Merlin Project Express Help

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You can plan a project forwards or backwards. If you’ve already got a fixed end date for the overall project, you can also take a backward-looking approach. To do this, in your project click Settings and set the Direction to »Backward«.

In the Inspector, click the Calendar icon in the Start > Earliest field. Use the calendar to set the earliest planned start for the project.

Per default you’ll find Sunday to be the first day of week for new projects. To change it, just select another day in the Settings > General > Date Presets. You may need to do this for projects taking place abroad, for instance.

Following inspector appears when the Work Breakdown view is enabled.

It contains the following options:

This inspector appears when the Resources view is enabled.

It contains the following options:

This inspector appears when the Attachments view is enabled.

It contains the following options:

Call the File → Open… menu item. It opens existing documents. If the format of the selected document is supported, Merlin Project Express imports the content and opens it in a new document.

You can drag & drop a document directly onto the Merlin Project Express application icon or onto an existing project. Latter, imports the document into the existing project.

If you want to schedule your activity by the effort it will need to be completed, use the Plan inspector or enter the effort in the Given work outline column.

You want to schedule the painting of a room. You estimate the required effort for the activity as 2.5 working days. You expect that when assigning this activity to let’s say two resources, each resource’s effort will be half as much.

Alternatively: You can edit the Given Work value in the outline column.

If you want to schedule your activity by the duration it will need to be completed, use the Plan inspector or enter the effort in the Given duration outline column.

You want to schedule a seminar. The duration for this seminar is 2 working days. You expect that when assigning it to your trainer personel, all assigned trainers will work throughout the complete duration of this seminar.

Alternatively: You can edit the Given Duration value in the outline column.

You schedule a team meeting on a remote location. You want to plan with 1.5 working days. But also need to block 3 working days of your team for the overall duration. Within those 3 days, your team transfers to the remote location, works for those 1.5 working days and transfers back to its base.

You want to schedule an event for which you know it will be 3 calendar days long. It starts on Friday and the weekend (which is usually non working time) should be included in the overall duration.

Alternatively: You can edit the Given Duration value in the outline column.

You want to schedule the placing of a concrete slab. You estimate the required effort for the activity as 1.5 working days. You know concrete starts drying directly as you pour it and requires at least 1 calendar week of overall drying time.

Alternatively: You can edit the Given Work and Given Duration values in the outline columns.

In the above examples we used the terms working days, working week.

For simplicity reasons, we enter them in Merlin Project Express as '2 days' or '1 week'.

Let’s check the defaults in Settings > General > Work

Per default, 1 working day are 8 working hours, 40 working hours make a week and 20 days a month.

So '2 days' are those '2 working days' of '8 working hours' each. '1 week' means '40 working hours' which calculates as '5 working days' or '8 working hours' each.

Let’s check the defaults Settings > Calendars

Per default, there are 5 work days: Monday to Friday. Each work day includes work intervals from 8am to 12pm and 1pm to 5pm.

So the working time on Monday starts at 8am and ends at 5pm.

Let’s select an activity of '2.5 days' work and open the Plan inspector.

We see in the Expected

We know that 2.5 days are 2.5 working days, 20 working hours. This activity has the same amount of effort and duration.

2.17 edays is the elapsed calendar time and time period to expect the activity to be completed. The prefix "e" denotes "elapsed".

The elapsed duration is the duration plus the free time contained.

By default and according to the settings (Settings > Calendars) a regular work day starts at 8am, contains a lunch break between 12pm and 1pm and ends at 5pm.

An activity with the planned 2.5 days of work, which starts at 8am requires for the first 8 hours (four in the morning, four in the afternoon) 9 consecutive hours (ehours) on the first day.

The works stop at 5pm and start next day at 8am. So there are 15 hours of free time. From 8am until 5pm on the second day there are further 8 hours (9 ehours), until once again at 5pm 15 hours of free time start again.

