Viira for BlackBerry 10 is complete and currently waiting to be approved by BlackBerry World (a.k.a App World). And while we eagerly await for the approval (hurry up, BlackBerry World, it has been almost a month since we submitted!) we decide to share some screenshots with you.

Viira for BlackBerry 10 is a complete port of Viira 4.0 and provides the familiar dashboard interface as well as the ability to organize your to-dos and commitments in the familiar five dimensions: projects, contexts, days, next actions and an in-basket. And here are some screenshots:

BlackBerry World is apparently quite backlogged because of the large number of submissions that they have received over the last couple of months so we can’t say for sure when it will be our turn to be approved. We are hoping it will be within days now as the folks at BlackBerry have made an official commitment to clear the backlog by the end of the month and have all apps approved by early April. So stay tuned!

We received a lot of questsions since the BlackBerry 10 launch so we wanted to confirm: Viira will be available on BlackBerry 10. We are very committed to the BlackBerry platform and are super excited about the BB10 roll out and the amazing capabilities it brings.

Viira on BlackBerry 10 will be a completely native experience, built using Cascades (the new environment provided by BlackBerry 10) and will come with a lot of the signature BB10 capabilities like flow, peek and deep integration with PIM data on your device. We are working around the clock to meet a February 18th deadline and get Viira certified as Built For BlackBerry, so keep your fingers crossed for us!

We actually already have a BB10 version of Viira approved for distribution by App World. This version is the port of the Viira for Android. If you are familiar with the BlackBerry 10 environment you probably know that BB10 provides a way for Android apps to run natively on the device.

Initially we were planning on launching on BlackBerry 10 with our Android version however the more we learned about the exciting capabilities of Cascades the more we liked what we saw. So we decided to change the course and offer a completely native experience right from the start.

We expect Viira for BlackBerry 10 to be available for download by month’s end, depending on App World approval and how long it takes to attain Built For BlackBerry status.  Stay tuned!

Complimentary Upgrade To BB10

We will also provide a complimentary upgrade to Viira for BB10 to anyone who purchases the full version of Viira or the Viira Outlook Suite on or after 01 February 2013. So if you like what Viira has to offer on your BlackBerry but plan on upgrading to BB10 you don’t need to wait in order to take advantage of everything Viira can do.

We are very excited to announce something many of you have been patiently waiting for a while now: Viira for Android is now available for download. You can download it from Google Play or from the Viira for Android download page.

Viira for Android presents exactly the same interface and core GTD functionality that you can find in the BlackBerry version of Viira:

• All core components of GTD covered. In Viira for Android you will find support for projects, multiple contexs, day tasks, next actions, an in-basket and lots more capabilities to help you stay organized.
• Multiple contexts: Classify a task in as many contexts as you want
• In-Basket: Perfect for the collection phase of GTD, the in-basket lets you enter tasks that are awaiting further processing and classification in your GTD system.
• Next Actions: help you focus on what is actionable next. Tasks marked as next actions can be found in the Next Actions view and they also appear at the top of any task list to indicate that they are, well, next actions.
• Calendar Integration. The Viira for Android day view shows the list of your day’s appointments alongside your day’s tasks.
• Dashboard. Just like on Viira for BlackBerry, the Viira for Android dashboard makes all key areas of your GTD system a tap on the screen away.
• Search. Quickly find the task you are looking for with Viira’s fast iterative search, available right from the dashboard.
• And more! Download the free trial today and see what Viira for Android can do!

Viira for Android is supported on Android 2.2 and up. The current version is 4.0 to reflect close feature parity with Viira 4.0 for BlackBerry.

And here are some screenshots from Viira for Android:

As promised earlier today, we have completed the integration of the fixes from the Viira 4.0.5 update into the Viira Outlook Suite BlackBerry client. Version 2.1.02 of the Outlook Plugin and BlackBerry client are now available for download from the downloads page.

