Project Custom Data
 

Hi all,

I'm looking to use some Custom Data (on the project level) to customize the HTML template. The idea is to create one template that can be used with several clients. I want to use the custom data to create keys like:

- clientName
- projectManager
- contactInfo, etc

I have exported the HTML template, but for some reason, the custom data from the project doesn't show. I have been successful at exporting custom data from the resources and tasks, but not the project. Any ideas?

Thanks!

Anyone? I'm guessing this is not possible.

If you want a guaranteed answer, you need to be sure to contact the support ninjas by email. Easier way is with Help->Send Feedback in the app. They won't necessarily see a forum post...

Haven't played with the HTML templates myself. If you get an answer from the ninjas, be sure to share!

Have a quick peak at the help entry for "Customizing HTML templates":

Custom data keys — If you include a token that exactly matches the name of one of your custom data keys, it is converted to the value of that key for the given task. For example, if you have a "Location" key for your tasks, you can use a {@Location@} token in your template.

Works great so long as your custom column names don't collide with our built-in column names. Note that they are case sensitive.

-Tom

Thanks Tom and whpalmer4,

Does this work for when you're adding custom data keys to the project itself. I have been able to do this for tasks and resources, but not for the project.

Is it possible to do that?

I guess I can be more specific,

I'm talking about the Project Inspector > Custom Data.

I have things like: "Overall Budget" as the key and "$xxxx" as the value. I would like to pull those into my HTML template.

Maybe this is a bit clearer.

Thanks again!

It strikes me as possibly significant that the Customizing HTML templates help mentions using Custom Data in the sections discussing Tokens for Tasks and Resources, but is conspicuously absent from the Project section up top. In any case, I haven't had any luck getting project custom data into an export, either. Without the ability to export it like this, I'm a little stumped as to how one might productively use Project custom data — seems like the key/value method isn't very convenient compared to just attaching a file full of text.

Agreed, what is the point of custom data, if it can't be used. Is it only for internal use within the program? It just doesn't make any sense.

I would love to hear from anyone from omni, I've already emailed them, but no response thus far.

Primarily the point is support for scripts. For example, if you want to write a script integrating OmniPlan with your proprietary bug tracking system, you might want to add a scriptable bugID property to each task. And of course you can use it to augment reporting.

Custom HTML templates almost but don't quite support custom data on the project. I think it ought to, so I'll probably add that shortly.

-Tom

Thanks very much for the explanation. I think it was a little confusion that it's labeled the same in the inspector but yet not available as the other custom data. What you said makes sense though.

I look forward to having the custom data for the project easily available for the HTML reports, I think I could get a lot of millage out of it.

Thanks!