inShort Reviews

by PPlantec

You certainly do not want this for a simple project. I’ve been reading chart after chart on how to use it, but have no clue how to do what I want with Gantt charts. If I could return it I would.
I’m no novice. I was a division director at the company that developed PERT and have used PERT charts for massive projects.

by MartiGreen

While not a heavy user of the software it is a great addition to a toolkit of apps that can help you nail down your understanding of processes when planning them or when trying to dissect them.

While the diagraming certainly is helpful, you will find that in thinking through and populating the various attributes of the model's components, the node relevant fields will help you validate both the process and your understanding.

The software is very well done, and like a lot of previous reviewers, I'd love to see a desktop version.

by Rikjoy

I have been looking for process diagramming apps that let you create a library of everyday processes, and this is the most useful I have found so far. The learning curve may be a bit steep, and the interface could be more intuitive at times, but overall it is a really well done app for specialists who need this sort of thing.

It would be better if you could mark tasks done with one touch, if timed steps were more animated (with a display of time remaining and elapsed, for example), and if it could store data in a more useful way so you could actually use it to do things like track service schedules and trip mileage for your car, and then produce a report.

I love that you can select text formatting, embed illustrations (pictures, but unfortunately not video) and web links. The diagraming interface gets the job done without being too clumsy. The list view is pretty good, but having the status of items all the way on the right makes it look cluttered and hard to read. With a little more work, this could become a very useful tool for everyday use.

by Pilot Don W

Program focuses on the PERT chart for initial planning. It is optimized to support the concept of each diagram should contain 7 +- 2 steps.
This is done to make diagrams easy to read and comprehend. To get the additional details a project requires each element in the chart can have a nested chart within it. The Gantt view can give a nice overview with a timescale. Be prepared to spend some time reading the PDFs instructions to understand the concepts this program is designed around I have used many different project programs but I still had a significant learning curve to use this one. The program has a lot of potential to grow with reports etc

by LittleFroggieboy

Ok, there is a little bit of a learning curve at first but inShort really does an amazing job to help you get through it and become familiar with the UI. Once you do get the hang of using this, it’s wonderful and so very adaptive for creating projects and job work flows. It feels like inShort requires much less effort from me to put together something visual for others. I can put more focus on actually thinking of and planning a process. It’s my favorite app for tasking flows, problem solving, and project management. Highly recommended.

by Rookie67

I got inShort for my phone and quickly got started working with it. I found it intuitive because I've used other project management tools such as MS Project. However, for those who are newbies it might take a little bit of patience and determination to go through the User's Guide. It is very worth your while. So much more flexible and fun than other project management apps.
My next step is to get it on my laptop so I can integrate it with all my work apps.

by Timmy!@#

If you have a million things going on and you need to nail things down to ensure the process flows inShort is for you. If you like to plan things out then make tracks get inShort! YOU WILL NOT BE SORRY!

If you do not plan every detail you can still use this but perhaps one of the mind mapping tools is more your style. BUT I was in contact with the developer and was informed that other stencils are coming. Unlike the typical mind mapping app inShort let's you create linked diagrams, Very Cool Stuff! Nice graphics too.

by Tico Loco

I needed to create a process flow chart, and didn’t want to pay tons of money for Vizio and the like. Tried a handful of apps and took a gamble and paid for this one. It is clean, easy to use, has a great Progress Chart function. Highly recommend

by LukeMadden

Once you get through the user guide - either the PDF document from the developer website or the excellent version in inShort - you'll be equipped to use this app effectively.

The developer has done a fantastic job of creating a robust tool that allows for complexity to be reduced as much as possible. DO NOT think you're gonna jump into inShort without a little time investment in learning how to use it well. But once you've educated yourself a little bit, you'll be a powerful wielder of a tremendous tool.

by CasteMan

Update**
Available on your Mac too! Finally, after waiting for a good while I can use it on my Mac. My life is complete now. In case you're wondering, this is the absolute best app for logically mapping out all your ideas and making them into a solid work frame. As a software engineer I would highly recommend it for anyone who has complex though processes in need of organization.

After considerable digging through multiple organization apps. I can easily say that this app is by far the most logical and organized approach to any complex task you might encounter. We'll worth the extra few bucks.

One thing I would of loved for the future is actual 3-Dimentional capability to be able to visualize data in multiple dimensions. Our minds are evolving along with technology and I believe its time to step away from pen and paper and move to the wold of the 3D and beyond.

by Sharpening

I noticed another review comparing this to Microsoft Project. If all you do is projects...and all you care about is milestones, and such - then of course, there are better apps for that. If you want to model processes and a variety of other capabilities inShort supports, then get inShort. Other apps in the store and software like Microsoft Project, come up woefully short - they weren't designed for that. inShort is great at what it was designed to do - and that should be the starting point of all reviews - how well does it do what it was designed to do!

by Jaxston452

If I ever do another seven language ad campaign, or plan to introduce a new pharmaceutical product, inShort would be my guide. In the past, you could never be sure that all were working from the same artwork or label text, or that manufacturing had their cost estimates right. The three dimensional approach means you can "drill down" to see who's up to speed, and who's lagging.

