SmartDay for iPad – Quick Guide

See the forest and the trees – SmartDay organizes your day for you, while helping you to plan far into the future. Stay connected to SmartDay on all your devices via SmartDay Online (free). Use this Quick Start guide to get going.  Then discover the many features on your own – or continue to view our “Things you can do with SmartDay” guide for helpful tips.

Get Connected. Which applies to you?

SmartDay for iPad is my first SmartDay app. All you need to do is set up your free SmartDay Online account. You can then start to create tasks, events, and notes on either SmartDay for iPad, or on SmartDay Online, and synchronize between them with one click.Just go to Settings -> Synchronization, Select “Enable”, then create an account with SmartDay Online by signing up here.  (You can also go to http://mySmartDay.com on you computer’s browser, to sign up for an account).You can import your iPad’s Calendars and your tasks from Toodledo by selecting “Others”.

Or…

I already have a SmartDay Online account, or I already have SmartDay for iPhone or for Mac. Great! All you need to do is sign in to your account, and you’re good to go.

Use the Quick Reference Guide

Tap on the “Notes” tab on SmartDay. You’ll see the a complete reference guide.  This belongs to the project called “SmartDay – Quick Reference”. We suggest you keep this on SmartDay but you can hide it from the “show/hide” menu.

Synchronize with SmartDay Online

Once you have set up and verified your SDOL account, there are a number of easy ways to sync.

Manual Sync: just pull down the lists module to refresh.  Or select “Sync” from the main menu.

Auto Sync:  in Settings -> Synchronization, chose “Sync when open SmartDay” then “Auto Push Update”. This will automatically push any changes that you make up to SmartDay Online.Tip: Remember to perform a manual two-way sync before closing SmartDay.

Search & Create, All In One

Global Seek or CreateIt’s easy to create new tasks, events, or notes on the fly.  SmartDay automatically searches as you type in your subject, so you can see what items already exist with the same name.After you type the title, you can select what type of item you would like it to be.

From the lists module, you can Quickly ad a new Task, Note, or Project, depending on which module you are in. When you Quick Add a new task, you have the option (at the top of the keyboard) to determine when the task should be created. This assigns a deadline (with default alert) based upon the due date.

Organize your Tasks, Brilliantly

The Task List contains all of  tasks from all of your projects. The color of each task is based on the Project color.  You can organize your tasks in many ways by applying one of the Smart filters.  You can also “jump” a task to the top of the list, and you can perform group actions by first selecting more than one task.

☞ Tip: Notice how the tasks are segmented by day. This shows you which tasks can fit into which days, based upon the free time that you have in each day and on the working hours that you assign to each day.

☞ Tip: In the video, notice what happens in the Day Calendar when you apply different filters in the Task list. That’s the magic of SmartDay.

Do Amazing Things with your Calendar

Events appear on the left side next to the timeline. Tasks appear on the right side, in the exact same order that they appear in the Task list.  In the focus pane, you can see All Day Events and also tasks that are due.  You can also see All Day events in the Mini Month calendar.  The background shading indicates busy days.

Here are some of the basic functions you can perform in Calendar module.

✔ Navigate to any day by selecting a date from the Mini Month.

✔ To save space, collapse it to a Week calendar.

✔ Tap-drag to create a new Event, directly in the calendar.

✔ Drag  a Task from the right side, to the time line to ‘Anchor’ it to a specific time (notice how this removes it from the Task list).

✔ Drag the Shade to allow more or less working hours. Notice how tasks automatically flow in, from the Task list.

 Connect and Create with Notes and Check-Lists

Like Tasks and Events, all Notes are associated with a Project.  Notes can also be associated with any Task or Event, and with any date. This flexible ‘linking’ turn your Notes into an incredibly efficient tool.

You can create a new Note directly from the Notes module.  You can also create a Note directly from inside a Task or Event, automatically establishing a link between the two.  When you do this, the attached Note is visible both inside the original Task or Event, and inside the Notes module.

You can also link a note to to any other item by clicking on the “Assets” section in side the Notes detail.

The next videos illustrate.

Plan Long Term with Planner Pro

Flip your iPad sideways to see the unique Week/Month Planner with integrated Lists Module.  You can organize long term using drag and drop actions.  The next video illustrates some of the actions, including:

✔ Navigate from in the Month calendar.

✔ Collapse the Month down to a Week, for extra space.

✔ Drag any Task (or Note) from the lists module into the Calendar to create deadlines for Tasks or to associate Notes with specific days.

✔ Drag any Task directly onto the Timeline to Anchor it to that time.

✎ Note: The Timeline does not show tasks that are automatically scheduled for you. It only shows Events, and Anchored Tasks.  You can view automatically scheduled tasks in the Day Calendar (portrait view only).

Task Timer

Use the built-in timer to track the time you spend on one or more tasks, in order to keep track of time time you spend. This is great for auditing your time and for billing. Helpful features:

✔ Start the timer for any selected Task, or

✔ Just start the timer – it will automatically create a new task and start timing (see video clip).

✔ Mark a task ‘Done’ from the Timer will stop the timer and place the task as ‘completed’ (check-mark) in the calendar. You can then view the Timer History inside the task detail, and export it to any spreadsheet view Email.

☞ Tip: If you have to exit SmartDay suddenly while timing, when you re-start SmartDay, you will be prompted as to whether you want the timer to have been kept running while the app was closed, or to have it paused from the time that you closed SmartDay.

☞ Tip: You can have the timer running concurrently for two or more tasks. You can also pause the timer for individual tasks.

Location Aware

SmartDay has several location-aware features that simplify your life.  Try them out yourself.

✔ Save commonly used Locations (Home, Office, Shopping) and use them for your Events and Tasks.

✔ When you create an Event, you can add a location from your Locations list, Address book or from the built-in Map.

✔ If you use the Location with your Map, you can create an Alert that is relative to the driving time to your Meeting.

✔ Add a Location to a Task, and you’ll see it appear in a drop-down list when you arrive at that Location. (“Here’s what I need to do when you get home”)

✔ Add a Location to a Task Alert, and you’ll receive a pop-up alert. (“Call kids when I leave office”)