Here is the list of fixes addressed in this update:

• Fix to the Next Actions shortcut interceptor in the BlackBerry client. Entering special symbols in the Quick Add field that are also keyboard shortcuts now works correctly and you can now use symbols like ‘@’ (ALT+P), ‘-’ (Alt+I), ‘5′ (ALT+D) and ‘9′ (ALT+C) in the quick add field without unintentionally triggering a view change.
• Setting Hide Completed in order to hide completed tasks is now a system-wide setting that survives system restarts/battery pulls (BlackBerry client).
• Problems with search in the Outlook plugin under certain conditions mostly related to BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) environments are now fixed.

We have added a few minor fixes to Viira and rolled them all together into a separate software update. Below is a list of the issues that we fixed, actually some of them were fixed in earlier software updates but I thought I’d mention them here for completeness:

• Fix to the Next Actions shortcut interceptor. Entering special symbols in the Quick Add field that are also keyboard shortcuts are no longer incorrectly intercepted. You can now use symbols like ‘@’ (ALT-P), ‘-’ (Alt-I), ‘5′ (ALT-D) and ‘9′ in the quick add field without unintentionally triggering a view change. (thanks Willy for pointing this out to us!)
• Setting Hide Completed in order to hide completed tasks is now a system-wide setting that survives system restarts/battery pulls. We previously thought this wasn’t necessary or needed- but we stand corrected!
• Fix to email links in email tasks. Under certain circumstances the link to the original email that a Viira email task holds ceased to be valid. This resulted in the message “Unable to find original message” from appearing on occasion when clicking View Email in the email task when the email was actually still there. This is now fixed. (available since version 4.0.4)
• Setting Hide Completed in Next Actions view works properly (fixed since version 4.0.3).

You can download the latest bug fix release from the Viira download page (click on the Downloads tab above) or by pointing your BlackBerry to our mobile site kartamobile.com/bb. The fixes will be rolled into a corresponding update to the Viira Outlook Suite as well very shortly: within the next 24hrs or so.

Thanks again to everyone who pointed our attention to these glitches, we always pay close attention to the feedback we receive and fix problems as a matter of top priority!

While not part of the core set of GTD principles per se, templates can be a valuable, practical tool that can save time and make certain activities easier to plan and organize. The topic of templates has come up a few times in our email conversations with many of you who use Viira and the Viira Outlook Suite every day and as part of our drive to provide richer support for some of the more advanced aspects of Getting Things Done we want to see if there is something our team can do to make templating easy, effective and intuitive.

So, how do you use templates? Do you use them entirely to enhance your GTD workflow or also to incorporate techniques from methods such as The Checklist Manifesto? How would you like to use templates in Viira to make your life easier?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below or drop us an email to our support lines. We would very much appreciate your suggestions as we figure out how exactly to add support for GTD templates in Viira.

The Viira Outlook Suite 2.1 is now available for download. The goal of this release is to provide support for more advanced aspects of GTD and personal organization like multiple contexts, next actions and an intuitive dashboard as well as to further refine the Outlook plugin to make it more intuitive, smart and effective.

We would have liked to make this release available earlier however intense work on our upcoming cloud sync service prevented us from doing so. To all of you counting on the Viira Outlook Suite in your day-to-day life and eagerly waiting for this update , thank you for your patience!

Without further ado, here is what’s new in version 2.1 of the Viira Outlook Suite:

