How to Sync GoalsOnTrack with Google Calendar
As you probably know that we’ve launched iCalendar feeds for goals and tasks. We had a few problems in integration with Google Calendar recently, but now they’ve been resolved.
To sync with Google Calendar, simply copy and paste the webcal link to the “Add URL” prompt in Google Calendar app. Here is how to do it.
Step 1. Copy the webcal link for your goal from your “Goals” page:
Step 2. Find the “Add by URL” menu in Google Calendar:
Step 3. Paste the webcal link and click “Add Calendar” button:
Then you should be able to see your goal’s tasks in Google Calendar. Let me know if you are having any problem with this.
How to Sync GoalsOnTrack with Outlook Calendar
If you use Outlook, you may want to check out a new feature we’ve recently added. It’s the iCalendar feed for your goal’s active tasks. With iCalendar feed, you can easily sync your tasks with a program that supports iCalendar data format, such as Outlook, Yahoo Calendar, etc.
To use iCalendar feed for your goals, first go to the “Goals” page, and click on the “iCalendar” link at top right of goal section. This is a “webcal://” link, which is recognized and is usually associated with Microsoft Outlook by default.
Once you click on this link, Outlink will automatically try to add it as a calendar. Click yes to continue and then you will see all the active tasks for your goals are shown in your Outlook Calendar. Because it’s an iCalendar feed, every time you update tasks for that goal, the changes will show up in Outlook as well.
However, please note that the iCalendar feed uses an automatic login mechanism, so make sure you do not publish that webcal link where you don’t want other people to see your goals and tasks.
Latest updates
It’s summer again, and that always seems to make it harder to work on your goals, doesn’t it? 
However, consistent effort is key to any goal accomplishment. I hope that while enjoying the summer, you are also making great progress on your goals.
We have made some improvements to the site lately. Here is a list of things you may or may not notice in the app:
- A monthly recurring option has been added to the task form, which allows you to create recurring tasks on a monthly basis, in addition to the weekly choices.
- Habits calendar has been adjusted so that now it starts at Mondays, not Sundays.
- Goal picture uploads have been slightly improved, so that it now fits better on the page layout.
- A few bugs have been fixed in tasks importing, especially from Outlook files. If you still have problems importing tasks from Outlook, it may have something to do with the data formatting. Please send me the files you have trouble with and I will make sure they can be correctly imported.
- Site speed has been improved, somewhat. Due to the origin UI design of the tasks page, the improvement doesn’t seem very significant. We’re experimenting with redesigning that whole page so that it will load in constant time regardless of how many tasks you schedule for goals.
As always, I have received many great suggestions and wonderful feedback. I really appreciate that. We’re working on some changes that are proposed by you. If you ever think of everything that we could improve, please don’t hesitate to let us know.
Until next post, have a great summer!
What are we working on?
Recently we have been having some scalability issues, which may have affected the site performance to some extent. This has become more apparent especially when the site is used at peak hours, as many users sign in and use the app simultaneously.
We’ve been able to identify a few problems with the server and also the database. We’re working on getting these issues resolved once for all in next few days. This may involve upgrading existing hardware, maintaining historical data, and optitmizing current database tables, etc. You might experience occasional slow connection during this period. So I’d really appreciate your patience. Once we get this resolved, you will find it a much faster and smoother experience.
We’re also planning to launch a “Resources” section for the site. This will be a place where we post goal setting and personal development related resources, such as inspiring quotes, articles, useful tools, software reviews, etc. The goal of this new addition is to help you keep motivated and achieve more with your goals.
As always, we keep improving the site features on a daily basis. I have received many great suggestions from you. I really appreciate the feedback. Please be rest assured that we value them highly and will always find the best ways to implement what you wanted.
A Small Improvement in Habits Tracker
We have updated the site with a maintenance release over the weekend. Among the improvements made, I want to show you a change in the habits tracking feature. Please check the new edit form below.
You probably notice that we’ve added a new field, which specifies how many repetitions forming a habit should take. We used to have a built-in 21 days (or repetitions if the habit doesn’t repeat daily) for determining if a habit is formed 100%. Later we found this is too limiting for some users. So now you can have a few more choices, like 30, 60 or 90 days.
The choice you make here will affect the strength of the habits you are working on. For example, if you set a habit to take 60 repetitions, instead of 30, you will then need to check twice number of times for the same amount of formed strength.
We’re also working on a few other features for the habits tracking, one of which would be the ability to track negative habits breaking or removal. So please stay tuned for the next update.
