MGT Journal

MGT Journal is the app my team and I use to plan our work. Every job is a card. Cards sit on lists, lists make up a board, and a board is a project. A card carries a title, notes, a due date, a checklist, files and comments, and the people who are on it.

It is built and run by me, Pradip Dobariya, an independent software consultant in Rajkot, India. It is not a product you can sign up for. An admin invites you by email, and you only ever see the boards somebody has put you on.

What it does

• Projects as boards, work as cards you drag between lists.
• A due date, a priority and the people responsible on every card.
• One email when somebody puts you on a card, and nothing after that. The board is where the noise belongs.
• An optional connection to your own calendar, so dated work turns up where you already look.

The Google Calendar connection

This part is optional. The app works without it, and nothing below happens until you choose to connect and grant permission on Google's own consent screen.

When you connect it, MGT Journal asks Google for three permissions and no more:

• openid and email, so the app can show you which Google account is connected.
• https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar.app.created, which reaches only calendars the app itself created.

That last one is deliberately the smallest permission that does the job. The app cannot see your existing calendars, or any event in them. Google enforces that limit. With it, the app does exactly this:

• creates one calendar of its own inside your Google account, called MGT WORK, the first time you connect, so its entries never mix with yours;
• puts an all day entry in that calendar for every card with a due date and your name on it, carrying the card title, the board it belongs to and a link back to it;
• updates that entry when the card changes, and removes it when the date comes off, your name comes off, or the card is deleted;
• marks the entry with a tick and switches its reminder off once the card reaches the finished list.

The sync runs one way, from the app to Google. Nothing from your calendar is read into the app. The tokens Google gives us are encrypted before they are stored. A Microsoft 365 or Outlook calendar can be connected the same way, with the same rules.

Turning it off

Open your profile in the app and click Disconnect. The stored tokens are deleted at once and the app stops writing to the calendar. You can also revoke access from your Google account permissions, which stops it immediately. The MGT WORK calendar stays in your account, for you to keep or delete.

What the app stores, how long it keeps it and how to have it removed is set out in the Privacy Policy, alongside the Terms and Conditions.

Getting access

There is no public sign up. If you are working with me and need an account, email [email protected] and I will send you an invitation.