MS Project has one column for each Duration and Work. The Duration column calculates between Start and Finish Dates. In MS Project you can schedule with following task types: fixed duration/fixed unit (effort driven)/fixed unit.
According to the selected task type, they use the work or duration value to schedule a task. When one enters, Duration MS Project calculates Work, and vice versa.
Merlin Project allows you to disguise between the planned, expected and actual values. That gives you the option to enter Given Work and/or Given Duration to control the planned values. As long as an activity hadn't started the planned values are the expected values.
When you start work on the activities you record your effort in the Actual Work and Remaining Work to specify which part of the Planned Work has actually happened and how much it remains. This might adjust the expected overall work.
MS Project doesn't understand this concept, so you won't see Given… values on the exported file.
Their Start, Finish, Duration, Work columns correspond to Merlin Project's columns Expected Start, Expected End, Expected Duration, Expected Work
