[meltemi]

Looking into OMNIPlan 2.0 for use within our company. One requirement/problem that we're trying to solve with it is:

our project delivery/completion dates are fixed
our start date is usually also fixed (today)

we'd like the PM software to help us examine how many resources or hours we have to add in order to complete the project on time...

So far all I seem to be able to figure out how to do is move the start date or move the completion date. I can manually increase the hours and add resources but this from what I can tell is cumbersome.

Can OMNIPlan be set up to fix both start and end and automatically absorb any project slippage in the "middle"?

[Tom Bunch]

Sounds like you're describing a forward scheduled project leading to a milestone that has a constraint. Personally, I'd probably just put an end constraint on it to say "it's no ok to let this slip past here, but it's ok to finish early". The rest is just a matter of setting up all the tasks leading to the milestone and throw resources at them until the constraint is satisfied.

If you want to artificially push the milestone out to the deadline, put a start constraint on it, too.

There are other ways of accomplishing the same thing, and I'm sure others will chime in with their favorite. In fact, with a truly fixed delivery date I think I might suggest putting an end constraint but no start constraint on the delivery milestone, then setting it to be scheduled as late as possible (ALAP) on the Task: Schedule inspector. It may make sense to set certain prerequisites to be ALAP as well.