Category Archives: Integrating Merlin to…

Merlin Applescript – Transfer selected activities to Things

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Do you use Merlin for project management and Things for GTD? That’s great, we also do the same and transfer activities from our Merlin projects to Things as todos. Are you wondering how we do it? Well, Things has no import or file open features, so we cannot export a file to import in Thing, but Merlin and Things support applescript, so this is how we connect the two applications; by applescript. And here is how it works. Installation

  • Just download an applescript we wrote
  • Expand the zip archive
  • Start Merlin in case it is not already running
  • Call File > Send To > Open Scripts Folder
  • Copy the contained applescript into the “SendToMenu” folder (it’s path is ~/Library/Application Support/Merlin/SendToMenu)

  • For Mavericks, Mountain Lion and Lion users: If your ‘Security & Privacy’ system preference is not set to allow applications downloaded from ‘Anywhere’,
    • please select temporarily ‘Mac App Store and identified developers’.
    • Right-click the applescript application from within Merlin’s Scripts folder
    • Choose “Open” from the context menu
    • And  click in the next dialogue again on “Open” button
    • This will start Merlin and the script may or may-not work
  • Restart your Merlin to complete installation.

Workflow

  1. Open your Merlin project and select the activities you want to transfer.
  2. Call the script as shown under File > Send To >

Result

    See your tasks inserted in Things into a new Things project.

UPDATE September 5, 2013: Updated and added tip for Mountain Lion and Lion users (GateKeeper) March 27, 2012: Updated and simplified installation procedure.

Merlin Web – access and edit a project shared by Merlin Server

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This is rather basic but since we get asked from time to time in support, please bear with us if you already are familiar with it, otherwise sit back and enjoy.

How do I edit my Merlin projects in the web browser? I share them over my Merlin Server.

Editing your Merlin projects on the web is easy.

  • Once you know their address (in this case the Merlin Server’s address) just use the address on a supported web browser*.
  • Merlin web shows no inspector, you edit the values in the shown columns directly.
  • Expected columns contain automatically calculated values, are thus not editable.
  • To edit your schedule use the column set ‘Time Planing’ and edit the ‘given planned… dates’. You can use the mini calendar or type the appropriate dates.
  • To update your schedule use the column set  ‘Project Reporting (Percent)’; or ‘Project Reporting (absolute)’ depending on the reporting mode you want to use.
  • To link or indent activities  use the according buttons.
  • Don’t forget to save your changes.

You may want to check the screencast showing how to enable Merlin Server, and access or edit the project in Safari afterwards: Continue reading →

Merlin – Creating Milestones out of iCal todos

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With Merlin you can create proffessional project schedules. You can export or sync your tasks to iCal and have them in you calendar application. We have posted an AppleScript showing how one could export the tasks of the current selection.

You also know how to import an iCal calendar as exceptions to your project or resource’s calendar.

Creating tasks out of an iCal calendar is also possible by an AppleScript we wrote and posted here.

But what should you do, if you have entered lots of Todos in your iCal calendar and need these in Merlin? The short answer is: “Use an AppleScript”. The longer – because it contains the script as well – is, you can modify the script we have posted for transferring iCal events as tasks to Merlin so that it additionally handles iCal Todos. As todos have no duration, we decided to define them in Merlin as milestones. To make a long story shorter again, just check the following script:

(*
	This script requires iCal. It prompts the list of your iCal calendars for you to select the calendar out of which new tasks should be created in Merlin. It writes in the top most opened Merlin project.
	Version 1.0
        Written by Vicky Stamatopoulou
	For ProjectWizards
	Nov 3, 2010

	version 1.01
	changed on Jan 17, 2011
	changed by Vicky Stamatopoulou
	info: added support for todos, they will get created as milestones
*)

Continue reading →

Merlin – refresh resources’ address

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In Merlin you can utilize contacts from Address Book, MS Entourage or LDAP server as resources for your projects. We have described in the past how this helps when working on multiple projects and require a pool with “master resources“.

The idea is simple. As a mac PM you probably already use Address Book or MS Entourage to manage your contacts, so why entering this data again and again for each and every one new project? You simply insert a contact from the library in your Merlin project and Merlin links to the contact of the source application. If you click on the icon or  displayed next to the name of the resource, the relevant application will be started and the person in Address Book will be displayed. As the resources are linked to the relevant data record, all modifications you make in the source application can reflect back in Merlin.

To refresh the contact information of inserted resources, Continue reading →

Merlin: MS Project MPX vs XML as exchange formats to Merlin (Mac)

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Merlin’s compatibility to Windows and mainly MS Project is very important not only to us but also to our users.  What if you were practicing project management on windows and have lots of existing projects which you would like to use now on your Mac? Or what it you have to forward a project to a Windows user needing to edit it further in MS Project? That’s fine. With Merlin you can handle both situations just as well.

Merlin opens MS Project .mpx, .mpp, .xml file formats and exports in .xml, .mpx.

Are you wandering which file format should be preferred? The answer is easy:
We -and even Microsoft- recommend to use the XML format as it is open and reliable.

Only when trying to exchange files with MS Project users of older versions than MS Project 2000, you would need to choose a legacy format like mpx.

Simple, isn’t?