MERLIN – DO A BIT OF MAGIC IN REPORTS – PART XVIII
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 5. March 2013
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 element costs by type
- Report issues
- Report Events
- Output Project’s WBS
- Resources Time allocation to various tasks and subtasks
- Calendar View
Calendar View
If you like to report working days of your project’s scheduling and/or assigned resources, this is a custom report template to use.
You may check contained ‘CalendarView.py’, “CalendarView.wbl” to see how we iterate in project’s duration, convert dates to the desired formats and color the table on working days.
Feel free to modify this custom report further as you require for your needs.
Some output samples:
Showing project scheduling grouped by month.
Or resource’s working days grouped by week… (more…)
Tags: Calendar, Customize, Merlin report template, Reports, Template
Merlin – change the preselected project calendar
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 19. June 2012
Merlin provides a user friendly interface to modifying the project calendar.
Project calendar can be accessed in a tab of the inspector when the top most row (row “#0″) in the activities view is selected.
In the “Regular” tab you may modify the work intervals of the working week days if required.
You may also choose to change the preselected project calendar all together and switch from “Standard” to “Night Shift” for example.
Just select the desired project calendar from the appropriate pop up on the top right area of the inspector and make it your main project calendar afterward.
Please find hereafter a screencast of those actions (more…)
Tags: Calendar, Screencast
Merlin – Exceptional working days
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 16. February 2011
If you want to enter some exceptional working days in a Merlin project, for example when needing to plan and schedule work during the weekend, you do this in the ‘working time’ inspector.
If you need this information for the whole project, you click the top most entry in the activities views. You switch to the ‘working time’ inspector and add an exception for the specific date in the ‘exceptions’ tab. (more…)
Tags: Calendar, Exceptions, Merlin 101, Working time
Merlin: 24h calendar
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 20. April 2010
Sometimes you plan activities in projects, which can be done by equipment. Machines or computer which may run unattended, do not need regular working hours and can work 24h a day, 7days a week. Surely you have assigned real person as resources for activities in the past and you know how to do this in Merlin, but how to proceed when having equipment resources?
The good news? This is as easy as setting up person resources.
Tags: 24h, Calendar, Equipment, Merlin, Merlin 101, Resources
Merlin: How many calendar weeks in a year?
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 15. January 2010
Last year we had 53 weeks and met the problem that my customers in some countries did not had 53 weeks but 52. When we in Europe ‘lived’ in week 53, they already start calculating with week 1. Even though we have the same date, in weeks they are ahead of us.
And now, when I do project management in Merlin I see that this program is also 1 week ahead.
Is there something I can do?
Yes of course, you simply have to make sure that you all use the same ‘calendar’. It all depends on the definition when a week starts. A week starts in Europe on Monday. In the USA and some other countries on Sunday.
This is the Gantt of a project having Sunday as first day of the week:
This is the Gantt of a project having Monday as first day of the week:
Both displays are correct, it is only a question of the desired settings.
Tags: Calendar, Merlin, Merlin 101
Merlin: iCal calendar import
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 11. January 2010
Did you know? I had not until now. You can import iCal calendar onto your project or resource calendars and get the entries added as exceptions. Cool, isn’t it?
For those of you, like me, not knowing this functionality until now, here is how to proceed:
- You locate the iCal calendar you want to import(*) to your Merlin project.
- Open your Merlin project, select the top most entry in the outline, switch to the ‘Working Time’ tab on the inspector, click onto the gear symbol and call ‘Import…’. (more…)
Tags: Calendar, iCal, Integration, Merlin, Merlin 101
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