Most of our dialog revolves directly around our todo lists. We try to use the message system but it’s seems about as disconnected as sending an email. Attaching Messages to Todos is a must:

I need clarification on a todo … so I write a separate message – seems marginally better than email

I am dependant on someone else for a todo … I keep starting the task before I remember

Boss wonders about my unfinished todos … notes are elsewhere in messages

Why is Joes todo still not done … is he waiting on me? is he working on a dependant task?

I read Bobs todo and have a tip for him (code to reuse, sample website, similar previous task, etc) ... I’ll put it in messaging – but why not beneath his todo?

I review a file and want to comment on it, back to the message board. Someone reads my message post – now they are searching for the file to see it.

Adding messages to todos/files solves all the above issues, while still being surprisingly simple. This feature is a must for me. I’d pay for it. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

Jens,

Whilst I agree with the 37S approach to To Dos etc being able to comment on them and files to would be a welcome additional function for me.

The current approach is good. Sub To Do lists, and Dependencies may be nice features, but they are also complicated features.

We don’t need to change the way it works, just add a link that will take us to the messageboard for that todo (if one exists) or create one if it doesn’t.

This seems like such an obvious feature and is the reason our message system goes largely unused. To-dos so often need clarification and/or further discussion. I see no reason why being able to link a to-do item to a message should be any more complex than the already existing ability to link a to-do list to a milestone. It’s optional, simple, and provides massive amounts of additional function for the system.

1. Add join table between messages and to-do items
2. Add trigger to remove the join if one of the two is deleted
3. Add a small link to a to-do item to create a message for the to-do item. No need to try and make it so you can specify which message to link to, there are too many messages and to-do items for that. Creating a new message from the to-do item would be fine.
4. Add a small message/comments link at the end of the to-do item if the message already exists.

Is this really that hard? Does it really overcomplicate things? I don’t think so.

I would welcome this addition with open arms.

• Frusterated ** constantly flipping between message boards, files, and todos.

I think it’s just a fogotten feature because the message boards were developed first, and then the todos. They both work fine by themselves, but not well at all together.

good suggestion, i’d be stoked to have this as well.

I’d like it if it was done in a non-complex way. I don’t want to think how that would be so I’ll leave it to 37s

me too.

The problem with To-Dos is that they already have a hierarchical complexity (parent to do list has child items). So you would have to consider what you are “linking” to the message.

Would you just want a list of “to do lists”

To Do List 1
To Do List 2
To Do List 3

Or would you want a hirarchical list of

To Do List 1
    To Do Item 1
    To Do Item 2
To Do List 2
    To Do Item 1
    To Do Item 2
To Do List 3
    To Do Item 1
    To Do Item 2
    To Do Item 3
    To Do Item 4

You can see how ugly this would get. Most likely we would want ONE to do item (not list) that is connected to a message, but what if it is a SET of to do items and we move them around into different lists?

And so on…

Excellent idea, but I’m not sure the development time would be worth it. There was a reason they didn’t tackle this idea right away.

I posted this same request about a year back. +1 for me.

We do it the old fashioned way—if you want to link a To-Do to a message, put some HTML in it. You can say see this post and link to the message in the to-do, easy. We do it all the time.

This would add great functionality, especially if you could then, when in the messages section, turnin on messages added from to-dos.

reply to Mr. Miller’s comments:

It’s not ugly at all. We want one message per todo item. Nobody needs messages for todo lists. I don’t believe this is difficult – put the messageID into the todo and it moves around with the todo. There is a reason this feature was not built, but I doubt it’s because it is difficult.

Reply to Tom Dolan: Thanks for the tip. I will give this a try. However, I still hope to see something you and I do all the time made easy.

pancom – nice idea. It’s not required for the basic feature but I think your idea of a “include todo messages” filter would allow for better navigation within the message section.

It would be great if 37signals could find a simple way of enabling manual hyperlinks. I would really like to link some todos with messages and other cross linking functions on an ad hoc basis. However, to do so is to difficult. I can’t remember the syntax and cutting and pasting url’s can get ugly and space consuming. A simple solution would be to put an “insert hyperlink” function into the system as well as “insert short name for hyperlink”. Then you could simply cut and paste the url (even external ones) and do the connections in a breeze.

+ 1 for me too – it’s the single biggest criticism from our developers and producers – the inability to leave notes with todos. Currently we create the message and then manually link it using HTML. This isn’t ideal as some of our staff are not HTML savvy – plus it adds an extra 30 secs to open another tab, create the message, save, copy the link, go back to the todo, create the text to link, link it etc.

I agree a simple option to link to a message, or create a new one, would be an ideal way to better integrate the two systems…

+1

Would be a nice feature

I agree. We organize things around the To-Do’s feature and it would be a huge help to be able to link easily to a message thread for any given to-do. Please add it!

+1