Calendar time vs. duration vs. effort
 

I've seen some discussion of this issue [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=7624"]in other threads [/URL] but I'd like a bit more clarification.

In general, when we're planning, we're planning over fixed durations, that is, against calendar time. For example, our grant proposals are typically for a 3 year fixed period. Similarly, our PhD students have two years to finish their thesis from their end of year interview.

Our natural way of working is to start with a calendar duration, i.e., 3 years/36 months, then define tasks and roughly when and over what calendar period they will occur, and [I]then[/I] how much resource they'll need.

Aside from the methodological point, the printout really needs to have everything against the 3 year timespan or people will look at it funny.

We've currently hacked around this in two ways: 1, have our durations be longer than our calendar time (i.e., 3 years and a few months...this drives me crazy). The other way is to adjust our working week down a little, so 3 years duration gives us 3 calendar years (but then we get a bit screwed on resource allocation).

Is there a sensible way to align the duration and the calendar to support this style of planning without giving up the other goodies? I don't want to use omniplan just as a gantt chart editor, but I do need the printout to make sense to the people I give it to.

Thanks!