Accomplice - 'Your Partner in Time' is a desktop based application to help manage to-do lists, called Activities within the program. It does this by combining an outline-style list system with sophisticated flagging, categorizing and filtering features.
The main window shows tasks in outline or straight view. Activities can be grouped within another activity to provide project type of organization. Each activity can be assigned Importance, Status, Due Date, Next Steps and a Category and there are extensive, date-stamped note taking capabilities. Drag and drop is implemented through the application. For example, if you want to create a filter on a project, just drag that project into the sidebar and when you click on it, only that project appears.
A nice feature is 'On My Plate'. If an activity is marked 'On My Plate' a icon appears and a filter can show just those items. Users can also have the activity appear on their plate on a certain date.
What really got me excited is the automatic integration with email software like Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird and Eudora. From within Accomplice users can drag and drop email to create a new task. The email text is added as a note. Tasks currently synchronize with Outlook, and through Outlook to your Blackberry, Treo or other PDA.
The sharing feature is also impressive. For any activity you have the option of sharing it with another Accomplice user (or multiple users) via P2P sharing. Any changes made by team members are propagated very quickly to other online users.
A useful tool if you use David Allen's GTD system, I can see Accomplice being used in many different situations. A coach or teacher could send "to-dos" or assignments to their clients. A consultant could keep clients appraised of the progress on their projects via the notes. Management in any size of business could implement this as a way of following up with their reports and monitoring their progress.
Accomplice is currently in Beta - you can apply on their site to test it out. When released, I'm told that Accomplice will be free with some contextual advertising. A premium version with a small monthly fee will add features and remove the advertising. There is also a version of Accomplice which runs from a U3 USB Drive and will synch different email programs (such as Outlook at work and Outlook Express at home).
