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Understanding ‘Working Time’, ‘Schedule Options’, ‘Calendars’, ‘ ‘Exceptions’ in

MS Project 2010

Compiled by Khalid Noor Mohammedkhalidchinoy@gmail.com

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Understanding Project Calendars

In most enterprise-level organizations, the calendar settings are done by the Project Server Administrators, and users will not need to make any changes to the working time or schedule settings. Yet it is important to understand how these features work so that one can anticipate and interpret the changes in the schedule correctly.

• Base Calendar – specifies working and nonworking time

– Can have multiple Base Calendars

• Project Calendar – base calendar used for a project

• Resource Calendar – used for unique exceptions for individual resource

• Task Calendar – allows scheduling of specific tasks based on time unrelated to the Project Calendar

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Base CalendarThe base calendar is a calendar that specifies working and nonworking time for a project, a task, a resource, or set of resources. The project manager chooses a base calendar to be the default project calendar, and can apply a base calendar to tasks as a task calendar or to resources as a resources calendar. Three base calendars are provided with Project:

– Standard.– 24-Hours.– Night Shift.

• The Standard calendar is the base calendar that is used as the default for the project, resource, and task calendars. This calendar reflects a traditional work schedule: Monday through Friday, 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M., with an hour break

• Your organization may have configured separate calendars, for example, for their factory and for their Corporate Office. You can choose which of the two Calendars to apply when you start creating a new project

• The 24-Hours calendar reflects a schedule with no nonworking time at all. The 24-Hours calendar can be used when resources and tasks are scheduled for different shifts around the clock, or when equipment resources work on tasks continuously

• The Night Shift calendar reflects a graveyard shift schedule of Monday night through Saturday morning, 11:00 P.M. to 8:00 A.M., with an hour break. This too can be modified to suit your organization’s timings

• If you are working on a non-enterprise project, you can also create your own base calendars, provided you are not connected to Project Server. You may request your PMO to create new base calendars if you are working on enterprise projects that may have alternative schedules for multiple resources, such as a part-time schedule, a swing-shift schedule, a 12-hour shift schedule, or a weekend schedule

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Project Calendars• The Project calendar is the base calendar used for a project. By default, the Standard base calendar is the project

calendar. The working time hours defined on the Standard calendar are the default working hours and days off for each resource

• In our example below, the PMO of a fictitious company called NPC has specified calendars indicating nonworking time (such as weekends and evenings), as well as special days off. The project manager can request NPC-PMO to create special calendars for his projects, which can also indicate other nonworking times to reflect periods when the entire team will be working on non-project activities, such as company meetings or departmental retreats

• To specify which base calendar is the project calendar for the active project, from the Project tab, click Project Information, then select a calendar from the Calendar drop-down list in the Project Information dialog box. If you are connected to the NPC Project Portal, the options available are as seen in the picture below.

If a project manager, when connected to the company’s Project Server, tries to change working times using the Change Working Times option in the Project tab, he will notice that the option is ‘greyed-out’ (unavailable). Changes can only be effected by the Project Server Administrator

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Resource Calendars• Resource calendars are used for unique exceptions for individual resources. The working hours and days off

defined on the Standard calendar are the default working times for each resource or resource group. In other words, the Resource calendar is initially identical to the Standard calendar.

• If desired, the project manager can request PMO to customize the resource calendars for special individual resources to indicate specific working hours, vacations, leaves of absence, and planned personal time. This can help the project manager create a more accurate schedule, especially if there are significant variations of working time among resources. Project Portal only schedules resources when they are available, according to their Resource calendars

• If the PMO changes working times on a resource calendar, and the resource is assigned to a task, the task is scheduled during the working time on the Resource calendar

• A resource may have been assigned a special calendar by the administrator, on the request of another project manager. Every project manager must take note of which calendars are in effect when assigning resources

• To specify the base calendar for a resource, click the Resource tab, apply a Resource view, such as the Resource Sheet, select one resource record, click Information, select the Working Time tab, then from the Base Calendar field, click on the drop-down tab, and select a calendar from the Base Calendar drop-down list. There are other ways as well to apply different calendars to resources.

• To view the resource calendar working days/times, select the resource calendar from the list of calendars in the Change Working Time dialog box, as described above. Resource calendars can override the parent base calendar with resource calendar changes, called resource calendar exceptions

Material resources do not have a resource calendar. Material resources are scheduled according to the Project Calendar, unless a task calendar is assigned to the task, in which case the material resource is

scheduled according to the task calendar

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Task Calendars• Task calendars allow the project manager to schedule a task based on working and nonworking times that are

unrelated to the Project Calendar. When a task calendar is assigned, resources will not be scheduled during either task or resource calendar nonworking periods. If resources are assigned, tasks are scheduled according to the assigned resources’ calendar and the task calendar. There is, however, an option on the Task Information dialog box for scheduling to ignore resource calendars

• For example, let's suppose the progress on a task depends on the availability of a particular piece of equipment. Every Wednesday morning, this equipment undergoes routine maintenance that takes 4 hours. During this time no other resources can do any work on the task. The project manager can request the creation of a base calendar that shows the 4 hours as nonworking time and apply it to the task, allowing the other assigned resources to be automatically scheduled on other tasks during that time

• If a suitable base calendar already exists in the project, it can be assigned as a task calendar. • Otherwise, the PMO can be requested to create a task calendar as a new base calendar. The project manager then

applies the base calendar to a task using the Advanced tab in the Task Information dialog box.• If the project manager has a task calendar applied as well as resources assigned to a task, by default, the task is

scheduled for the working times that the task calendar and resource calendars have in common. If the project manager wants the task to be scheduled using only the task calendar, also on the Advanced tab in the Task Information dialog box, select the Scheduling ignores resource calendars checkbox.

