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How to start efficiently with OmniPlan? Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Hey,

I watched all the tutorials:
http://www.omnigroup.com/video/omniplan/

went thru the manual, however because of lack of time I can't study it.

I have a major difficulty to get a good grasp on the OP. I'm an old OF user but I don't have an idea how to do everything efficiently.

I want to use OP for school (student) and work (graphic designer).

Are there any sources, materials, etc, where they will provide a good graps on the software? Omni tutorials are great, but they are like 1 minute, and don't explain the whole logic and not too much basics.

I will greatly appreciate some input how to start with OP and not waste weeks to try to figure it out.

Thank you,
BI.
 
For example, why it does let me to overlap tasks (in 2 different projects)?


 
In your example, you have given OmniPlan no reason to think those tasks can't be simultaneous. In fact, by setting dependencies and start constraints on the tasks and their prerequisites, then locking the start and end dates of those tasks, you have explicitly told OmniPlan that they must be performed at that time. Read on.

OmniPlan is a semi traditional project management application and while we try to make it easy to use, something of a learning curve is inherent. It's difficult for us to write everything you might need to know here in a forum post. After all, that's what we wrote the manual for. I think the best approach is to run through the tutorial in the manual and come back with specific questions. That said I have a few best practices to recommend.
  1. Start with an idea of the scope of your project
  2. Brain dump the tasks into an OmniPlan document
  3. Put the tasks in an order that makes sense to you
  4. Convert any task that is too complex to estimate into a group and add child tasks.
  5. Estimate the effort required for all tasks

Up to now, you should not be thinking at all about when tasks should start. Don't be trying to drag tasks to the time you think they should start. That amounts to giving OmniPlan false information. Your approach to that should probably be as follows:
  1. Add formal dependencies. For example if Task A must be completed before Task B can begin, that is a formal Finish to Start dependency from A to B. Add dependencies only where they represent a real world constraint on the work.
  2. Add constraints. Again, only real ones.
  3. Assign tasks. This seems to be what you are missing. If you are the only person doing all the work, just assign all the tasks to yourself.
  4. Level the project. At this point OmniPlan will make sure your staff resources (presumably yourself) are doing only one thing at a time, preferring to do the tasks listed first earliest, all other things being the same. You may wish to turn on automatic resource leveling.

It's ok to put multiple projects in the same file as you seem to be doing, but this approach will only scale up to a point.

-Tom
 
 


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