Merlin (project management software)
Merlin is a project management software developed by ProjectWizards GmbH, Germany, exclusively for Mac OS X. This application has been developed to aid project managers create a project plan, track activity ProgresS, allocate resources and manage budgets. It also provides a reporting system and allows users to visualize resource utilization in histograms. Merlin 1 was first officially released in November 2004, which until then was an application used internally by the company's own project managers. Since then the application has been continuously developed and 2 years later, in November 2006, ProjectWizards released Merlin 2.
The application allows for different import and export possibilities allowing third party application files, such as MS Project files, to be transferred from and to Merlin. It also integrates several of Apple's applications into its own system. Therefore, Merlin allows syncing to iCal, extracts resources from the Address Book and allows the user to automate certain procedures using AppleScript.
Activities can be linked with each other following the classical project management dependencies, which are graphically displayed in a Gantt chart and Netplan. The application also calculates the critical path and displays it on the Gantt chart and Netplan. Additionally Merlin provides a visual graph of planned versus actual project progress, calculating the expected end of the project.
Elements
With six pre-defined element types it is possible to save several project related information within the project, by attaching them to the relevant activity or group. This provides a single collection point for many types of information gathered during the project. The six types of elements are:
- Checklists - A "to do list" to keep track of processes within an activity.
- Files - Documents created in any format can be saved or linked to. With an optional version control management.
- Risks - To track, handle and evaluate risks.
- Events - Project related events.
- Information - A mini CRM for the project.
- Issues - Track problems that occur during the project.