[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by mlevin777

Hello,

I'm just starting to use OmniPlan (as my first foray into project management tools). Could someone please clue me in on the following:

1) is it possible to have more space vertically, in both the Task list and the associated Gantt chart - I just want more empty vertical space between the lines. Can that be done?

I've never seen anything like that for OmniPlan, although certainly some of the other Omni apps do have it. Use Help->Send Feedback to send in a request for it.

2) how does the inheritance of dependence work - I've got a task and a bunch of indented sub-tasks below it. The indented subtasks don't seem to know that they depend on the same thing their parent task depends on.

The group is dependent on the prerequisite(s) for the group, but individual tasks aren't directly dependent on the prerequisites for the group unless you put in such a dependency. It won't try to schedule any of the tasks in a group before the prerequisite is complete, if you've got the default Finish->Start dependency between them. Note that this means you may have resources sitting idle if you aren't careful about how you define your groups. A task in the dependent group may not really need everything in the prerequisite group to complete, but rather just some individual task in the prerequisite group.

3) does the order of the tasks (automatic numbering for the lines in the Task list) mean anything?

Yes, all else being equal, OmniPlan tries to schedule tasks with lower ID numbers earlier. See "How scheduling and leveling work" in the Help facility.

4) is there any way to import from Omnifocus to Omnioutliner? Or store information with a task or at least a link to an Omnifocus description of that task? Where do you put the info (say, you have a paragraph of details about that task) for a given task - can you associate data/text/attachments with tasks?

Yes, there are ways of linking and storing such information. If you select an action (or row) in any of the three apps, and Edit->Copy, you'll get a link which can be pasted into another app. Clicking on that link should open the proper app and display that row.

Tasks and projects can have data associated. One form is the note field, which can be accessed by Edit->Edit Note (cmd-') and accepts rich text. You can collapse and expand the notes by clicking on the icon in the note column, and there are commands for controlling whether or not each line is fully expanded or not, see the View menu.

You can also attach documents to tasks and the project as a whole using the Inspector. The Task: Attachments inspector (cmd-1, click on Paperclip icon) is used for attaching documents to a task, and similarly there is a Project: Attachments inspector (cmd-4, click on Paperclip icon).

5) how do I link tasks that have subtasks? I can't seem to drag one task (group) into the pre-requisite/dependency fields in the inspector of another. When I click one, I can't drag the other (it treats that as a click and changes focus). Is that normal - should I not be able to link tasks that are groups?

There are a number of ways to add dependencies. One is to add the dependency column to the view (see View->View Options, cmd-J), and type in ID numbers. Another is to use the Connection button in the toolbar. Yet another is to type them in via the Task: Dependencies inspector. Or you can drag from the left or right side of the graphic in the Gantt chart to connect them up graphically. See "Connecting tasks with dependencies" in the Help facility.

6) is it possible to set a date for a milestone (as in, we need this milestone to be accomplished by a certain date)?

Sure! Select the milestone, open the Task inspector (cmd-1), set the date for the milestone. If you connect up the rest of the dependency graph to the milestone, you'll get a violation if the prerequisites aren't going to finish before the milestone starts. You can also put a constraint on the milestone via the same mechanism if there is some flexibility.

I highly recommend watching the ScreenCasts Online video tutorials at http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omniplan/videos/ and also going through the getting started tutorial in the Help facility (see "tutorial"). I found that I benefited from reading and watching them several times, with my experience using the program allowing me to pick up on things I'd missed during earlier passes.