Those of you who have checked our new post series about “Merlin report templates” 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 billable costs entered on elements
Costs entered on elements may or may not be billable to your customers. This report may output such costs in a table.

So you need to get first all elements of a project. Following python method does so and excludes private elements.

In the WBL we iterate in this array and call a deeper iteration for sortedCosts defined on an element.

As we only want to see billable costs, we need to test its isBillable flag. So here is the method testing it.

Now we can output the title, kind, or other properties of the billable costs in the wbl by the following conditionals…

To show the planned cost, we need to ask iterItem.amount and to format it accordingly with the project currency formatter.

Making it flexible:

To make the report more flexible we have inserted an option to show planned or actual values. You know by now how this works.

The method showing the correct value and corresponding wbl part are…

Now we need the total row…

So we created 3 methods cumulating amount or actualAmount as desired.

Result

An output sample:

And the report options:

Installation:

• Extract the zip first
• place the contained mrept package under the following path of your mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Merlin/Reports
• (in case you have no “Reports” folder please create it first and pay attention to name it exactly as “Reports”)
• restart your Merlin and
• call File > New Report… to find the new report called “Billable Costs Report”.