9-80 Calendar

[Holden Caulfield]

New to MS Project. Cannot figure out how to create a 9-80's calendar. Read
tons of posts here and elsewhere - still can't get it to come close.
Help please. More then willing to keep trying until I get it.
From all the posts here about the Calendar, I conclude it's the big
bugaboo in MS Project.

 

[Andrew Lavinsky]

You have a couple of steps:

1) Tools > Change Working Time > Create a New Calendar, Copy the Standard
Calendar, and apply corporate holidays. We'll call this one CORP

2) Tools > Change Working Time > Create a New Calendar based on CORP. Change
the working time for the working days to 9 hours, and then pick every other
Friday, and make it nonworking time. We'll call this one RED.

3) Tools > Change Working Time > Create a New Calendar based on CORP. Change
the working time for the working days to 9 hours, and then pick every other
Friday, and make it nonworking time (pick the alternate Friday from the RED
calendar). We'll call this one BLUE.

4) Go to your Resource Sheet, and assign the appropriate RED or BLUE calendar
to each of your resources.

4) If you are tracking level of effort (person-hours), you'll need to determine
how you will estimate duration. I.e. if you plan for one day of work, is
that 8 hours or 9 hours? If everyone is on a 9 hour schedule, 9 hours is
probably the easiest. If it's a mix of 8 and 9 hour days, you may want to
plan for 8 hour days, but realize that this may throw off your durations.
To select the mechanics for this calculation, you'll have to set the appropriate
options in the Tools > Options > Calendar tab.


-A

 

[John]

"Trevor Rabey - Perfect Project Planning"

Calendars in MSP is no big deal.
What have you tried so far that hasn't worked?
What is this "9-80"?
9 days, 80 hours?

Trevor,
For your edification a 9-80 schedule works as follows:
Employees work 9 hour days Monday through Thursday. On Friday they work
a normal 8 hour day. The next week employees again work 9 hour days
Monday through Thursday. Friday is an off day. The total is then 80
hours worked in 9 days.

As Andrew noted, to keep the "office running", employees may be split
into two groups with alternating Fridays off. That insures there is
always someone in the office 5 days a week.

A 9-80 work schedule is popular with salaried employees since they get a
three day weekend every other week. It's not so popular with non-exempt
or hourly employees because it messes with overtime pay (i.e. 9 hour
days).

To address your first comment about calendars in MSP, yes a 9-80 work
week does present some issues with Project as pointed out by Andrew.
Lack of ability to handle accounting months and flex work weeks are two
areas where Project's calendar flexibility is lacking. Maybe someday.

John
Project MVP

 

[Andrew Lavinsky]

I've had a couple of clients try out this method, then just fall back to
a normal 8 hour day schedule because it was too difficult to keep maintained
and updated.

-A

 

[John]

I've had a couple of clients try out this method, then just fall back to
a normal 8 hour day schedule because it was too difficult to keep maintained
and updated.

-A

Andrew,
When a 9-80 workweek was first adopted at the company where I worked
several years ago we elected to just leave our Project schedules in a
normal 5-40 configuration for basically the same reason. We never really
had any issues since all our work schedules were based on work packages
of so many hours and earned value was accrued in discrete chunks (e.g.
0-100, 60-40, 50-50). The number of actual work hours in a day was not
really relevant. To add even more interest, we used accounting months
based on a 4-4-5 sequence.

John

 

[PankajRathi]

Can you add tasks in MS-Project to the outlook calendar so that it send
reminders?

 

[JulieS]

Hello PankajRathi,

In Project 2007 you can use the Set Reminder button on the Tracking
toolbar to send an email with the task attached. The user can then
add a reminder to that task. However, if the task schedule changes,
you would need to send a new reminder.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional
information about Microsoft Project

 

[PankajRathi]

Thank you! Can it be done in Project-2003

 

[JulieS]

No, sorry. The closest in Project 2003 is File > Send to> Mail
Recipient as a Schedule note.

Julie