[ajrichardson]

Groups are not reverting to tasks if their children are removed. Steps to recreate:

1. Create Task 1
2. Create Task 2 and Tab it under Task 1. Task 1 converts to Group
3. Outdent Task 2 so it comes back to the same level as Task 1
4. Task 1 is still rendered as a Group, even though it now has no children.

Adam

[Lizard]

This was initially by design, which we are rethinking. The idea being that you could create a group and reserve time for it, even though you don't know what tasks it will involve. However, that is not so very different from a task with a duration. We find people expect the group to go back to being a task (closer to Outliner's behavior). We shall see.

[sunshine]

It would be rather weird if a group reverted to a task because there is no tasks within it. Structuring plans using empty groups is essential to the construction of all detailed plans using a phased approach.

Perhaps implement an option to choose which method is applied, keep both the outliner and PM camps happy?

[ajrichardson]

I'm sympathetic to this idea, but it does introduce some logic problems as you indicate. When I was part of a team developing a project management app years ago, we had different tools for drawing group bars vs task bars for exactly this reason. That way we didn't have to have groups only come into existence after the sub-tasks had been created.

Our main reason for doing it was for collaboration - the project manager is not going to know all the sub-tasks, but the discipline leads will fill those in. But putting the group in meant blocking out time for it, and then someone else could fill in the details. The difference with our scheme was that groups could be given durations even if they didn't have tasks yet - they were not necessarily shrink-to-fit.

Adam

[Lizard]

I'd like to understand better.......
If a project manager doesn't need to know the sub-tasks, why is the distinction between one big task and a group with unspecified sub-tasks important?
In some sense, isn't every task really a group of unspecified sub-tasks? I may say the task is "put on my shoes", but it can be broken down into
1. find shoes
2. put left foot in left shoe
3. tie left shoe
4. put right foot in right shoe
5. tie right shoe

[sunshine]

Originally Posted by Lizard

I'd like to understand better.......
If a project manager doesn't need to know the sub-tasks, why is the distinction between one big task and a group with unspecified sub-tasks important?
In some sense, isn't every task really a group of unspecified sub-tasks? I may say the task is "put on my shoes", but it can be broken down into
1. find shoes
2. put left foot in left shoe
3. tie left shoe
4. put right foot in right shoe
5. tie right shoe

In theory what you say is correct. However, in practice when constructing detailed plans, it is far better (existing PM practice) to lay down the blocks of that plan using a group that visually and clearly indicates large, high level chunks of time/activities. I wouldn't argue that your approach is wrong, I guess its a case of old ideas meeting new and how radical you wish to be with the application.

[ajrichardson]

Wholeheartedly agree with Sunshine.

One of the "problems" with MS Project and all the other apps that fairly slavishly follow it (present company expected) is that it, purposefully or otherwise, encourages or leads to the expectation of wanting a lot of detail and precision up front. It doesn't make people feel comfortable with ambiguity or roughing things in. But when you start out with a decent size program, you tend to have quite a bit of that. Facilitating the communication of ambiguity rather than giving the false impression of high accuracy is actually beneficial, and if OmniPlan can do that it will actually be doing a service to project teams, IMHO.

Having groups with no tasks helps with this, as Sunshine indicates. There may be other better ways to deal with it, too. One idea is blurry edge task bars as though drawn with an airbrush, or some other "sketchy" visualization. But for me that's the problem that I'd like to see dealt with.

Adam

[Lizard]

I'm understanding better. Thank you.

Pondering a bit more, I realize we do have the functionality of groups with no tasks, yet with an estimated duration. It's the "Reserve" in the task inspector.

However, it's kinda goofy right now -- the group will show as the minimum length in the task view until it contains at least one task -- I've filed a bug for this.

[ajrichardson]

Interesting. If you can work the bugs out, that would pretty much nail it.

Cheers,

Adam

[julianps]

Originally Posted by ajrichardson

Groups are not reverting to tasks if their children are removed. Steps to recreate:

1. Create Task 1
2. Create Task 2 and Tab it under Task 1. Task 1 converts to Group
3. Outdent Task 2 so it comes back to the same level as Task 1
4. Task 1 is still rendered as a Group, even though it now has no children.

Adam

Whilst it has Child-Tasks you cannot use the Inspector to change it from Group to Task. Once you Outdent the Child-Tasks the Group can be re-profiled in the Inspector back to a Task (with a default duration).