Understanding Schedule Options-1• Make sure you understand the impact of the settings defined in the Schedule section

(File>Options>Schedule). The following example illustrates the impact

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In the above project we have Standard Calendar set as 8 hours a day and Thursday and Friday as non-working time. However, we have set the Schedule default as 9 hrs. a day and total hours/week at 48hrs. Notice that a 5-day task takes approx. 6 working days to finish. This is because the Duration, based on the Default Scheduled 9 hours per day, translates to 45 hours. To complete the 45 hours it will take 6 days because the calendar is set to 8 hours a day * 5 days a week =40 hours. For the task to complete 45 hours, it will use the 40 hours of one week and spill over to the next working day for 5 hours. Thus t1 Starts on 18/12/2010 and finishes on 25/12/2010, which is more than 5 working days that was set as the Duration. (The additional 2 days are on account of the weekend holidays set)Similarly, task t2 which is a 3-day task Starts on 18 December and Finishes on 21 December (3+ days) instead of 20 December. To complete 27 hrs. of work, task t2 starts at 8:00 AM on Dec 18 and Finishes at 11:00 AM on Dec 21. (3days x 9hrs/d =27 hrs. Remember, Calendar was set to 8h/d).

Continued…

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Understanding Schedule Options-2• In the project schedule shown below we have Standard Calendar set as 9 hrs. a day

and Thursday and Friday as non-working time. However, we have set the Schedule default as 8 hrs. a day and total hours/week at 40hrs. Notice that a 5-day task takes a little less than 5 full working days to finish. This is because the Duration, based on the Default Scheduled 8 hours per day, translates to 40 hours. But the Calendar has been set to 45 hours a week (9hrs*5days). Thus, to complete the 40 hours Duration it will take 4 days and 4 hours only. For a task to complete 40 hours, it will use the 36 hours of 4 days (9hrs*4d) and 4 hours of the 5th day.

• Thus, task T1 Starts on 18/12/2010 8:00 AM and finishes on 22/12/2010 11: AM, and T2 starts the same day as T1 finishes since there are another 4 hours remaining in the same day.

Setting up the Calendar• For Projects that will be published to the Project Portal, Calendars will be set up by the

Administrator. This and the following slides show you how to create a calendar for a stand-alone project

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Next slide will show you how to add/change the Exceptions.

The Change Working Time dialog box.

Note:• If you change the number of working hours per day, hours per week, or days per month in your project calendar, you might want to match the settings on the Calendar tab of the Options dialog box. While the working times calendars actually control when work is scheduled, it's helpful to have this synchronized with the Calendar tab settings. The Calendar tab settings affect how Office Project 2010 converts the durations you enter for new tasks into work. These settings also control how the work is to be displayed, for example, 1 day as 8 hours or 1 day as 4 hours.• Office Project 2010 does not use resource calendars for material resources or cost resources .

Continued…

Setting up the Calendar– Exceptions tab

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1. Type a name for the calendar

2. Click the next available row in the Name column and type the name of the exception (for example Eid holidays, Hajj Holidays, National Day, etc.). No work will be scheduled during these days

With the exception row still selected, click this button to open the Details dialog box in which you can specify non-default working times for the exception dates, and any recurrence pattern, if applicable. You can also double-click anywhere in the exception row to open the Details dialog box

Use this button to remove a selected exception row.

Next slide will show you how to add/change the Work Weeks.

Continued…

Setting up the Calendar – Work Weeks tab• Use the Work Weeks tab to set up the normal work week for the selected calendar. For example, if a resource

does not work on Fridays, use the Work Weeks tab to change every Friday to a nonworking day. Also use the Work Weeks tab to set up alternate or temporary work weeks for the selected calendar. For example, you can specify that your project team will be working an extended work week for a rush project throughout April, or a reduced work week throughout May

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Click the next available row in the Name column and type the name of the work week change you want to make. You cannot change the name or dates of the Default row, although you can change the details for the default work week

With the edited work week row still selected, click this button to open the Details dialog box and specify changes to days of the week from the default. You can also double-click anywhere in the work week row to open the Details dialog box.

Use this button to remove a selected work week row. The Default work week cannot be deleted

Next slide will show you the details of Work Weeks.

Continued…

Setting up the Calendar – Work Weeks Details

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Click the day of the week for which you want to set working times for the work week selected on the Work Weeks tab. You can select multiple days and change them at once by dragging across the days, using the SHIFT key, or using the CTRL key

This option is available when you have selected the Default work week on the Work Weeks tab. Select this option to keep or return to the default working times for the selected day.

Select this option to make the selected day(s) nonworking days.

Select this option to change the working times for the selected day(s). Then specify the working times in the Working times table.

Type the time work begins on the selected day(s) for the work week selected on the Work Weeks tab.

Type the time work ends on the selected day(s) for the work week selected on the Work Weeks tab. Note: If you want to account for meal breaks or

multiple shifts, add more entries in the From and To boxes.