Milestone / Task Tolerance
 

Hi all,

Just getting my head around Omniplan and enjoying using it.

I can't seem to find a way to set 'tolerances' to milestones or tasks. For example, + or - 2 weeks on a milestone.

It may be that the terminology I'm using doesn't connect - does anybody have any tips?

I think you mean "constraint", to use the OmniPlan parlance. For example, if you have a task which must start between Jan 1 and Jan 15, you would put those dates in the Task:Information inspector (cmd-1) in the Constraints row (or use the Constraint Start and Constraint End columns in the outline view, if you've enabled them with View->View Options...) If there is nothing else dictating the scheduling of a task with a constraint, OmniPlan will schedule it as early as possible (*) within the constraints, and if it is not possible to schedule it within the constraints, will put up a violation indication so that you can correct the situation.

(*) This assumes you are scheduling As Early As Possible, and not manually setting a start date (by dragging the bar in the Gantt chart or typing in a date); OmniPlan 2 additionally offers the ability to schedule on an As Late As Possible basis as well, for when you need to plan backwards from some future milestone. I realize that OP 2 is not generally available, I'm just trying to "future-proof" this post a bit :-)

Thanks for your response @whpalmer4 - it looks like that's as close as I can get to what I'm after.

What I mean by tolerance is the degree of autonomy by which a project is allowed to meet a milestone (e.g. + or - 2 weeks) and still be deemed to be 'in control' and thereby not need to defer to a higher authority (e.g. project board)...

In other words, the milestone is set for 1 Sept, but anything up to 10 Sept would be deemed an acceptable tolerance...

Milestones can have constraints set, just like tasks (a milestone is just a zero-length task). Doesn't that do what you need?