I have spent twenty years looking for a Mac based Resource Manager (they exist in the PC world). Omni Project is the sweetest Project Manager out there - nice looking and easy to use, but it doesn't do multiple projects as everyone knows. There are any number of Project Managers out there, but none I can find meet our needs - planning 40-50 different projects, each of which has no more than 7 separate, but common, phases through our design office. Let's call this OmniResource for now!
Sure, OmniProject could do it if it could handle multiple projects, but I think there is a large untapped market for OmniResource that goes beyond project planning - any business which allocates people and physical resources to projects on a time line needs OmniResource: accommodation booking, rentals (cars, bikes, boats, equipment), event organisers, holiday booking, meeting room booking, any number of consultancies (design, architecture, marketing, management, digital etc.)
The needs of a design office like ours match OmniProject quite closely, but we don't actually need all of that app's capability (like the critical path). I have emailed Omni over the last couple of years with this need and hope it will happen one day - anyone else share this need?
We need:
Multiple projects, with each one able to divide into phases (tasks, in planning software lingo). These need to be copyable and pastable as they are nearly always the same (Concept Design, Concept Development, Design Development etc)
Multiple physical resources - people, rooms, equipment and so on
The ability to toggle between resources/people down the LHS (in which case the projects fill the bars) or projects/phases (or tasks) down the LHS (in which case the people fill the bars on the page)
The ability to draw new phases and milestones directly on the chart and create a bar, then label it - rather than create a task and add dates - usually, we don't know the dates when it might start or finish . . . that's what we want to divine!. While the underlying software engine might require data entry, I can't see why a graphical input like this cannot fill that data automatically.
Dragable bars that we can extend, shorten or move the project and/or phases to a different Resource. Or, when toggled, move the resource to a different project.
When dragging or moving causes a conflict, the App needs to offer options - shuffle to accomodate, put into an unallocated palette/well.
The ability to close or open up rows to view as much as possible (doesn't seem possible with Omniplan's Resource view as it stands)
The ability to print off the resulting chart on big plotters at big sizes
Sure, OmniProject could do it if it could handle multiple projects, but I think there is a large untapped market for OmniResource that goes beyond project planning - any business which allocates people and physical resources to projects on a time line needs OmniResource: accommodation booking, rentals (cars, bikes, boats, equipment), event organisers, holiday booking, meeting room booking, any number of consultancies (design, architecture, marketing, management, digital etc.)
The needs of a design office like ours match OmniProject quite closely, but we don't actually need all of that app's capability (like the critical path). I have emailed Omni over the last couple of years with this need and hope it will happen one day - anyone else share this need?
We need:
Multiple projects, with each one able to divide into phases (tasks, in planning software lingo). These need to be copyable and pastable as they are nearly always the same (Concept Design, Concept Development, Design Development etc)
Multiple physical resources - people, rooms, equipment and so on
The ability to toggle between resources/people down the LHS (in which case the projects fill the bars) or projects/phases (or tasks) down the LHS (in which case the people fill the bars on the page)
The ability to draw new phases and milestones directly on the chart and create a bar, then label it - rather than create a task and add dates - usually, we don't know the dates when it might start or finish . . . that's what we want to divine!. While the underlying software engine might require data entry, I can't see why a graphical input like this cannot fill that data automatically.
Dragable bars that we can extend, shorten or move the project and/or phases to a different Resource. Or, when toggled, move the resource to a different project.
When dragging or moving causes a conflict, the App needs to offer options - shuffle to accomodate, put into an unallocated palette/well.
The ability to close or open up rows to view as much as possible (doesn't seem possible with Omniplan's Resource view as it stands)
The ability to print off the resulting chart on big plotters at big sizes
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