Connecting OP to OF
 

OmniPlan is a forest-view tool, helping project managers visualise/organise and manage the progress of the team's work.

OmniFocus is an individual tool, aimed at assisting one person with managing their workload and tracking their various tasks.

Does it seem rather obvious that they should be linked?

For OmniFocus, the user (call him A) should be able to see tasks assigned to him, their due dates etc (populated from OP). He should be able to update OF to reflect his progress, and have that automatically reported to OP. Upstream progress on tasks of others, upon which his ability to execute his own work depends, should be visible to him.
Tasks that have changed, in due dates or whatever, should be reflected in OF and his attention called to those changes.
Other than the actual populating of tasks and updates regarding them (and maybe not even that), the OF interface oughtn't get cluttered up by this, so much as a new pane/interface, a sort of project Dashboard, would allow this information to be propagated into A's OF instance w/o undermining his ability to use OF.

For OmniPlan, some way to manage this interaction, as well as interface with the rest of the workplace IT ecosystem (meaning LDAP, etc) would be nice. Ideally a PM could:
a) modify their plans
b) view other PM's plans (read-only or not, based on permissions)
c) send updates to their team members
d) get updates automatically from their OF instances about progress through those team members' tasks
... all from within OP.

This interaction would probably have to be mediated through some central program, an OmniProject Server that might run on whatever machine hosts the local intranet. It could hold the information represented in each person's OF, the various OP instances, and provide synchronization. Having some centralised way to backup everyone's task information, provide reports on current activities, would all be very useful.

I realise these features aren't needed for very small workgroups, individuals, etc, but they would help w/ the adoption of these programs at (say) my workplace. Perhaps this implies an OmniFocus Pro and an OmniPlan Pro pair of products, either sold individually or packaged with OmniProject Server.

Thoughts?

-RS

We have plans to add some integration between the two applications, though it wouldn't be in the 1.x timeframe for either application. It would be OmniFocus/OmniPlan 2.0 at the earliest.

I'm a new owner of OmniPlan and OmniFocus and just want to add my vote for the ability for the two to communicate. I'm a Chef so I have no idea how easy or simple that is to do, not my job :P.

Just lodging my vote for this integration too.

This is crucial, in my opinion.

Added your votes to our database. Thanks for expressing your interest!

Please add in my vote as well! :)

Highest Priority
 

Obviously I'll add my vote in as I think would every user of your products.

More to the point, I think that this should be your highest development priority at Omni.

Clearly, you are all not sitting on your hands and I know that you pump out those nightly builds of betas at a startling pace! Still, I'd like to see a little more of that effort devoted towards the integration of these products. Not only do I think that would be a great boon to us current users, but I think it would be a great way to leverage the success of OF and bring in a whole other group of clients who really need this integrated environment. I'm a project manager and I know that I would consider managing my projects with an OF/OP combo. Currently I use OF for my personal task management, but have to pull in a patchwork of other software to accomplish higher level goals.

So, in short - mo'big (integrating products) less'small (hyper-detailed bugs/minutia)

Integration between OmniPlan and OmniFocus is definitely a high priority here, don't you worry Tate. :-)

I'll add votes for you and CorgiGirl.

[QUOTE=akwong;47722]Integration between OmniPlan and OmniFocus is definitely a high priority here, don't you worry Tate. :-)

I'll add votes for you and CorgiGirl.[/QUOTE]
I'm sure it is and also that you don't need to hear my pontificating, but I just wanted to try to say something more than, "Me to." :)

Me too. :)

Actually, you guys may have sold me on Omnifocus too. Perhaps I better investigate that. Too.

Obligatory "me too". :-)

Me three! But I think the ability to sync Omnifocus via Bounjour is more important than plan intergration. Also wished plan read .mpp files direct verses xml. Heck we got .vsd reads in Grapple. Can't write them but can read them and that is great!

Sync to give us mobility on OF, then some level of plan integration.
Initially it could be simpler to just offer an export/import of project output as import... Better than nothing, or waiting full duration before the integration becomes available (IMHO)....

Please add my vote for OF/OP integration. I just took a somewhat complex project in OF and imported it into OP. I've been running with it in OP, and when my demo period ran out, I was tempted to revert back to OF, since I like it so much. But clearly OP has much to offer, so I'm voting with my cash for the integration (I just bought the OP license).

Omnibob, how did you go about doing this transfer? I've done some playing around with sketching out big projects in OmniPlan and trying to move the tasks to OmniFocus for execution, but doing so isn't easy.

Another vote for OF/OP integration!

I've been using OF for about a month and it's changed my (very busy) life. I'm about to start a small business, and am considering purchasing OmniPlan, but am balking at the price. If OP could send tasks directly to OF (and even allow me to to delegate!) it'd be worth it.

In other words -- I think this would be an excellent business move on Omni's part.

Am I too late to vote?

Never too late to vote, but posting on the forum isn't the most effective way of doing it. Use Help->Send Feedback to send your feature requests to Omni's development database, where they'll be counted when the developers are planning what to do next. Posting to the forum doesn't do that unless an Omni employee happens across it and goes to the trouble of logging a vote in the database for you.

Any news or speculation re: how OmniPlan and OmniFocus 2.0 plans are progressing?

People have been requesting this integration for over a year now -- I'm starting to get antsy waiting for this capability!

Sometime in 2010 was the last word from Omni, but Brian's post in another thread is probably about as good as you'll get: "When we think it is ready"

Out of curiosity, how do you see the linkup working? OP has a number of interrelationships between tasks that are not so easily expressed in OF project structure...

I'll chime in for integration too. I hate hate hate to say it, but to be honest, I wouldn't mind seeing some soft of OmniSuite, that might ease integration between OP, OF, and OO, with links perhaps to OG and OGS.

Really.

[QUOTE=whpalmer4;69669]Out of curiosity, how do you see the linkup working? OP has a number of interrelationships between tasks that are not so easily expressed in OF project structure...[/QUOTE]

Some time ago, I sent OmniGroup my thoughts on this, which I'll repost here as food for thought. Fair warning, it's long:


Hello,

I know you've received lots of feedback on the forums regarding integration between OmniPlan and OmniFocus, but I felt the best way to communicate my desires would be by way of an email.

First off, I am not a project manager, though I occasionally do run some projects. To that end, I recently (today) purchased a license for OmniPlan.

I am, however, an avid user of OmniFocus. I certainly don't claim to be an expert -- but it is working for me, and I'm sure that as I become more experienced with it, it will only sharpen my daily focus more.

So, I see several opportunities for integration between the two applications based on interaction between the following pairs of actors:

1) one company and another company
2) one employee and another employee (peers)
3) one employee and project manager

It could be, that a project manager has assigned a task to a resource (employee) [3].
Or, a resource (employee) finishes a task that is a predecessor to another task assigned to another resource (employee) [2].
Finally, perhaps a project contains a task which is to be completed by an external actor, where the relationship is between the company coordinating the project, and the company completing some task. [1].

So, the opportunities for integration roughly boil down as follows:

1) A task assigned to a resource, where the resource is a properly formatted email address or a drag-and-drop from address book, is emailed to that resource as an attachment. The attachment type is associated with OmniFocus, which creates or updates the appropriate action.

2) Tasks imported into OmniFocus via #1 contain information how to reach the project manager. OmniFocus could have an "Send Updates" function, which finds active tasks with progress changes since last update, and then send updates as an attachment via email. That attachment is a file type associated with OmniPlan, which updates the appropriate task.

3) OmniPlan uploads a project plan with task distribution to a WebDav server. This project plan contains some meta data for each resource with tasks. OmniPlan sends an email to the resources with an attachment that imports the project (and associated WebDav path) into OmniFocus. OmniFocus finds the meta data in the WebDav path, which instructs OmniFocus where to upload it's task updates to. OmniFocus can be configured to manually update status to the project plan, periodically, or automatically (when status changes). OmniFocus would also occasionally check for status.

Assume, given #3, that two people are assigned tasks. Person A has task 1 and Person B has task 2. Task 1 is Task 2's predecessor, and Task 2 cannot complete until Task 1 is finished.

Person B would show "Task 2" in context "Waiting".
Person A would show "Task 1" as available. They would do work and eventually complete it. OmniFocus would automatically upload status when they mark it complete.
Person B's OmniFocus instance would periodically check for new status for associated project plans. They would see new status is available and download it. Task 2's predecessors would show as complete and OmniFocus would remove the Waiting context from Task 2.

Also, perhaps Task 2, while an atomic task from the Project Plan perspective, is made up of several smaller tasks.

The user should be able to locally promote it to a project and create arbitrary items beneath it, complete with their own contexts and durations. Based on the sum of any sub task durations and completion statuses, OmniFocus could automatically provide updates of percentage complete.

--------------------

There should be an ability for OmniPlan to open a WebDav stored project in a readonly manner, such that others with OmniPlan could open the project. And, a minimal Web Application for viewing the project and marking tasks as completed would be ideal. (Some amount of cross-platform compatibility)

Me Too.

omni integration
 

[QUOTE=sylvaticus;69680]I'll chime in for integration too. I hate hate hate to say it, but to be honest, I wouldn't mind seeing some soft of OmniSuite, that might ease integration between OP, OF, and OO, with links perhaps to OG and OGS.

Really.[/QUOTE]

i've been posting about this for some time. together with the glaring omission of omnimindmap / omnimap. other companies have already integrated between outline and mindmap, and it wouldn't be a human milestone to go from there to integrating outline, mindmap, omnifocus, omniplan, omnigraffle, and omnigraphsketcher.

dear omni guys - i think you're sitting on the killer app, and you don't know it. or do you? please share what your plans are!

and in the meantime - please add my vote to any kind of interapp information transfer!!!

Add my vote, too!
 

As a new user of OP and a longtime user of OF OOP and OGP, it seems crucial to have integration between these apps, most of all between OF and OP!

I think elektroglide's idea is killer. I use OF and OP - and count me in as a "me too" vote - and FreeMind as well. Individually, they're Ok, but it would really rock the Mac, and my work flow, if they were tied together, somehow.

Yeah, I can cut-and-paste, but that gets old, and it leaves room for gaps, which leads to lost information.

As for implementation, it seems to me that OF already has all of the data that you'd want to use in OP, but OP just displays it better. Can OF be updated to present different display formats?

We need OP and OF interaction!!! :)

OOP/OP/OF Integration
 

I agree OP & OF would be a good 'team'. Quoting a post in another thread from 11/15/09[QUOTE]IMHO OG hasn't integrated OOP, OP & OF well or properly. From where I sit a project starts in OOP where it gets defined and refined. It then needs to move to OP so the project can be managed and treated like a project. OF should really be the 'client' portion of project management where a team member can get their assignments and work through them.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=WrongSizeGlass;73489]I agree OP & OF would be a good 'team'. Quoting a post in another thread from 11/15/09[/QUOTE]

Well said.

Though OOP would not even really be needed. By OF and OP integration would be great. Or even some HTML reports for work that needs to be done for each resource

I have posted links to two Applescripts[LIST=1][*]OmniPlan to OmniFocus[*]OmniFocus to OmniPlan[/LIST]in the [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?p=74098#post74098"]OmniPlan Extras[/URL] Forum.

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[QUOTE=whpalmer4;67522]Omnibob, how did you go about doing this transfer? I've done some playing around with sketching out big projects in OmniPlan and trying to move the tasks to OmniFocus for execution, but doing so isn't easy.[/QUOTE]

It was a one-way trip for me. I'm running that project purely out of OP. A really different way of working. Wherever there are dependencies, it makes it easy to focus on what needs to be done first. When choosing between multiple tasks than can be done now, and where critical path isn't an issue, there is still the same human-thinking review process to decide. I also assign priorities and then filter by any priority over "0" and tasks that aren't 100% complete.

Bob

I NEED it!
 

Hello.
I'm using a combination of the Omni's (OP, OF, & OG) to start and run multiple companies. Right now, our marketing company is just getting started with OF & I've org'd them with OG & set up a few process steps for them.
Now, I'm getting more advanced and am doing our entire restaurant buildout using OmniPlan, however, my personal "2 Do's" go in OminFocus so I can sync with iPhone & hopefully iPad soon.
SO, all I need is the ability to monitor the progress of a project that I have sorted and planned in OP, through OF. So, much like you can export an org for it, there should be a way to export a "group" under a project title. I find myself retyping everything I just put in OP in OF so that I can keep them in the project folders!

Ideally, it would work something like this: In my OF Project for the Restaurant, when I export from OP, I could get a group that says "Build Out". Expanding the group allows me to view the dependent tasks in order of necessary completion (taken from the OP project). Staff Resources become "People : Name" context. Cost & other variables can drop into the expanded notes if the user selects it.

Down the road, I'd love to see a fancy "sync" that checks OF for project status and "beams" it to OP that updates the % complete, cost, etc. THROUGH THE INTERWEBS so there is no wire or "nearness" necessary. Then when I complete something, my office will also know what tasks I am working on and the LIVE status of our projects.

It seems like OP is the perfect tool to layout the plan and OF is the perfect tool to update the Plan because it is MOBILE ... until you have OP for iPad! :) But even then, OF has an easier user interface for "checking off" next actions.

Thanks for the quality products! We love them and look forward to future advances!

I would like to register my vote for this as well. This could prove an excellent tool for groups

Another vote
 

The integration between OP and OF is definitely needed. It would dramatically increase the value of both programs.

We need something which allows us to Delegate and Collaborate on a Team level. I have so many workarounds right now that work but I wish we had something much simpler. Even a Shared Projects tab with exposed Tasks on a per Teammate basis that OmniFocus syncs to would be nice.

I've been refining my vision around what I imagine this app to be. You can see the evolution of the concept here:[URL="http://www.novamind.com/connect/users/policarpo"]http://www.novamind.com/connect/users/policarpo[/URL]

Please cast my vote for this sort of integration.