I had hoped Adobe Systems would have done this a decade ago. That gap is well-bridged with inShort.

by JGarzaro

I purchased it with the intent of charting my firm's business processes. What I thought would take a month to chart, due to the ease of use and great documentation, I managed to document ALL of our business process flows from Purchase Order to Cash in one week! Two suggestions: 1) Allow Landscape formatting when converting to PDF. 2) Allow to attach images or documents to each element in the diagram to facilitate documentation. The challenge going forward will be to keep your application simple without the bloat of features requested by us users. Thank you.

by Stevecooley

I was looking for an alternative to a full graphing app. Something that looks nice and had gantt charting. inShort is so much more. I do a fair amount of flow charting and am frequently frustrated by desktop apps that make you do so much work just for the basics and don't do much at all to help you maintain a common style. inShort lets you worry about the concepts of your project or plan and it helps take care of the presentation in a very readable and professional way. If you need to do flow charts for a process or need to visualize and plan a timeline for a project, try inShort. There's a learning curve, and it may challenge you, but the on-board documentation and tutorials will help get you going.

by Tampa Skidder

I wrote a title with friend and mentor Steve Hannaford for Adobe Press called "Workflow Reengineering" a long time ago. It was about process mapping and the place of a new format called 'PDF' had in the maps needed to redefine the relationships between creative environments and the commercial prepress and press rooms.

It wasn't until the iPad and apps like Mindo and others until we had actual simple and easy (read human) tools other then pencils with which to draw these critical management tools.

Touché for an excellent addition to my collection of mind, thought, and process mapping tools. Nice software and the author has really applied standards in mapping to a beautiful interface. It will definitely prove worth twice the price. Thanks!

by Cjhlambert

I had been eyeing inShort for a while, but was nervous it would...fail to execute. Finally spent the money and got it. I'm really happy I did. I can't tell you how nice it is to have an app that understands not just mapping of tasks but also NESTING. So if my goal is "Get better at baseball" I can create a diagram with "Best baseball player I can be" at the top, then have five branches "Hitting" "Fielding" "Base Running" "Mindset" "Teammate". I can then create charts WITHIN each of those branches. So within hitting I can have a chart of branches that makes up the content of hitting, and within each of those hitting branches I can create individual charts. I can then actually work my way through the tree until I've accomplished everything. Great, great, great, great app.

by Phoon

this app is nothing short of amazing! This is a gorgeous app that has potential to help many professionals. I'm a professional scientist and engineer, who specializes in system integration and informatics—the science of turning bits of data into actionable knowledge. Visualizing process flow is critical … to have this much power in a mobile iPad app revolutionizes field work.

This is inShort for process engineers or reengineering efforts. This is inShort for quality management people, Six Sigma, LEAN and others. inShort could change your professional life! App has Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) built in …

Good: Concept, design and workflow in inShort is great.
Bad: A little less intuitive interface … some initial learning curve. So much power to harness within the interface.
Ugly: How much inShort should cost for later purchasers … hurry and buy before they discover the real value!

What is needed: DropBox integration. A companion Mac OSX app (developer claims to be working on it). A few more template style options. Continued refinement of the user interface. More seamless presentation mode for audiences … The ability to account for (or annotate) process evolution or variability (usually over time) … in other words, the ability to flag conditional or time-dependent processes.

BOTTOM LINE: Buy it. Worth every penny at this early stage of inShort 's evolution.

by ACBoon

I am a big fan of inShort. Learned a lot by just using it and have used successfully in various applications. While there is a bit if a learning curve, it's not bad and well worth it. I have found great value in being able to diagram BPM steps with drill down capability to avoid over complicating the workflow.
Would like a feature to highlight path options between elements. This would help in using for implementation in web development for example. Right now I export PDF files from this app and highlight the paths in a different app. Hope other folks see value in this feature for consideration. Would also like to see pools for the swim lanes. I can kind of work around this for now, but it would be nice to have this baked in.
Notice some bugs that prevent diagram editing until I back out and into the folder. May be related to memory management with large process flows or having several other apps open, but should investigate. Have not lost data / work done as a result so will not dock a star for that.
Looking forward to continued development.

by Gprof

First, inShort does have a learning curve and there is plenty to learn. But it is well worth learning and far from impossible with a little patience. inShort is powerful, feature-rich, and allows detailed, visually intuitive planning processes. I downloaded it last night (along with half a dozen other project planning apps, now deleted), worked through about half of the tutorial (I'll go back for the rest), and in an hour or so today have mapped out a forthcoming 10 month project in a way that will give me an intuitive overview and a way of tracking the steps (I generally find Gantt-oriented programs a bad fit for the more fuzzy-boundaried projects I am involved in - this is perfect). This is the best app for iPad that I've seen in terms of giving me tools to make my work easier (as opposed to dumbed down cute interfaces with lack of control over detail). A little patience is needed to discover best ways of working with inShort - e.g. I started out following the guide and creating new objects by dragging boxes, which is a bit finnicky - then realised I could drag default objects from the list, which suits me better. I would like to see the ability to add a background color to each object to make it easier to make certain parts of the process stand out to me visually before they are due.

by JoeGuru

In Short is very mature and is almost “quirky” but is an excellent project management tool once you understand what it is. Strongly recommend it.