I tested Eudora Planner 4.0 for Windows and the Group Planner server in our University of Wisconsin-Madison Real-World Labs® and was thrilled with its simple setup, group scheduling and one-click Quick Access toolbar. I also liked the ability to share calendars and contacts selectively as public or private data. Eudora Planner is--hands down--one of the best-designed and most functional PIMs I've seen, and the Group Planner makes it a powerful automated workgroup organizational tool.

I wasn't able to test the Macintosh client at press time, but QUALCOMM says the final product will be cross-platform and will include the Group Planner server. Eudora Planner now supports Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Palm Pilot; Windows CE support is in the works.

Serving Up Your Schedule Until recently, PIMs offered limited functionality in workgroup environments. Tasks essentially consisted of setting up meetings via a mail client or dumping information to an HTML document.

Eudora Planner goes further by incorporating Group Planner, a content server, into each client. (The server is not a functional part of the Planner until you purchase more licenses and receive a new serial number.) Everything from scheduled events to a repository of contacts can be centralized on one server, and the Planner can use any MAPI-compliant mail client for e-mail.

I installed Planner 4.0 without a hitch on several machines, including three servers running NT 4.0 and one client running Windows 95. I set up the server under both NT and Win 95 in minutes, and adding users was as simple as clicking on a queried domain and importing all the users in the domain. Now all I had to do was assign groups, passwords and privacy rights.

Group Planner lets you set up and manage group resources via user proxies, providing groups with a central calendar and contact manager; you don't need a dedicated server.

The simple server setup leaves plenty of time to tweak the client. Events in Eudora Planner are category-based. To set up a meeting, I checked a category box (business, social, personal, etc.). By default, the event is shared. Uncheck the sharing box and the event shows up only on your calendar. You can create multiple calendars, to-do lists and address books using the categories as filters. It's conceptually easy to grasp and inherently creates a very powerful PIM tool. Sharing events and contact information among select parties or all users is as easy as clicking the check box.

Eudora Planner's Quick Access toolbar sits on the task bar, and it lets you schedule meetings and view your calendar without opening Planner, though it won't let you administer server settings.

Mobile users will like automatic synchronization, which updates all personal and shared resources to each machine. I went offline and modified information. I reconnected, and my changes were updated to the server. You can update the server by clicking "Update;" by default, Planner will do so every 15 minutes.

David Fetters, a Network Computing lab technician, can be reached at dfetters@nwc.com