your TabletPC is in portrait mode, has a limited window for capturing your writing. This is clearly designed to facilitate brainstorming. However this small window proves less useful when capturing large amounts of notes in meetings, workshops, seminars or even training.

So the Topic Concat tool was developed to help bring trees of words back into sentences.

The following script illustrates how Topic Concat can be used.

STEP 1 - In the first instance, you may find yourself capturing notes during a meeting.

STEP 2 - Next you would use the MindManager “Ink To Text” tool to convert your writing into topic text.

STEP 3 - Now you use the TPAssist 2007 Topic Concat tool to bring these words into sentences.

The “level” option allows you to choose where your sentences start. In the example above we have chosen level “2” because our meeting notes start 2 levels down from the meeting agenda item.

The resulting map then looks as follows: