Quote:
Originally Posted by whpalmer4
Out of curiosity, how do you see the linkup working? OP has a number of interrelationships between tasks that are not so easily expressed in OF project structure...
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Some time ago, I sent OmniGroup my thoughts on this, which I'll repost here as food for thought. Fair warning, it's long:
Hello,
I know you've received lots of feedback on the forums regarding integration between OmniPlan and OmniFocus, but I felt the best way to communicate my desires would be by way of an email.
First off, I am not a project manager, though I occasionally do run some projects. To that end, I recently (today) purchased a license for OmniPlan.
I am, however, an avid user of OmniFocus. I certainly don't claim to be an expert -- but it is working for me, and I'm sure that as I become more experienced with it, it will only sharpen my daily focus more.
So, I see several opportunities for integration between the two applications based on interaction between the following pairs of actors:
1) one company and another company
2) one employee and another employee (peers)
3) one employee and project manager
It could be, that a project manager has assigned a task to a resource (employee) [3].
Or, a resource (employee) finishes a task that is a predecessor to another task assigned to another resource (employee) [2].
Finally, perhaps a project contains a task which is to be completed by an external actor, where the relationship is between the company coordinating the project, and the company completing some task. [1].
So, the opportunities for integration roughly boil down as follows:
1) A task assigned to a resource, where the resource is a properly formatted email address or a drag-and-drop from address book, is emailed to that resource as an attachment. The attachment type is associated with OmniFocus, which creates or updates the appropriate action.
2) Tasks imported into OmniFocus via #1 contain information how to reach the project manager. OmniFocus could have an "Send Updates" function, which finds active tasks with progress changes since last update, and then send updates as an attachment via email. That attachment is a file type associated with OmniPlan, which updates the appropriate task.
3) OmniPlan uploads a project plan with task distribution to a WebDav server. This project plan contains some meta data for each resource with tasks. OmniPlan sends an email to the resources with an attachment that imports the project (and associated WebDav path) into OmniFocus. OmniFocus finds the meta data in the WebDav path, which instructs OmniFocus where to upload it's task updates to. OmniFocus can be configured to manually update status to the project plan, periodically, or automatically (when status changes). OmniFocus would also occasionally check for status.
Assume, given #3, that two people are assigned tasks. Person A has task 1 and Person B has task 2. Task 1 is Task 2's predecessor, and Task 2 cannot complete until Task 1 is finished.
Person B would show "Task 2" in context "Waiting".
Person A would show "Task 1" as available. They would do work and eventually complete it. OmniFocus would automatically upload status when they mark it complete.
Person B's OmniFocus instance would periodically check for new status for associated project plans. They would see new status is available and download it. Task 2's predecessors would show as complete and OmniFocus would remove the Waiting context from Task 2.
Also, perhaps Task 2, while an atomic task from the Project Plan perspective, is made up of several smaller tasks.
The user should be able to locally promote it to a project and create arbitrary items beneath it, complete with their own contexts and durations. Based on the sum of any sub task durations and completion statuses, OmniFocus could automatically provide updates of percentage complete.
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There should be an ability for OmniPlan to open a WebDav stored project in a readonly manner, such that others with OmniPlan could open the project. And, a minimal Web Application for viewing the project and marking tasks as completed would be ideal. (Some amount of cross-platform compatibility)