multiple projects in omniplan
 

dear fellow omniplan users, i am a new user in omniplan and i am curious if it is possible and how to manage several projects in omniplan? I tried it as groups with tasks etc but in a way this does not work very well. maybe some of you can help me out.

we use omniplan to plan and track several projects as a interior architect firm.
resources are attached to these projects and costs are generated in total and for a single project dealines are set to ensure finisching the projects tasks in time and within budget.

If the projects are completely independent, you can track them in separate files. However, if people work on multiple projects at once, the project leveling won't properly account for work on another project. In that case, your best option is to put each project as a top-level group in OmniPlan. As you noted, this has limitations. We want a better way to share resources across projects.

[QUOTE=Lizard;43862]If the projects are completely independent, you can track them in separate files. However, if people work on multiple projects at once, the project leveling won't properly account for work on another project. In that case, your best option is to put each project as a top-level group in OmniPlan. As you noted, this has limitations. We want a better way to share resources across projects.[/QUOTE]

I dived into our organizingstructure and these are my findings. We work with the following stages; analysis, prelimanary design,provisional design and final design. Every prokect we have has this structure. So my idee is to take this organisational structure as main structure for the planning. Then put all analysis tasks as a task or subtask under the main analysis from the organisational structure? And so on for all the preliminary design fase?
Will i have the same levelling problems then? The planning of several projects with tasks similar is organized in one "project" namely planning.

[QUOTE=march;44061]I dived into our organizingstructure and these are my findings. We work with the following stages; analysis, prelimanary design,provisional design and final design. Every prokect we have has this structure. So my idee is to take this organisational structure as main structure for the planning. Then put all analysis tasks as a task or subtask under the main analysis from the organisational structure? And so on for all the preliminary design fase?
Will i have the same levelling problems then? The planning of several projects with tasks similar is organized in one "project" namely planning.[/QUOTE]

I think this should work reasonably well. To make sure I'm understanding this right, your outline will look something like this:
[LIST][*]analysis
-analysis task 1
-analysis task 2
-analysis task 3[*]preliminary design[*]provisional design[*]final design[/LIST]
Each separate project group in your file will contain these 4 groups along with tasks in each group? If so, leveling should work fine I think.

[QUOTE=akwong;44419]I think this should work reasonably well. To make sure I'm understanding this right, your outline will look something like this:
[LIST][*]analysis
-analysis task 1
-analysis task 2
-analysis task 3[*]preliminary design[*]provisional design[*]final design[/LIST]
Each separate project group in your file will contain these 4 groups along with tasks in each group? If so, leveling should work fine I think.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the reply, Yes thats correct. Analysis task 1 is for client a and analysis task 2 is for client b etc. Another advantage could be that you can see how many of each kind of task you perform daily, weekly.. and if you attach fees to the tasks then turn-over on these phases can be generated. This brings me to another question about attaching fees. We have a internal hourly rate and external rate. It would be nice if this feature would be at hand. One last thing on the multiple projectmangement concept we discussed here. I think it is necessary to give the tasks an id that relates to for instance the projectcode/number/name so tasks are traceable to the projects. How about that?

multi-tasking...multiple projects
 

i'm new to omniplan and the forum, but desperately want to request that a vote be placed for the ability to manage multiple projects with the same resources...this is the life we live :).