PDF Reports for Your Goals and Tasks
Last week, we launched a new release. It has the PDF reporting features that we have been working on for a while. This new function allows you to view and print all your goals and tasks. We also re-arranged the reports section a little bit, so now the previous “Progress” section becomes a sub-section under “Reports” tab. We also added two more sub-sections “Goal Reports” and “Task Reports”.
On “Detailed report for active goals”, you will see each goal starting on a new page, listing information about the goal, its subgoals, and all its active tasks. This is ideal for a printout of all your goals and subgoals. Perhaps you may want to post it on your wall or somewhere you can see it everyday.
However, if your goal has too many active tasks, or recurring tasks, it may not be a good idea to print out the detailed report, as it will display all these active tasks.
Also there seems to be a little problem with detailed goal reports displaying certain picture formats. We’re looking into this and if you happen to have similar problems, please do let us know.
Upcoming new feature: PDF reports
As always, we’re taking a “kaizen” approach to GoalsOnTrack development, which means we’re always making improvements and implement changes that can make the program work better for helping people reach goals. The word “kaizen” means “improvement” in Japanese, but it also sounds a lot like “gaishan” in Chinese, which also means “improvement”, “change for the better”, so I wonder there is any relationship between the two.
Anyway, we’re working on a new feature for the reports section, where you will be able to view all your goals and tasks in various PDF reports. We will do a few summary reports, and then a detailed report on each goal. Here is a preview of how the PDF report looks like.
If you have any suggestions as to how we can make these reports better suit your needs, please don’t hesitate to let us know.
Improvement in Recurring Tasks
There has been some improvement made to the software in addition to the subgoal features, since we released a major upgrade a few weeks ago. One thing worth mentioning is the better support for recurring tasks.
Now you can edit a recurring task, and update all its instances linked to that orginal task. This makes it easier for you to make changes to all your recurring tasks because you no longer have to edit them one by one or delete all first and re-add them.
Also, when you delete a recurring task, it will ask you if you want to remove its other instances as well. You may choose to delete that one task only, or all its recurring instances.
We’ve fixed a few other small bugs around subgoal feature. As always, if you find anything breaks or not working as you’d like it to, please don’t hesitate to let me know.
Upcoming new features in GoalsOnTrack
We have been busy developing new features and making improvements to the app. Thanks to the feedback of many GOT users, I was able to identify several features that people want to see most in the product. We’re taking an incremental development and improvement approach. New upgrades will be rolling out in the coming weeks.
First to be available in GOT is a new full view calendar tool, which allows you to manage goals and tasks on a calendar interface. This will make your job extremely easy when it comes to re-scheduing your tasks under different goals. Also a calendar view of all your tasks will give you a better view of what your schedule is for the month, or the week. Here is a sneak peak at how it looks like.
In addition to the calendar features, we’re also working on two main improvements. One is the recurring tasks, and the other is sub-goal support. We’re making changes to the way how recurring tasks work so that it’s more compatibile with the way it works in programs such as Google calendar, Outlook that most people are familiar with.
We’re also going to support adding sub goals for parent goals, so that all progress made on sub-goals will be reflected in parent goals. This may help you better break down a bigger goal and achieve it more efficiently.
Beyond, we’ve also done some work with the new iPhone/mobile version of GoalsOnTrack. However, it’s just started so I don’t have much to share at this point. So please come back and check this blog often to see what’s new with the site.
Upcoming New Feature: Habits Builder
Within the next 2 weeks or so, we will be releasing a new feature, called “Habits Builder”, to help you achieve goals more quickly and effectively through building great habits.
When we work on our goals, especially those life changing, long term goals, it often requires us to make fundamental changes in our behaviour and thought patterns. One way to speedite this type of transition is through building good habits that can really help us make these changes. Thus the reason we want to introduce this habits tracker/builder feature into GoalsOnTrack. Here is a sneak peak of how it might work.
As you can see, it’s a very simple user interface that allows you to quickly add some habits that are supportive of your goals, and then everyday, you can check on the weekly calender for whether you’ve kept that habit or not. For every habit, it tracks how many times you’ve sticked to it, and how often you did it. Based on that, the software will calculate an estimated strength of your habit.
For new habits you’ve just started, their strength obviously is very low, but as you put more checks into the calender, you will see the habit grows stronger and stronger, until one day, you will see that the habit strength is showing full, which means you’ve pretty much formed that habit.
For this release, we will try to keep it very simple and easy to use. As we collect more feedback from people really using it, we will see what adjustments we need to make or new features to add to it to make it more useful. Please stay tuned and, as always, let me know what you think about this new feature.
Thanks,
Harry
