Feature requests
 

Firstly, great software, although obviously a v1 in terms of features.

A couple of things I'd love to see in future versions:

- Stronger financial planning, tracking, and reporting capabilities. I find OmniPlan great for controlling the project schedule, not so great for controlling project finances.

- Availability of activity "elements". The ability to assign issues, risks, events, etc. against activities. I find this an extremely useful capability in other products.

- Report writing. Perhaps an interface to allow users to generate custom reports? The current custom report approach is flexible but a little low on the usability front. Also making more fields available for use in custom reports would be great.

Cheers.

Hi Russeltop,

[QUOTE=RussleTop]Firstly, great software, although obviously a v1 in terms of features.

A couple of things I'd love to see in future versions:

- Stronger financial planning, tracking, and reporting capabilities. I find OmniPlan great for controlling the project schedule, not so great for controlling project finances.

- Report writing. Perhaps an interface to allow users to generate custom reports? The current custom report approach is flexible but a little low on the usability front. Also making more fields available for use in custom reports would be great.
Cheers.[/QUOTE]

We have feature requests for these two in our database, so I'll add another vote to them for you. :-)

[QUOTE=RussleTop]Availability of activity "elements". The ability to assign issues, risks, events, etc. against activities. I find this an extremely useful capability in other products.[/QUOTE]

I'm not too familiar with these elements. Could you elaborate? If you need to send in any examples, you can email them to [email]omniplan@omnigroup.com[/email].

If you think about the things you need to manage in a typical project:

- scope
- schedule
- budget
- risk
- issues
- quality
- communication

I'd like the ability to document risks, issues, and background information againtst activites in the project i.e. document all these things in one place and then report on them from there.

This concept might be extended to allow documents, to-do lists, deliverable quality standards, etc. to all be coordinated through OP.

Of course a good reporting engine would be essential for communicating the documented elements to stakeholders.

Cheers.

[QUOTE=RussleTop]If you think about the things you need to manage in a typical project:

- scope
- schedule
- budget
- risk
- issues
- quality
- communication

I'd like the ability to document risks, issues, and background information againtst activites in the project i.e. document all these things in one place and then report on them from there.

This concept might be extended to allow documents, to-do lists, deliverable quality standards, etc. to all be coordinated through OP.

Of course a good reporting engine would be essential for communicating the documented elements to stakeholders.

Cheers.[/QUOTE]

You can currently add notes to each task in OmniPlan. I know it's a bit simple compared to what you're looking for, so I want to ask you for your opinion on what you would like to see changed/added to our current notes feature to do the job better? We have a separate feature request for the ability to attach/link files and documents to an OmniPlan project as well, so I'll add a vote to that for you.

I guess if there was the ability to record multiple notes against an activity and the ability to categorise each note, it would work towards what I'm after.

Perhaps the ability to define custom attributes for notes coupled with the ability to report (select, filter, etc.) based upon the values of the custom attributes?

The problem would be that different types of note (e.g. an ‘information’ note vs. a ‘risk’ note) may require different attributes.

You can add custom data columns to tasks (or resources for that matter). You might create one for "Risk", one for "Primary Contact", etc. These can basically be like categorized notes. You can add them to the task outline view, and include them in HTML exports.

The challenge with this approach is that only one value can be recorded for each activity/task unless of course a data column is established for each element you wish to record e.g. risk 1 column, risk 2 column, etc.

This may be perfectly acceptable depending upon how the values can be included in reports.

Is it possible to do a selection within a report based on a pattern e.g. select all custom data columns where key is like "risk*"?

I'd still like to see more capability in this area with future releases, however am happy do try and make the best of what's already available.

Cheers.

I would also like my vote cast for the ability to attach documents to items in OmniPlan. Perhaps even a special pane in the OF GUI for related documents and other links would be helpful.

A Vote for Financial Reporting
 

Hello,

Please mark me down as well as voting for increased financial reporting. Even trying to use your export feature to create a CSV or omniplan file, doesn't include critical information such as the effort values.

I would be glad to provide greater detail about reporting needs. However if you understand EVA concepts, you're on the right path to providing the necessary info in order to adequately manage a project.

Thanks. Great Work So Far! Keep it going!
david

[QUOTE=akwong;14297]Hi Russeltop,



We have feature requests for these two in our database, so I'll add another vote to them for you. :-)



I'm not too familiar with these elements. Could you elaborate? If you need to send in any examples, you can email them to [email]omniplan@omnigroup.com[/email].[/QUOTE]

Item note outlining ability as an option
 

I would like the option of disabling grouping under items and in its place, be able to keep my notes about a given item in outline form without each subitem becoming a task requiring context, etc. I realize that right now I can either use the plain jane text note space...or attach an omnioutline file to the item, but one has no outlining and the other requires a bunch of extra steps.