Do reminders work with shared tasks?
ponderosatree says:
I assign tasks to my partner through a shared list. I just started doing this. However, I discovered that the reminder was sent to ME and not him. I verified that the task was, in fact, on his list which is shared with me. Do reminders only remind the person that assigned the task? Not the person that the task was assigned to?
roopesh says:
I'm interested in this, too. Is your partner setup to receive reminders?
ponderosatree says:
Yes and when he assigns tasks to himself with a specific time he gets the reminder.
emily (Remember The Milk) says:
Hmm, we're looking into this one -- I don't think we currently support sending the reminders to all who are sharing the task (unless they've set the due date). We'll need to get this behaviour fixed up.
dj.scott.stankowitz says:
I have been trying to figure out how this is supposed to work as well. I was trying to understand if the person you are sharing tasks with needed to login after you shared the task in order to get the reminder. Because for some (older) tasks I have shared, the other user gets the reminder, but for newer ones, no reminder was being sent.
The reminders really always need to go to everyone who is sharing the task, as if it were their own. The whole idea of sharing a task, in my opinion, is for the user you are sharing with to get the reminder, or what's the point? Especially if the person you're sharing with doesn't login regularly, or at all? How are they supposed to know about the task? If I can't task someone without that person logging in, then the sharing feature is pretty much useless.
It is difficult enough to explain to someone that in addition to signing up for an account that YOU invited them to, they need to then add (at least) you to their contact list (and you need to add them to yours), before you can share tasks. After you have gone thru all that pain, sharing tasks and reminders should just work.
BTW, if the location and other attributes were shared as well, that would also be useful.
The reminders really always need to go to everyone who is sharing the task, as if it were their own. The whole idea of sharing a task, in my opinion, is for the user you are sharing with to get the reminder, or what's the point? Especially if the person you're sharing with doesn't login regularly, or at all? How are they supposed to know about the task? If I can't task someone without that person logging in, then the sharing feature is pretty much useless.
It is difficult enough to explain to someone that in addition to signing up for an account that YOU invited them to, they need to then add (at least) you to their contact list (and you need to add them to yours), before you can share tasks. After you have gone thru all that pain, sharing tasks and reminders should just work.
BTW, if the location and other attributes were shared as well, that would also be useful.
(closed account) says:
I agree with scott. One of the main reasons I signed up was because I was under the impression that this would be an easy way to share tasks regardless of distance between people.
However I found out that simply sharing a task doesn't mean that the people I share it with will get reminders also, when they need to.
The weirdest part is, if I create the task & share it with A, I'll get a reminder but he/she won't. If he/she logs in & re-enters the exact same due date & time that I'd entered originally for this task that *I* shared with him/her, then he/she will get a reminder but not me!
I really hope for this to be fixed soon because this bug totally negates the use of RTM for me sadly.
However I found out that simply sharing a task doesn't mean that the people I share it with will get reminders also, when they need to.
The weirdest part is, if I create the task & share it with A, I'll get a reminder but he/she won't. If he/she logs in & re-enters the exact same due date & time that I'd entered originally for this task that *I* shared with him/her, then he/she will get a reminder but not me!
I really hope for this to be fixed soon because this bug totally negates the use of RTM for me sadly.
dj.scott.stankowitz says:
Although I am fond of having my own reminder settings control how I get reminded about stuff, shared and sent tasks should probably override my reminder settings.
That is how MS Outlook works. Outlook has always let the sender set the reminder (it defaults to their default settings), and anyone can just send tasks and meetings with associated reminders to anyone on the same email server without permission. I suppose there could be a user option to determine which reminder settings to use (personal default or the reminder associated with the task) for shared and sent tasks.
If there needs to be more control around this, there could be a setting to allow everyone to task me, or just those on my contact list. Personally I think that anyone with a rememberthemilk account is just asking to be tasked...begging to be tasked, in fact :-)
And as far as reminder settings go, that also needs to be more flexible. Users need to be able to set more reminders (not just 2 day-based + 2 time-based, or whatever it is). And these need to be managed at the *task level*, but inheriting from my settings as the initial default.
For example, If I am setting up a birthday list, I may want to set the reminders for those tasks to be a week before instead of my default day before, so that I have more lead time to remember to buy a card. And so, I should be able to share those tasks and associated reminders with my wife because she needs the same lead time, and because she is way better at buying greeting cards than I.
Right now, even though I shared all 41 birthday tasks in my list with her, only I get reminded the day before, at which time i remind her to buy a card if she hasn't already. When I get reminded on the day of, I call her to remind her to call the birthday person. This workflow is less-than-ideal.
Once you fix this up your users can all not only schedule lunch with other RTM'ers, confident that they will get reminded to leave work on time and meet up at a specified location URL, but also directly task the development team with other cool enhancements. The possibilities are endless.
That is how MS Outlook works. Outlook has always let the sender set the reminder (it defaults to their default settings), and anyone can just send tasks and meetings with associated reminders to anyone on the same email server without permission. I suppose there could be a user option to determine which reminder settings to use (personal default or the reminder associated with the task) for shared and sent tasks.
If there needs to be more control around this, there could be a setting to allow everyone to task me, or just those on my contact list. Personally I think that anyone with a rememberthemilk account is just asking to be tasked...begging to be tasked, in fact :-)
And as far as reminder settings go, that also needs to be more flexible. Users need to be able to set more reminders (not just 2 day-based + 2 time-based, or whatever it is). And these need to be managed at the *task level*, but inheriting from my settings as the initial default.
For example, If I am setting up a birthday list, I may want to set the reminders for those tasks to be a week before instead of my default day before, so that I have more lead time to remember to buy a card. And so, I should be able to share those tasks and associated reminders with my wife because she needs the same lead time, and because she is way better at buying greeting cards than I.
Right now, even though I shared all 41 birthday tasks in my list with her, only I get reminded the day before, at which time i remind her to buy a card if she hasn't already. When I get reminded on the day of, I call her to remind her to call the birthday person. This workflow is less-than-ideal.
Once you fix this up your users can all not only schedule lunch with other RTM'ers, confident that they will get reminded to leave work on time and meet up at a specified location URL, but also directly task the development team with other cool enhancements. The possibilities are endless.