Glossary

The following is a list of terms specific to OmniPlan or project management that you’ll encounter throughout this manual, defined and listed in alphabetical order for easy reference.

Actual schedule
The actual schedule, in contrast to the baseline schedule, is the way a project turns out in real life. Before the baseline is set for a project, the baseline and actual schedules are the same. After the baseline is set, further editing changes the actual schedule only.
Assignment
Assigning a resource to a task means that the resource is expected to be actively busy with that task throughout its duration. Assignment amounts are expressed as the percentage of the resource’s time being spent on the task.
Baseline schedule
The baseline schedule, in contrast to the actual schedule, is the way a project is originally planned. Before the baseline is set for a project, the baseline and actual schedules are the same. After the baseline is set, further editing changes the actual schedule only. You can compare the baseline schedule and the actual schedule using the View Inspector.
Cost
A task or a resource can have a monetary cost. The total cost of a task is the sum of the task cost and the costs of the resources assigned to it. A resource can have a per-use cost and a per-hour cost.
Critical path
The critical path is the series of dependent tasks which, if any of their durations change, will cause the whole project’s duration to change. You can check the critical path from the View Inspector.
Dependency
The relationship by which one task must start or finish before another task can start or finish. For example, the task "Buy paint" must finish before the task "Paint fence" can begin.
Duration
Duration, in contrast to effort, is how long a task takes to complete in actual working time (that is, not including off-time). For example, a task which takes 4 hours of effort, and is assigned to 2 resources, has a duration of 2 hours. When you assign resources to a task, the duration or effort may change.
Efficiency
The measure of how much work a resource can get done in a certain amount of time. Efficiency can affect duration and effort: 100% efficiency means the resource can contribute 1 hour of effort for every hour of work; 50% efficiency means it can contribute 1 hour of effort for every 2 hours of work; and so on.
Effort
Effort, in contrast to duration, is how much work time a task takes to complete, considering all of the resources assigned to it. For example, a task which has a duration of 4 hours, and has 2 resources assigned to it, has an effort of 8 hours. When you assign resources to a task, the duration or effort may change.
Equipment

Equipment is a type of resource. It represents some kind of reusable asset, such as some special computer hardware. It can also be useful to consider things like meeting rooms to be equipment, if you need to balance their use between different tasks.

For equipment resources, Units represent how many of the resource are available. The number of available units can affect resource leveling.

Equipment can have Efficiency, Cost per Use, and Cost per Hour values.

Gantt Chart
The Gantt chart is a chronological representation of the project. Each task is represented by a bar, corresponding to a row in the outline, and possibly connected to other tasks by lines representing dependencies.
Group
Items in the task outline or the resource outline can be grouped together. The members, or "children", of the group appear indented from the group itself in the outline. In the Gantt chart, a task group appears as a bracket enclosing its members.
Level

Leveling the project, or leveling resources, means automatically rearranging the project to make sure the resources are being used as efficiently as possible. This means not allowing a resource to be assigned at more than 100% of its available units at any time, and finding the best order for resources to work on tasks in order to complete them more quickly.

Newly created projects by default require leveling to be manually triggered, but automatic leveling can be enabled in the Resources Inspector.

When not leveling automatically, you should level your project after making changes like updating task completion or changing resource assignments.

Material

Material is a type of resource, representing consumable supplies.

For material resources, Units means how many of the resource are being used throughout the project. This value updates as the resource is assigned to more tasks.

Material resources can have Cost per Use and Cost per Hour values.

Milestone
A milestone is like a task, except that it has no duration and requires no effort. Its purpose is to mark some important point in time. Based on dependencies and work schedules, a milestone may shift in time.
Parent
A group is considered the "parent" of all its members; this is common terminology for outlining software.
Resource
Resources are the people and things needed to get a project done. Resources are listed in the Resources Inspector, and can be assigned to tasks. The three types of resources are Staff, Material, and Equipment.
Resource load / Resource allocation
A resource’s load is the amount of effort it is assigned to do at various times throughout the project. If a resource is assigned at more than 100% of its availability all at once, it is said to be overloaded or overutilized. Resource leveling tries to alleviate overload of resources.
Staff

Staff is a type of resource, representing people who work on the project.

Staff units are measured as percentages. A person who is fully available to the project has a units value of 100%; someone who is spending part of their working hours on other projects would have lower available units. Note that this is not the same as having fewer working hours (which can be set in the calendar view), or being less efficient (which can be set in the Resource Information inspector).

Staff can have Address, Efficiency, Cost per Use, and Cost per Hour values.

T day
The first day of a project that has an undetermined start date. Until the start date is set, all dates are represented by an amount of time after T day, such as T+2w 1d.
Task
Some item of work that needs to be done for the project to progress, represented by a corresponding task bar in the Gantt chart.
Units
Units measure amounts of resources in various contexts. For a staff resource, the units value is a percentage representing how much of the person’s time is available to be assigned to tasks. For equipment and material resources, the units value is a number representing a physical quantity.
Variance
Variance is the amount of time by which the actual date differs from the baseline date.
Violation
A violation is some sort of problem in the project that prevents it from working out properly. Such problems are things like tasks that start before the project start date, tasks that don’t have enough time to complete before their dependent tasks need to start, or dependencies that cause a task to be prerequisite to itself.