10 years ago, Kickoff Meeting in a hotel in Frankfurt. A former freelancer called Frank Illenberger and I define a new project called Merlin.
Today, users of our software manage uncountable projects.
Thank you!
Category Archives: Merlin
Merlin: plan by work or duration
Now and then we get asked in support, when to plan Merlin activities by work and when by duration.
Some pose their question a bit differently, they define the activity’s work, assign two or more resources on it and email us to ask why the activity’s duration got shorter.
When using Merlin to plan your projects, there are various planing scenarios. You will find some basic configuration examples with details and screenshots here.
When it comes to the point where you assign activities to resources, it helps to know, that there is a project setting called ‘resources share their work’ which is enabled by default. You will find it under File > Project Settings > Misc > Resources >
As long as this setting is enabled on your project, whenever you assign two resources to the same task, their work would be 50% of the work defined on the activity each so the activity itself would take half the time to be accomplished.
There are cases where you need this, for example: two painters paint the same wall on half of the time.
There are cases however where you don’t need this. You have a training planned for 1 day and have two trainers. The training won’t stop at midday, both of the trainers will be there for the complete day.
To plan this activity, you simply define it by duration and blank work entries on the activity and assignments.
Licensing Merlin – for Gmail or other users checking emails on a web browser
When asking your emails over the web browser (so you are not using a mail app client on your Mac like Mail.app for example) you need to first save your Merlin licence file on your Mac to be able to use it in a second step to license your Merlin application.
Following screencast shows those actions and uses a gmail account as example…
Merlin – Do a little bit of magic in Merlin reports – part XXVII
Those of you who do project management with Merlin on your Mac and have checked our post series explaining how to create custom templates for Merlin reports, know by now…
- How to modify existing reports
- How to edit description or report template names
- How to create your own report templates
- How to localize a Merlin report template
- Further tips for localizing an xslt report template
- How to add an option in an xslt report template
- How to add an option in a python / wbl report template
- How to add a property into an existing xslt report
- How to add a property into an existing python /wbl report template
Now let’s do some magic with the reports.
- Map a status or flag information to a graphic file
- Define the size of the project image over the options
- List overdue tasks along with the next activities, in “Next Due Activities” report
- Report planned, actual and planned vs actual work per phase in a chart
- Report expected work costs per role for your resources
- Report expected work costs per resources’ group
- Report the project’s name in the Next Due Activities report
- Modify the “Milestone Trend Report” to show the WBS in the table and in the chart
- Report expected or actual resources’ work per phase
- Report resources work cost per phase
- Report cash flow for expected cost or approved budget
- Report billable costs entered on elements
- Report element costs by type
- Report issues
- Report Events
- Output Project’s WBS
- Resources Time allocation to various tasks and subtasks
- Calendar View
- Working hours distributed in time per resource and assignment
- Work Chart
- Information report with hierarchy
- Complete vs Expected Complete % Analysis
- Resource Groups’ or Roles’ Units Utilization Distribution
- URLs report
- Resources Groups’ or Roles’ Work as distribution in time
- Cost report: Planned, Expected, Actual, Remaining actual cost
- Format dates in ‘Information report’, ‘Next Due Activities’ and ‘Review Report’ as dd/mm/yyy
- Classic Report with optional WBS-Code
Classic Report with optional WBS-Code
When wanting to report all kinds of aspects of your actual project, you usually call File > New Report > Classic report.
In case you want to modify the report so that it outputs the WBS-Code in its tables of milestones, overdue/upcoming/overdue tasks, or elements, you would need to create an option whether or not the ‘WBS-Code’ column should be outputted and insert optionally the wbs code where required.
To make a long story short, we’ve created a new set of such a classic report and post it hereafter.
Please remember: Custom Merlin reports we provide as templates, can be downloaded and used for free. Furthermore, you may modify and distribute as you like and find appropriate. Continue reading
Merlin – when to enter an actual start when updating a task
When managing a project with Merlin on your Mac you create your tasks and assign them to your resources. As your resources work on their tasks, you as a PM usually update your Merlin project by entering actual values and record progress.
There are various ways to record progress on your tasks:
- You use the ‘Actuals’ inspector
- You enter the completion % in the ‘plan’ inspector
- You enter the completion % in the according column in the outline.
- You select a completion % in the according sub menu of the context menu you get, when you right click a task.
Should you go for the first approach…
You enter first the actual start date and then the progress by entering the percentage of completed work or the absolute work done as explained here.
If you choose to directly enter the progress on the task (without defining an actual start date), Merlin assumes the actual start was the same as the planned start and enters this date as actual start.
Should there be a difference between the planned and actual start of the task, a grey Gantt element will be shown in addition (for the planned values).
Should you go for approach 2, 3 or 4…
Merlin assumes (as explained above) that the actual start was the same as the planned start and enters this date as actual start.