The Omni Group

Yet another terrific piece of work by the Omni gang.  I have a number of curricular projects planned for the summer and fall term.  OmniPlan will be the tool that I use—and I will be among those first in line to purchase it.  I appreciate the fact that you've provided an educational purchase price for those of us in education.

Project managment from Omni, that sounds pretty cool! Although I'm a bit dissapointed that it goes the way of the Gantt charts. Reminds me too much of the “Microsoft Project” style of management. While Microsoft din't invent that style of management, it tends to lead down that way of doing things. Wish that somethig a little more innovative could have been designed.

But regardless looks like a fanstastic app, and will definitely give it a go. Too bad I already have invested into Basecamp. Unless… this ends up becoming a fantastic front end to Basecamp, and I can sync and publish everything in OmniPlan with my Basecamp site(hint, hint). That will make me jump up and and down with giddy joy.

Regarding the problem with the beach ball on save, moving the app to (main) Applications folder appears to resolve it. I duplicated the problem by placing the app on the desktop but unable to duplication while the app is the Applications folder.

Hi,

I downloaded the disk image, and saved the App to /Applications, then ran it. I created a project and tried to save it to ~/Documents/Projects/Driving.omniplan but have the same problem as Hal, Spinning Pizza of Death, no save.

Does it open my TaskMaster files?

;)

Hey folks, thanks for the comments. If you're having troubles, make sure to use the Send Feedback command in the Help menu. Bug reports sent there will get way more attention than ones posted on the blog. :D

We just posted beta 3, which should fix the hang-on-save problem.

The guy at resexcellence switched away from the mac because of a bad experiences with the community. So let me take this opportunity to say:

I love you guys!

I'm going to give it a go, but I think the $150 price tag will cause marital strain! (I bought the Pro versions of OO3 and OG!) Still, I'm a one-man-band in a PC environment so it probably isn't going to be an essential purchase. Now, what about OmniGetitdone?

OK - OK. Now, this clearly says “BETA”, right? So we have to assume it is not fully functional yet, and the Omni Group need our feedback on crashes (I've had a coupl), beach-balling (none so far in BETA 3), and other concerns.

It is interesting to hear general discussions on the convenience and actual utility of GANTT-style planning software, but, hey, this is only an app - if you want to give the Omni Group grief, stick to the actual app, not the planning philosophy.

Having said that, here's my 0.0 €:

- Great interface, very OmniOutliner-like (collapsible Gantt chart, etc.). Great Web export (haven't risked my iCal settings yet, but I'll try it), and a general thumbs-up on look and feel.

Stuff I'd like to see more of:

- Better AddressBook integration (links to the A-book entries?)

- Ditto iCal integration (Synching, like Merlin?). Or at least some kind of calendar pop-up when assigning dates.

That's all I can think of right now - too busy planning a two-week artist residence course in Southern Spain for this coming October.

Best,

Kamen

I've looked at Merlin (and others) in the past and found them complex and unpolished. Downloaded OmniPlan today and set up a up-coming project no problems - much better. I'll be getting a licence!

Minor bug though (I'll submit it tomorrow via the feedback form). If I go back to an item which is all connected etc and add a new resource to it it changes the time line length for that item (seems to be so the software can fit the new name in a lozenge the same size). Also can you allow me to have a half hour lunch please! :)

Great software and LOVE the web export!

So what's the price point for all of us Loyal PMX owners?  I have to say $150 for a 1.0 in this arena still seems a bit high, I would think occassionally quantity would account for something, a little less and maybe you can garner more owners.  Who doesn't need some form of project management?

Looks great, much more intuitive than Merlin1 and handles resources better (though I think resource type should be user definable).

However I get the lovely crash report bomb trying to open visio mpp files that Merlin (v1) does not even flinch at. Interestingly, Merlin2 beta does not like some of these files either.

I will certainly be keeping a close eye on this product through the beta phase

Hmmm..

I'm not a serious project software user, but do like to use them for organising my life/work/time.

OP seems to be pretty straightforward, with no issues that have jumped at me - only time will tell how good it is.

I echo one of the other posters in that it might be good to have a demo project or 2 - how about including the one mentioned in the mini-manual ??

Or how about mini-movies, 1 per chapter in the mini-manual ??

Looks good, tho. Even with a higher price [$150, or about £90, I think I'll get a copy].

Peter

omni,

do you mind blogging about the experience of developing OmniPlan, fun facts or some other insider information… :)

regards.

This is great news for me. I've been waiting for a PM tool from my a software company I can trust. Already a big fan of outliner and graffle. I learned project management the old way, and the only thing I would suggest at the moment as something to think about would be a PERT chat view - you know, those little cards that show the dates in each corner.