[ppc970]

I first asked about AppleScript, but what I really wanted was to be able to export files from FileMaker, and load them into OmniPlan.

Here are the things that I have found so far:

0.) Apparently, OmniPlan *can* import ".csv" format files, which wasn't clear from the mini-manual or the OmniPlan web page.

1.) When you export from OmniPlan to what Omni calls ".csv" what you really get is a tab delimited file. To get FileMaker to happily import this file, you must change it to be a ".tab" file.

2.) The converse is true in exporting from FileMaker. To make OmniPlan understand the file, you have to ask FileMaker to make a ".tab" and then re-name it to be a ".csv". I would recommend that you change this to match FileMaker's terminology, as it is one of the most likely programs apart from Excel which people are likely to want to use. Or, just fix your .csv files to really be comma separated values.

3.) The names of the columns created on export are different than the names that the "Column Mapper" is looking for on import. Further, could it be possible to make a .csv file that would not need to be mapped? OmniPlan could look at the file, and if it looked "right" (Properly ordered column names in the first row?)

4.) I think an import function which would allow you to load data into an already existing file could be really cool. Of course, this would raise the issue of resolving conflicts between old and new, so it might be a mistake. Of course, through the use of Task ID's and unique resource names, etc, this problem could be avoided.

In the end, I am interested in being able to do the following:

Store information about tasks and dates in our FileMaker database.

Use OmniPlan to visualize that data. Manipulate the data in OmniPlan: Resolve conflicts, adjust the order of tasks, etc. That is, stuff that should be really slick in OmniPlan, and which would be tedious and kludgey in FileMaker (and require a lot of custom layouts, scripting, etc.)

Export the data from OmniPlan and use it to update our FileMaker records.