Ascend
Franklin Quest Co.
2550 S. Decker Lake Blvd.
Salt Lake City, UT 84119
800-877-1814
$199.95
Franklin International Institute
801-975-1776
If an article is here in the Archives, it is because we feel it may be out of date in one way or another. Some of the information may still be useful to some readers, but keep in mind that some information may no longer be accurate. Product capabilities change, prices change, links may no longer work, and in fact, the company that makes this product may have gone down the tubes long ago. To get the latest, we recommend that you go to The Web Developer's Journal Home Page, and see if there is a more recent article about this subject.
By now most business people are aware of the benefits of using a personal information manager (PIM). The computerized versions are selling like the proverbial hot cakes and tend to specialize in either contact management or daily planning. Long the king of hard-bound, non-computerized organizers, Franklin Day Planner can be profitably accompanied by the computerized version: Ascend.
Like socks and shoes or a dog and a bone these two personal organizational tools go together naturally. If you haven't yet chosen a computerized PIM Ascend is a superior choice. It handles schedules and to-do lists with the best of them and has solid phone book capabilities. If you already use a Franklin Day Planner there's no choice to make—buy Ascend ASAP. Ascend looks and acts like a Day Planner and has the wonderful capability of printing schedules on regular sized paper or precut and pre-punched Day Planner sized pages. This feature allows you to print schedules for a day or several days and pop them into your Day Planner.
At a recent visit to Bechtel Environmental I was impressed with the way the company has standardized on Ascend and Franklin Day Planner. Each floor of their 5 story office building has one networked printer dedicated to printing Day Planner sized pages for individual users' Ascend programs. The printers are kept loaded with pre-sized and pre-punched paper to fit in busy user's Day Planners. These printers receive surprisingly heavy use.
Ascend isn't perfect and isn't for everyone. Like any PIM or contact manager it has strong and weak areas. Ease of use, short learning curve, wonderful interface and potent scheduling capabilities are very strong in Ascend. Contact management, although quite capable and definitely strong enough for most business users is not developed to the same extent. To-do lists and prioritizing features are the best of any PIM I've tried.
Webmaster