The remaining 4 hours can be scheduled on the third day to start at 8am and finish at 12pm. So to the 20 hours of work, you add 32 hours of free time which calculates as 52 ehours.

52 ehours divided by 24 ehours equals 2.16666 edays, or 2.17 edays.

Should you change the Calculation Unit to Hour in Settings > General > Duration …

And select again your activity, you’ll see expected values in hours thus:

All roads lead to Rome, including the various possibilities for creating links.

The resources pop-up is perfect for gaining a quick overview of project resources.

For more information on your resources and for a more detailed edit of the values of your resources, click on Resources View. Merlin Project Express will switch quickly to that view.

The resources pop-up can be used as a separate window. Move the window down with the mouse pointer.

If you enable the Current Time Unit option the time unit in the Gantt chart which contains the status date, will be shaded blue. This gives you an additional highlight on the Gantt of the project, to quickly visually identify the tasks that are due during this period.

Similar to the Current Time Unit option, the Time Line option allows you to add a vertical marker to the Gantt chart.

If you check the Time Line option, the status date will appear as a thin red line on the project Gantt.

Secondary-click the time scale to display the context menu.

The Based on option lets you display the calendar based on its non-working time in the project.

The Darken option has three configurations to control the display of non-working time in the project:

The Never option stops darkening the display of non-working time in the project.

The Uniformly option is set by default. The non-working times for the regular week in the project are displayed.

Activate the Individually per row option so that you can see the non-working times of resources and their vacation periods in the project in the respective row.

Using the slider, set whether you want the regular non-working times to be displayed or hidden.

Choose from the following options to display the working times:

Click an element to access the style or content options. In the above drop-down menu, you can see the selection you made and the selected element will be highlighted in blue.

In the following, the Bars (1), the entire Row (bar row type) (2) and the Reference Bars (3) are activated.

1

2

3

Activate the left label by clicking Title and changing the content of the left label using the option in the drop-down menu with the same name. You’ll also find style options here for modifying the Color and Font of the content.

From the Content drop-down menu, select the Expected Start instead of the default Title selection. This will display the expected start of the activity as a date in the left-hand label.

The General tab controls the styles for the display of many general elements in the active view.

If no selection is active in the view and you click the magnifying glass icon, the Style Inspector will open with the General tab.

The general settings for Style and Content apply in principle to all style options across the project.

The elements for the particular view, which you can configure to suit using the options available in the Inspector, can be found in the drop-down menu.

The By Rules tab lets you control style and content options automatically depending on specific conditions.

For example: You want all activities to which a specific resource has been assigned to appear in a specific color or alternate font automatically.

The For Selection tab controls the styles and contents for the selection. This lets you adjust elements individually.

In a view, select an element and click the paintbrush icon. The Style Inspector will open with the Selection tab.

Right-click a bar in the Work Breakdown view, a column row, or the Outline to access and edit the associated style and/or content options.

Right-click Non-working Time (6) in the Gantt chart and in the drop-down menu click the option Style > Non-working Time.

The General tab will open in the Inspector with the style option for Non-working Time.

Click the Background Color color well to change the display color of the Non-working Time in the Gantt chart.

The macOS Colors window will then appear. This includes a range of options for setting colors and the opacity.

Changing the background color. Following that, Non-working Time will be displayed in the selected color in the Work Breakdown.

Open a new or existing project in Merlin Project Express.

To change the color of a bar, milestone or group, first right-click a bar, group or milestone.

From the context menu, select the option Style and Content > Bars.

The For Selection tab will open in the Inspector. There you will find options to modify the styles for the selected bars.

Click Background Color. In the Color window, choose the desired color. This will be adopted immediately for the selected bars. Repeat the process for the Fill Level Color.

If required, make further changes to options in the Inspector to modify the style of the selected bars.

Click the cross icon if you want to undo the value of an option. In doing so, the value of the parent level or condition for the option will be used instead.

When making a multiple selection, if the bars have different values then Multiple Values will appear in the Info field. Click the field and adjust the color so that all selected bars are assigned the new color. This overwrites the old values.

