Merlin – Do a bit of Magic in Reports – Part XVI

Those of you who have checked our new post series about “Merlin report templates” know by now…

Now let’s do some magic with the reports.


Output Project’s WBS
We have posted here in the past ways to display the WBS of a Merlin project.

If you prefer using a report template instead of AppleScripts, feel free to use following custom report template we present hereafter. It lists per default up to 3 levels of the WBS, ignores assignments and milestones, shows the project objective if existing and  resources. Optional you may enable the view of milestones and limit the shown levels.

You may check contained ‘ProjectWBS.py’, “ProjectWBS.wbl” or “Info.plist” to see how we ask for items on the various levels, or how we iterate in their properties for the output.
Feel free to modify this custom report further as you require for your needs.

Credits for the CSS and other resources used: SlickMap CSS was created by Matt Everson of Astuteo and is licensed for free.
An output sample:

And the report options: Continue reading

Merlin html WBS

MerlinHtmlWBSWe get asked from time to time in support if the ‘Net plan’ view of Merlin can display the WBS of a Merlin project as a tree from top to bottom.

The answer for this is no and yes. No, as there are no options for modifying the direction of the ‘Net plan’ view graphical elements. They always get displayed from left to right.

Yes, because if one has installed OmniGraffle he or she can transfer the WBS to OmniGraffle by the use of the following  SendTo script.

And yes. We have written an applescript exporting  the project WBS into html. This is a sample of how the resulting HTML could look like:
Merlin-HTML-WBS

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AppleScript: Custom WBS-Codes

AppleScriptIn the Merlin German user forum  in Google groups* a user asked, how to define WBS codes for all activities like 1.1.1… but have milestones coded by a leading M (so for example M.1.1.1)

Well, Merlin users know how to define WBS coding schemes. They simply call File >WBS Code Definition… and define a prefix or counters as desired. But such an action would apply the same numbering scheme for all activities and milestones. So how to proceed in meeting the requirements of this specific user? The answer can be, either renagotiate the WBS coding or try an AppleScript approach..

If you can spare one of the three columns (Subtitle, Additional tittle or Notes) just use the following Applescript writing in one of these columns the WBS code of the tasks in the desired manner. So…

tell application “Merlin”

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