Merlin is very flexible. It allows to plan activities for accomplishing your project in various ways. In this post we will show 5 ways resulting from the following 5 situations:
- The activity should start on project initiation and there is an estimation about the needed work.
- The activity should start just after a previous activity is done and  there is an estimation about the needed work.
- There is an estimation about the needed work and a fixed duration within this work should be accomplished.
- The activity should start on a specific date and  there is an estimation about the needed work.
- The activity should start and end on specific dates.
So let’s start from the beginning.
1. Â The activity should start on project initiation and there is an estimation about the needed work.
Simply define the project’s start date. Create a new activity, define its estimated work, leave planned earliest start and end dates empty…
… and see Merlin calculating its “expected end”.
2. The activity should start just after a previous activity is done and  there is an estimation about the needed work.
Create a new activity, select first the  predecessor and than this one, link them by a “Finish to Start’ linkage…
and define the estimated work as mentioned above, which results as:
Note: Merlin calculating expected start and end.
3. There is an estimation about the needed work and a fixed duration within this work should be accomplished.
In this case define the estimated work and duration in the planned values. Merlin will stretch the activity to fit the duration.
4. The activity should start on a specific date and  there is an estimation about the needed work.
Create the activity, enter the estimated work and edit its earliest start date. There is no need to define an earliest end date…
5. The activity should start and end on specific dates.
So you define the earliest start and end dates for the activity. If you want Merlin to calculate the needed work and duration, simply delete the pre-defined value of 1 day in the planned work field:
How can I link a activity to start at the previous activity and end at the start of the next activity. The duration will be flexible.
Sorry Urs, I am not sure I understand the question, so there are 3 activities involved?
Previous activity (A) is connected to a stretching activity (B) connected to an activity (C).
But what should define the duration of B?
For some information about stretching tasks you may look at our relevant post: Merlin: Stretch task
http://www.projectwizards.net/en/macpm/merlin/merlin-stretch-task
Best regards, Vicky
Hi.
how can I start activity on weekend? Im freelancer, so, I allways working on Saturday or/and Sunday.
Merlin is pretty good app for PM or directors. However, the fact that work can not be planned for the weekend makes they useless (!)
Please, answer ASAP.
Ps.
When Merlin will be support polish language?
best for ProjectWizards
Tom.
Hello Tom 🙂
per default are defined Saturday and Sunday as not working days in the project’s calendar.
Just click the top most entry on the outline (it’s a handler to the project), switch to the ‘working days’ inspector tab, and define working time on Saturday and Sunday as well.
Now you can plan activities on such days as well.
If you project is running monday – friday and it is only you or other resources working over the weekend, you should adjust the working hours of the resources calendar.
You may read in Merlin’s online help more about this here
http://www.projectwizards.net/merlin/webhelp/HTML-Help.en/project_calendar.html
http://www.projectwizards.net/merlin/webhelp/HTML-Help.en/resources.html
Best regards
I want to schedule a management activity that will oversee two sub-activities. The activity should begin with the start of the first sub-activity and end at the conclusion of the last sub-activity. The duration and estimate of work are dependent on how long the sub-activities require, so these should adjust automatically as the sub-activities are scheduled. The manager should spend about 50% of his full-time position for the duration of these activities. What is the best way to implement the manager’s activity in the project to meet these criteria?
Hi Matt,
a stretch activity can be defined this way:
http://www.projectwizards.net/en/macpm/merlin/merlin-stretch-task
Remove any work and duration entries in the stretch task
Assign your manager to this task by an empty value of work, 100% duration and 50% utilisation.
Is there anyway to calculate estimated end date for a project.
e.g. if a project is to begin March 1 2011 and has a duration of 369, can we calculate the end date?
Just enable the column “Expected End” and check its entry on the top most row (row 0) of your “activities” view.
Or… click the top most row (row 0) of your “activities” view and switch to the “plan” inspector (first tab from left) to see the expected start, end, work and duration information for your project.
Please note:
1. you cannot define a duration for your project, its duration will be automatically calculated considering the durations and scheduling of your various tasks.
2. If you plan forwards and enter a fixed End date for your project (in the inspector), you may overwrite the duration defined by the tasks and enlarge or reduce the duration of the project.
Thank you for your comment Tony
I’m brand new to Merlin, evaluating it for purchase.
I have a project that is setup on a 24 clock with one resource who works 4 hours per weekday and 4 hours on Saturdays (a 20 hour work week). The resource’s activities have estimated durations and are linked in sequence. The gantt chart correctly displays the durations of these activities as taking much longer than a 1:1 ratio (i.e. it will take the resource a calendar week to complete 20 hours of work. HOWEVER. The columns of the gnatt chart are still marching along at the 24 hour clock, thus showing an activity of a week’s worth of the resources time as just a couple of days on the overall chart.
Question: how do I get the gantt chart columns to reflect the resource’s activity durations?
Hello Jey,
maybe you want to contact Merlin support on this with a sample project.
Without a project…
If your resource works 4 hours per weekday and 4 hours on Saturdays, those are 24 hours per week. You have probably already adjusted its calendar over the inspector.
Now… if you assign those 20 hours on that resource, your resource may work on them only on its working times, so it will be working Mon – Fri, which is a little less than its own week.
That also means, that the gantt chart bar of that task of 20 hours, when assigned to this resource will start on Monday and end on Friday.
That’s also correct.
What I am not understanding now, is your question. What exactly should the gantt chart reflect? Which information would you like to see in its labels? Or would you like to have the bar interrupted? Interrupted bars are not possible.
Or maybe you hadn’t yet adjusted the resource’s calendar to indicate these 24 hours? Or hadn’t even yet assigned the resource to this task?
I am very puzzled sorry.
Best regards, Vicky
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Can you change the project duration so that it is shown in days rather than 1.9 months and other decimals that make calculating weeks more difficult?
Hello Robert, yes you can. Just change the “Project Settings” for the Calculated Work Units from “Dynamic” to the units you need, for example days or hours.
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I am having real issues with an error message – ‘expected work exceeds given value’.
I have one task that needs to be completed in 4 days – it has 4 sub-tasks: A, B, C and D. A, B and C are all linked by S-S relationships and take 3 days. Task D is linked to C by a F-S relationship, and takes 1 day.
The expected work is somehow being calculated at 1.8 weeks? Why is this???
Hmm, have you defined the 4 days in the duration or the work of the group task?
For me it sounds as if those 4 days (which are meant as duration) were entered as total work.
If I understand the configuration correctly, there are 3 tasks to run in parallel, 3 days work each and then one task by 1 days work. That would be in total work 3*3days + 1 day= 10 days; i.e. 2 weeks, by a duration of 4 days.
Here some tips on how to resolve conflicts or warnings:
http://macpm.net/en/merlin/merlin-handling-scheduling-warnings-and-conflicts