Otherwise, click the cross icon to revert from multiple values to the default values.

Click the brush icon. In the Inspector, select the appropriate tab.

Select the General tab so that the change applies to all content in the view.

Click the desired label in the preview.

There are three labels to choose from:

Click the Content drop-down menu and select the desired content for the active label.

The Content drop-down menu contains all the information that can be used in labels.

All elements in the Outline include various options to change styles. These are summarized graphically in the following image.

Outline columns include various options to change column styles. These are summarized graphically in the following image.

Gantt chart bars include various options to change the bar styles. These are summarized graphically in the following image.

Net Plan boxes and histograms include various options to change the bar styles. These are summarized graphically in the following image.

Use Selection For Find lets you additionally search through hits.

Use the keyboard shortcut cmd + E for the option.

Jump to Selection lets you jump to a previously made selection, such as a selected activity or several items of selected content in the project.

Use the keyboard shortcut cmd + J for the option.

Jump to Current Date lets you find the current day in the project quickly.

Use the keyboard shortcut cmd + D keys for the option.

Jump to… lets you jump quickly to individual project rows.

Use the keyboard shortcut cmd + L keys for the option.

The Jump to box will appear in the active view. Enter the desired row number into the box.

By clicking the triangle you set your preferred numbering:

Date Presets relate to the project and are therefore important.

In the Regular Week section you can manage the regular work intervals per week day. Just select the Calendar you want to manage, select the various week days and edit its regular Work intervals as desired.

By clicking Exceptions (1) you can set single days or time phases as exceptions for free time and extra working time in the active calendar.

New exceptions are created by clicking the plus (2) icon. Each exception can be customized with the following information:

By default, new exceptions are defined as non-working hours.

These times are only active as additional working times (outside regular working time) when times are added in the Work intervals bar (3).

Use Export option, to export a configured calendar from a project to be able to import in another Merlin Project Express document. The exported file will include the Calendar’s name, Regular Week and Exceptions.

Use Import option, to import a Merlin Project Express calendar you’ve previously exported, or to insert Exceptions in your existing project out of an ics calendar file.

You can configure the Regular Week and Exceptions of the working times for your Resources in the same way as for the project Calendars.

Just select a Resource row in the Resources view, and click the Calendar tab in the Inspector.

Resource calendars are per default based on the project calendar.

Use the Base Calendar drop-down menu to select another project calendar for the active resource if needed.

If you make changes to the resource calendar, these settings will take priority over the selected Base Calendar.

You can Reset to Base Values and remove changes from the resource calendar for the individual days.

The Calendar tab in the Resource Inspector offers some more options:

Choose this option to create a duplicate with the same document history and be able to undo all your previous actions starting by document creation.

Choose this option to remove document history in the duplicate and work in this document by a new identity. This would allow you to combine for example the old file with the new duplicate within master projects.

Click the paper orientation option to select whether you want your project content printed in portrait or landscape format.

Then select Scaling from the drop-down menu. If, for instance, you have selected landscape, set the width to one page.

This resizes the entire project to fit the full width of one sheet.

You can create PDF files quickly and easily via the print window.

Click the Show Details button. This opens the advanced print view. Configure the print options as necessary. Following that, click the PDF button on the bottom left.

Click Save as PDF. The macOS Save dialog will open. Name the PDF file.

In addition, further options for creating the PDF file can be found here:

The Security Options… button gives you the option to password protect the PDF file and its contents.

Basic costs with Accrue immediately appear immediately and in total in the Actual Base Costs.

Basic costs with Accrue at start appear in total in the Actual Base Costs but only from the moment on when there is actual progress.

Base costs with Accrue prorated appear pro rata to the actual progress in the Actual Base Costs.

Base costs with Accrue at end appear in total in the Actual Base Costs but only from the moment there is a 100% completion.

Perform a secondary-click to open context menus in Merlin Project Express. This provides you with additional options for the clicked content.

