Forum Discussion

mdevitt's avatar
mdevitt
Brass Contributor
Feb 19, 2021

ToDo could be much more - bugs & basic features missing

I hope someone high up from ToDo product team reads this and it starts a good discussion.

First up, I really like this application and the integrations with M365 including Teams and Planner. I love the simplicity of the one priority level using the star system and I love the idea behind “MyDay” but…

The issues
You haven’t released any new features that will help people be more productive and have less friction using your app. I cannot recall what real new feature you released (other than integrations with M365) in 2020 besides the “A.I. Auto suggestions” one but who was asking for this? I didn’t see this feature high up on the User Voice requests?  Who thought that this would be a good idea? There are so many basic things missing that it would serve you best to release features that are actually useful and then work on bringing AI features to the product when it is mature enough.

The pace of new features being released is shocking. It took you 5 months to deliver an iOS widget which was a big deal to iPhone users. I think you only delivered this because of the amount of requests coming in from Twitter. Apple release an iPhone and iPad OS upgrade every September. Other major task list apps had their widgets ready for iOS14 launch. How could this have taken you by surprise?
Inconsistencies across the platform continues to increase friction using this app. For example, Natural Language is on iOS but not on the web yet. There are even inconsistencies within the web app – see below.

Recurring tasks repeats to past dates instead of next available date in the recurring sequence. Difficult to describe so for example, let’s say I have a daily task to clear my desk. On Monday through Thursday, I leave it uncompleted but on Friday I complete it but now it jumps to Tuesday – have to complete – Wednesday – have to complete – Thursday – have to complete – Friday – complete before it jumps to Saturday. Why don’t you have logic built in so that when you complete a recurring task that it skips to next recurring date?

The Bugs (most of which have plagued the app since the beginning):

Sync issues across the platform. It is unbelievable how you still have this issue. I have reported to your support team and have tried to help but still persists. If you cannot get sync right then a cross platform app isn’t going to work, is it?
Being asked to refresh the web a few times per day which sometimes needs you to log back in (this is related to sync issues methinks) is a complete pain.
App crashes on iOS a lot. I think this happens after I switch accounts between my personal and work M365 accounts. Reported to your support team.
iOS app sometimes does not let you tap on a task to get into the details of the task to set due dates or view steps. The app remains functional but no matter which list you are in it won’t let you access task details until you kill the app to resolve. Reported to your support team.
Shared lists from my personal M365 in my work M365 works as in I can see the list but all I see is “getting list ready” and nothing else happens. So, you cannot share your personal 365 lists with Work lists as you say you do!
Basic features required to complete with the likes of Todoist (way ahead of everyone), Tick Tick (not far behind Todoist) and Things (albeit not cross platform) are listed below. Some of my suggestions are already on User Voice but not getting traction on upvoting which is a real shame as I would consider these to be so basic for any ToDo list application.

The web application needs

Plugin – on Chrome, Edge Chromium and possibly Firefox
Natural Language Input like on iOS
Right click on a task should have the option to move to next week (Monday for me). You have this option when you click into the task and tap on the due date field. Inconsistent!
Allow me drag a task(s) down or up beyond the screen to move tasks around when inside a large list full of tasks. It is not fluid and I cannot believe I can’t do this inside the web app.
The iOS and iPadOS apps need
Essential

More sorting options for My Day and Starred lists – urgently needs sort by list option.
Option to remove completed tasks from searches like you can on the web version.
More swipe options to quickly postpone to tomorrow, next week and so on. You had introduced long press to reveal a decent context menu to allow this happen, but you removed this feature – why?
Need “remove date” option when you multi select tasks.
Switch between work and personal M365 accounts seamlessly.
Nice to have

Split screen capability for iPads.
More iOS Keyboard shortcuts so you can zip through the app using keyboard shortcuts to move around the app more (like Things by Culturedcode)
General features missing:
Essential

View completed tasks by completed date
Allow “My Day” be populated the night before
You cannot move tasks from within the search results view.
When inside a task you have no option to move it and instead have to back out of the taks and perform the move task elsewhere.
Needs more recurring options like repeat every weekday or every 1st day of the month.
Outlook calendar integration – I know this is on the cards as it is one of the highest User Voice requests.
Allow ToDo have a downloadable installer rather than only accessing ToDo through the Windows app store. Corporate IT block users from downloading anything from the app store AND without an MSI or EXE file, IT cannot deploy the app on a laptop image.
You need to separate tasks from emails for corporate archiving rules. Let’s say your IT department has implemented a corporate archive rule for emails older than 90 days to move to your archived mailbox folder but when this triggers your tasks are archived with them which means you can no longer see these tasks inside ToDo and have to view them in the archived list in Outlook. This is a real pain and becomes more troublesome for recurring tasks. This is a crazy decision to have made but I understand this is probably not the ToDo Team’s issue but more the Outlook team.
Nice to have (but get the above basics sorted first)

Allow swipe down to manually sync
Easily import or exports tasks (without the need to export the entire mailbox).
Headings inside a list for better flexibility to arrange tasks in a large list.
Alexa integration – not the 3rd party one which works but your own officially supported one.
Proper tagging solution – not many people are aware of the #tag option so allow you view these tags somewhere other than having to search for them.
Ability to create smart lists and pin them to main menu (like Todoist).
Note: I can only speak for iOS, iPadOS and Web as I do not use the Windows version nor Android apps. I have approx. 900 tasks and am using the latest Betas for iOS and iPadOS.

I am still using this app and am pushing it internally throughout my team and organisation. I hope to see some of the above issues addressed to make ToDo a go to app for task management. 

Thanks for reading!
Michael

  • Thanks for sharing the feedback, Michael. It's really valuable. The product team is reviewing it.
    • mdevitt's avatar
      mdevitt
      Brass Contributor
      Hey there. Not a single thing on my detailed post 8 months ago has seen any movement. Very disappointing.
    • mdevitt's avatar
      mdevitt
      Brass Contributor
      Hi rohitjaiswal, no real progress on my original post. No new features of value has been added to the app for some time of value. Is this app still being worked on or is it just going to slowly disappear over time?
      Thanks
      Michael
      • AndyFlies's avatar
        AndyFlies
        Copper Contributor

        mdevitt I used Wunderlist for years and have been using To Do lately. I am trying to share a list from my person To Do to my work To Do and it has not advanced beyond "Getting List Ready". I would likely to fully migrate some of my lists to my work account but the sharing list feature has failed. 

         

        Thank you.

        Andy

    • RobOK's avatar
      RobOK
      Bronze Contributor
      Hello, are these items being assessed and worked on?
  • stephen_bowring's avatar
    stephen_bowring
    Copper Contributor

    mdevitt I love this app and use it every day but the sync issue drives me absolutely nuts - and I use the Edge browser as well. I complete a task and refresh the browser and about 50% of completed tasks reappear in the list as incomplete. If I add in or remove due dates, add to my day or some other attribute value seems to complete but even that is not consistent. It's like the complete tick box doesn't trigger whatever procedure is completing the tasks and you need to invoke by changing some other aspect of the task. This problem has been there now for years. I don't get how you can have basically the core function (completing tasks) of an application be so buggy and Microsoft have still not fixed it. Product team however you are prioritising work you need to change it. 

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