Merlin Project: Resources in full and part-time employment

You use Merlin Project to plan your projects? Then you already know how to set the Project Calendar in Merlin Project.

In case you don't - You'll find the Project Calendar in the Project Settings.
New documents come with following pre-defined calendars: Standard, Night Shift, 24 hours. By default the Standard calendar is selected as project calendar. So the tasks of your project will be scheduled within 8 hours distributed 8am - 12pm and 1pm - 5pm Mondays to Fridays.

How should you proceed when some of your resources are at full-time employment and some others work only 4 hours a day?

Merlin Project: Resources in Day and Night Shift

You use Merlin Project to plan your projects? Then you already know how to set the Project Calendar in Merlin Project.

In case you don't - You'll find the Project Calendar in the Project Settings.
New documents come with following pre-defined calendars: Standard, Night Shift, 24 hours. By default the Standard calendar is selected as project calendar. So the tasks of your project will be scheduled within 8 hours distributed 8am - 12pm and 1pm - 5pm Mondays to Fridays.

If your project should be accomplished completely by night work, simply select the Night Shift calendar in the Project Settings.

But how should you proceed when some of your resources are able to work 8 hours during the day and some others 8 hours at night?

Merlin Project: Resource Image

You use Merlin Project to plan your projects? Then you already know what resources are and how to insert them for assignments on your activities.

For those who don’t, resource is a term for people, materials and equipment used in the project. Merlin Project offers the following resource types: Person, Material, Company, Equipment

Add an image for each resource in your project. This will help you easily locate a resource in the views.

Resource image in preconfigured views

Merlin Project supplies preconfigured views that show the resource image.

Merlin Project: Use Dependencies, Remove Static Dates, Stay flexible

With Merlin Project you are free to plan your project in any way you find it more suitable. You can plan in Work breakdown with Gantt, as a Mind Map, a Kanban board. Just pick the view you need and customize it to your needs.

While Mind Map is not focusing on time constrains, when viewing the Gantt of your project, you are interested in its scheduling. So you might already intuitively dragged the activity's bar on the Gantt to fix it to a specific time frame, or entered dates in the Given Start column or the Plan inspector.

And we have to admit, there is nothing wrong about that, other than the manual work you are putting into these actions of setting static date constrains and loosing flexibility.

How to stay flexible for scheduling changes in the future?
The answer is easy; use Dependencies

• Merlin Project offers following Dependency types: End to Start, Start to Start, End to End, Start to End
• Dependencies can be combined with a lead or a lag.
• You can define Dependencies graphically, enter the Predecessor's (or Successor's) number in the according outline column, use the inspector, or the Link toolbar icon. Read here more…

Converting a static scheduling into a flexible one

Let's consider following sample project.

Communication From User to User: The Customer Forum

In recent years, the way companies and customers interact with each other has changed. In order to obtain information, many customers prefer open discussion and exchange of opinions instead of the classic communication channels (telephone, e-mail or classic mail). They are happy to use the experience of other users to help them form their own opinions. After all, they often trust these experiences more than the provider himself, who only wants to market and sell his product.