New groups are created using this technique in Merlin Project Express. You can drag several activities and drop them on another activity.

The activity the content is to be dropped on will be highlighted in blue. Once you release the mouse button it will turn into a group (bold) automatically and the activities will become its child activities (indented).

In Merlin Project Express, you can re-sort the sequence of activities, groups, and milestones. To do so, drag several activities and drop them between other activities.

When doing this, blue line with a circle appears to mark the position between the content.

Activity C now appears between Activity A and Activity B.

The command key is abbreviated to cmd.

For instance, the Enter/Exit Full Screen option under the menu item Window is controlled using the keyboard shortcut ctrl + cmd + F.

To edit content, the following keys are especially useful.

1.Delete key (backspace) → backspace key 2. Function key → (Function) → no corresponding key with Windows 3. Enter (Return) → Enter 4. Delete (Delete) → DEL

Merlin Project Express uses a host of keyboard shortcuts.

Keyboard shortcuts consist of several keys pressed simultaneously, for example, saving projects is performed with cmd + S. F keys (F1,F2, etc.) are available on all newer Apple keyboards using the fn function key.

Most menu entries are provided with the corresponding keyboard shortcuts. They are located directly next to the individual menu entries. This lets you access these menu entries quickly and easily using the keyboard.

The content in the different views of Merlin Project Express can be moved around the visible section using input devices such as a mouse or a touchpad. The scroll bars only appear when scrolling.

Open the System Preferences in macOS and click the General icon. There you will find the options for displaying scroll bars when scrolling.

The three options for scrolling using the scroll bars are system-wide and apply to all programs used.

If you select Always, the scroll bars will then always appear in Merlin Project Express and in all other programs.

The Traits column contains various icons.

These icons result from different entries already made by the user in the project.

If logical problems occur during planning, planning conflict symbols appear in the Traits column.

This icon indicates a group. Click the triangle to expand or collapse the group.

This allows you to show or hide all group content.

This icon indicates that an activity, group or milestone has one or more assignments. Click the triangle to see the assigned resource.

Per default new activities are created by a Given Work of '1 day ?'.

You can choose to show the value of Given Work in the outline and edit it there. The value of Given Work is also shown in the Work field of the Plan inspector, where you can also edit it.

Given Work Absolute is a calculated value and cannot be edited.

You can choose to show the value of Given Work Absolute in the outline.

It calculates based on the value of Given Work. If you enter the Given Work as time duration, Given Work Absolute calculates the same value.

If you enter the Given Work as a fraction of the work, Given Work Absolute calculates the amount based on the Given Work defined in a higher level activity group.

Activity group is defined by effort of 10 days, thus Given Work 10 days. Child activity within is defined by 25% of the effort, thus Given Work 25% The Given Work Absolute of the child activity will calculate as 2.5 days.

Per default new activities are created by blank duration. That means, that the Given Duration column is empty and that Given Work value defines the duration of the activity as well.

To change the Given Duration of existing activities, select the activity row and use the Plan inspector to enter the desired value in the Duration field.

You can choose to show the value of Given duration in the outline and edit it there.

Per default new activities are created by blank start or end dates. That means, that Given… date columns are empty and that dependencies or the date constrains and durations of higher level activity groups define the start or end of the new activities.

To set a Given Start for an existing activity, select the activity row and use the Plan inspector to select a Precise Start or End date.

Per default new activities are created by blank start or end dates. That means, that all Given… date columns are empty and that dependencies or the date constrains and durations of higher level activity groups define the start or end of the new activities.

To set a Given Earliest Start or Given Earliest End for an existing activity, select the activity row and use the Plan inspector to select a Earliest Start or Earliest End date.

Per default new activities are created by blank start or end dates. That means, that all Given… date columns are empty and that dependencies or the date constrains and durations of higher level activity groups define the start or end of the new activities.

To set a Given Latest Start or Given Latest End for an existing activity, select the activity row and use the Plan inspector to select a Latest Start or Latest End date.