Calendar view, am I missing the point?
 

I am confused by the usefulness of calendar view. I cannot get to see an individuals daily activities as I would have expected, even when it is in the work schedule view, all I get is the normal working hours. I expected that once a task has been setup and dated it would appear in calendar view.

CM

CD

I think I can help. I too had trouble grasping the concept of this tool.

I think what you're looking for happens after you do an HTML export.

The calendar view is only to set what the normal work day is like. Most offices are 9 to 5. My company's is 8:30 to 5 with an hour off for lunch. So, I adjust the beginning time to 8:30 and make sure that the lunch break is an hour. If you're only going to have one calendar per project I don't think it matters which time you choose -- I think I'd get the same results if I set it to 9:30 to 6. Not every project is Monday through Friday, etc.

There's also a way that you can set up individual calendars per resource for that project. Maybe support staff comes in at 9 and goes home at 4, but management is there before and after.

This help?

Christopher

I understand the point of the Calendar View as currently implemented, but I think it could be MUCH more useful if instead of just showing working hours, it showed the tasks which occurred on different days of the calendar. I almost never ask myself the question, "what are the work hours of July 9, 2007," but I very often ask myself, "what tasks are people scheduled to be working on tomorrow?"

HunterBoss's explanation for the current calendar view is right. When you do an HTML export, you'll have access to iCal files for each resource that you can drop into iCal and view from there.

realtyler and CD Morris:

We have a feature request to include a calendar view in OmniPlan which would do what you're asking for. I'll add a vote to this request for both of you.

Thanks, bummer.
 

Thanks for the responses.

It surprises me that one of three views that is switchable from the GUI is so limited.
I would use this feature if it showed the actual tasks at the specified times on each day. I understand you can do this via iCal, but I dislike having to export, launch, open another application and still not be able to edit in that view. This seems a bit lame to me.

Another grumble is no Pert chart and you need to go via Graffle for this feature. This needs to be built in, or be able to share the same file simultaneously as Visio and Excel do.

CM

[QUOTE=CD Morris]
I understand you can do this via iCal, but I dislike having to export, launch, open another application and still not be able to edit in that view. This seems a bit lame to me.

Another grumble is no Pert chart and you need to go via Graffle for this feature. This needs to be built in, or be able to share the same file simultaneously as Visio and Excel do.
[/QUOTE]

These are both feature requests planned for a later version of OmniPlan. Sorry that they're not already in OmniPlan now, but we're definitely working on some exciting things in the versions to come.

[QUOTE=akwong]HunterBoss's explanation for the current calendar view is right. When you do an HTML export, you'll have access to iCal files for each resource that you can drop into iCal and view from there.[/QUOTE]

Is this supposed to work when using an undetermined date? I'm guessing not.

How are you supposed to "drop into" iCal?

Thanks

Christopher

When using an undetermined date, I think the calendars will start in January 2001. Not so useful, I suppose.

The HTML export will create a folder, with a "calendars" folder inside of it. That should be full of .ics files. Either double-click one of those, or drag it onto the iCal icon in your doc. (Outlook and maybe Entourage should also be able to open these files, but that's probably beside the point.)

ok, Mr. Lizard (what's with these nomme de plumes anyways?)

I checked. It works if you drag it on top of the Entourage icon as well. The colors aren't as pretty as they are in iCal, but the data is there January 1, 2001.

Couple of ideas for easy upgrades?
1. Allow us to set the default date for calendars in the Preferences settings for OP
2. Allow us to set our default calendar option to iCal or Entourage or whatever (or do we do that somewhere else?)

Thanks

Christopher

[QUOTE=HunterBoss]
1. Allow us to set the default date for calendars in the Preferences settings for OP
[/QUOTE]

What kind of default date would you set?

Are most of your projects all going to start on the same future day? If that's the case, you could just set the project start date and be done.

[QUOTE=HunterBoss]
2. Allow us to set our default calendar option to iCal or Entourage or whatever (or do we do that somewhere else?)
[/QUOTE]

OS X's launch services dictate which application is used to open certain filetypes. It's a .ics file, which is standard across iCal, Entourage, Outlook, and several other apps. You can "get info" for a .ics file and tell the system what app to use when opening those files.