I'm new to OmniFocus, and right now I'm trying it out to see if it will fit my needs. On the whole I have been able to answer my questions through intuition, experimentation, and the documentation, but now I've run across something that I can't figure out. I'm hoping that someone here can help.

I have many projects that share actions. To give a little more context, I'm a researcher, and I'm often working on related papers at once. While the obvious workaround would be to include the same action ("Read New Article on Quasar Mating Calls") in both projects and check it off twice--however, I think that would easily lead to user errors (assigning the wrong due date, missing the click, deleting it thinking it's a reduplication from a clicked/unclicked repeating action, etc.). Is there a way to include one action in multiple projects?

(I suppose another workaround would be to have both papers be subprojects of a larger project, but that easily turns everything into the master project of Work, which seems to defeat the purpose of having projects at all.)

Or perhaps, with a situation such as the above (and I haven't even mentioned the tasks that are dependent on each other), I should be using a different application?

Thank you in advance.

[sriggs]

Maybe using a folder to group the work and ordering the projects by order of execution in the folder might do the trick? Bring the 'Learn about Quasar night life" project up to the top of the list before the other projects that depend on it.

But if you can't represent your work in an outline, OmniFocus might not get it for you.

[Toadling]

Originally Posted by enmare

Is there a way to include one action in multiple projects?

In a nutshell, no. This feature does not exist in OmniFocus today. Although, I vaguely remember reading about other requests for it, so it's probably in Omni's feature request database. I know a similar feature (sometimes called "cloning") has long been requested for OmniOutliner.

The Omni Group takes user interest into account when deciding which features to implement for future releases, so you should send feedback to "vote" it up. You can do this by going to the Help -> Send Feedback option in OmniFocus.

When I run into the situation you describe, I usually just create multiple, discrete actions. There's maybe more overhead with this approach, but one advantage is that you can add or modify start/due dates, flags, and notes (or even delete the entire action) on an individual basis without impacting similar actions in other projects. So it's possibly more flexible than an "alias" or "clone" action.

-Dennis

[elektroglide]

Originally Posted by Toadling

In a nutshell, no. This feature does not exist in OmniFocus today. Although, I vaguely remember reading about other requests for it, so it's probably in Omni's feature request database. I know a similar feature (sometimes called "cloning") has long been requested for OmniOutliner.

The Omni Group takes user interest into account when deciding which features to implement for future releases, so you should send feedback to "vote" it up. You can do this by going to the Help -> Send Feedback option in OmniFocus.

When I run into the situation you describe, I usually just create multiple, discrete actions. There's maybe more overhead with this approach, but one advantage is that you can add or modify start/due dates, flags, and notes (or even delete the entire action) on an individual basis without impacting similar actions in other projects. So it's possibly more flexible than an "alias" or "clone" action.

-Dennis

having the clone/alias functionality wouldn't prevent multiple discrete actions being used, and i know it's a useful feature, because i just tried to do it! it's about being able to view information in ways which are meaningful and useful to each owner. alias/clone feature - bring it on!