• Next Actions View. Next Actions are a core concept in Getting Things Done and you can now manage those with ease with the Viira Outlook Suite. The new Next Actions view (available on both the BlackBerry client and the Outlook Plugin) displays all tasks that have been marked as next actions.  To help you focus on what is actionable first, next actions also appear specially marked and are automatically displayed at the top of any list.
• Multiple contexs. Any task can now be tagged with multiple contexts from both the BlackBerry client and the Outlook plugin.  You can assign as many contexts as you want! This powerful feature will allow you to file and organize a task in multiple filing “buckets” and make it easier to find the task when it’s time to find the next action that needs to be completed.
• Dashboard. The new dashboard is your new organization control center and provides you with one-click access to the major areas from within the BlackBerry client. The dashboard is touch screen enabled making navigation on touchscreen models like the Bold 9900 or Torch 98xx series as easy as a tap on the screen.
• Hide Completed. Focus only on the things that are left uncompleted. Hide Completed is now available on both the Outlook plugin and the BlackBerry client.
• Enhanced Outlook plugin. We have made numerous improvements to the Outlook plugin to make it more intuitive, smarter and effective. We have added right-click menues to make performing common operations quicker and easier as well as improved the stability and overall performance.

You can download the latest version from the Viira Outlook Suite download page.

The Viira Outlook Suite 2.1 is a complimentary upgrade to all buyer of version 2.0. Buyers of the previous version of the Viira Outlook Suite or Viira (including older versions like the 2.0 and 3.0) are elligible to upgrade for a special low price.

Version 2.1 requires BlackBerry OS 5 or better and Microsoft Outlook 2003 or better.

We are very excited to share with you that our cloud sync service beta launch is just around the corner!

Months and months of work are starting to show some very promising results and the preliminary prototypes are looking good and holding up well under testing. If all goes well we will start rolling out the beta version of the service about a month or two from now - hopefully by the end of August/early September timeframe.

The goal of our cloud sync service is to enable a seamless, synchronized organizational experience across platforms so that you can access and interact with your GTD data with ease from all your devices. Each rich client, be it BlackBerry (Viira 4), Outlook, Android, Playbook, desktop, web and even iOS will provide the same capabilities, power and simplicity that you have grown accustomed to with Viira 4, and the cloud service will make sure you have uniform access to your data from wherever you are.

So if you haven’t done so already, make sure to sign up on our announcements form and we will let you know as soon as we start rolling out the sync service across the various platforms.

The launch of the sync service will be gradual. We will add platform support one by one, starting with BlackBerry, Outlook, Android and the Playbook (our current supported platforms) and continuing with a web client, a desktop client and iOS support over the coming months. It will be very exciting few months ahead and we look forward to bring you the most intuitive, powerful and cross-platform GTD experience out there!

We will also need the help of a lot of beta testers so if you would like to help and are comfortable with beta software please let us know either by dropping us a note at support _at_ kartamobile.com or by signing up on our announcements list.

We recently received this testimonial - and thought we’d share it with you!

“Viira is the best program on the market for keeping organized - as a mom of two wearing many hats including Executive Director of the California Women’s Conference - the largest Women’s conference in the country, I am always on the hunt for the best product in the market that keeps me organized right on my phone. I cannot afford to miss one detail. Having Viira at my fingertips keeps me on top of the many projects I am working on!”

Michelle Patterson, CEO
Event Complete: A Full Service Event Marketing Company
www.eventcomplete.com

To all of you anxiously waiting for the Playbook version of Viira, we have great news. Viira for the BlackBerry Playbook has now officially been approved by App World and is available for download!

To download Viira, just open App World on your Playbook and search for “Viira”.

Viira for the Playbook is a free beta and requires Playbook OS 2.0 or later. This version is a Playbook-only version and does not sync with your BlackBerry device - yet. However as we roll out our cloud sync service over the coming months our goal is to provide just that: a seamless BlackBerry-Playbook wireless sync of your GTD system - so stay tuned!

Sign Up For Viira for Playbook Announcements And Updates

The current beta version (version 0.9.2) provides the core pillars of a GTD system on the BlackBerry Playbook such as projects, contexts, a day view and an In-Basket. Over the coming months we will be rolling out support for additional productivity constructs to bring the Playbook version of Viira en par with the feature set of Viira 4, including support for capabilities like task ordering, calendar integration, next actions etc.

In the meantime we would love to hear your feedback so let us know what you think of Viira for the Playbook as well as ways that you think will make it better and more effective!