Assign duration for 24 hour calendar

[TomF]

I have read several messages but haven't found an answer that makes sense to
me. I have two kinds of recources. Human and Mechanical. The human
resources are on the normal 8hr per day / 5 day per week calendar. The
mechanical resources are on a 24 hour a day / 7 day per week calendar.

I would like the duration for the mechanical resources to be listed in days
(24 hour) and the duration for the human resources to also be listed in days
(8 hour).

Is this possible? If so, how do I set up MS Project?

Thanks,
Thomas

 

[JulieS]

Hi Thomas,

I'm afraid that can't be done. The definition of how many hours are in a
day is defined in Tools > Options, on the Calendar tab. Changing the
definition *after* tasks and durations are entered, will cause some very
strange durations to appear. For example: If you entered tasks and
specified a 1 day duration and a "day" was initially defined as 8 hours and
then you changed the definition to 24 hours, all tasks will suddenly show a
duration of .33 days.

I think you may also be partially confusing duration and work. Tasks have
durations -- the amount of working time (as defined in the calendar) from
the start of the task to the end of the task. Duration can be entered in
minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months.

Resources (Human and Mechanical) perform work based upon their assignment to
tasks. Work is usually expressed in hours.

You can change the format of all tasks to Hours if that would help keep
things clearer. Go to Tools > Macro > Macros and run the Format_Duration
macro and select hours.

Hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie

 

[TomF]

JulieS,

Thank you for your reply.

So can I have one task using an 8 hour per day duration and another task
using a 24 hour per day duration?

If not, this seems like a serious shortcomming in MS Project. You should be
able to assign a 24hr per day resource a 24 hour per day duration so all task
durations can be listed in days regardless of what calendar they are using.

As a project manager, I would like to be able to do this and I have to
believe that many other users would like this capability as well.

Thanks,
Thomas

 

[JulieS]

Hi Thomas,

I disagree with your statement "You should be able to assign a 24hr per day
resource a 24 hour per day duration so all task durations can be listed in
days regardless of what calendar they are using." How would anyone looking
at a schedule be able to know if a day is 24 hours or 8 hours? It would
vary depending upon which resource was assigned. I would convert durations
to hours.

You can certainly assign a resource with a 24hour base calendar to a task
and assign a resource with an 8 hour base calendar to the task. This will
calculate *work* for each resource.

To illustrate:
Create two 3 day duration tasks both starting today (24 October) at 08:00
and ending at Wednesday (26 October) 17:00
When I assign the resource with the 8-hour per day base calendar, the work
calculated is 24 hours. (8 hours per day for 3 days). The start and end
dates of the task are the same.
When I assign the resource with the 24-hour calendar, the work calculate is
also 24 hours *but* the end date of the task has now changed to 25 October
at 08:00. The 24-hour resource can complete their 24 hours worth of work in
24 hours, hence the change in end date.

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

Julie

 

[Haris Rashid]

hi,

MS Project does not associate a calendar with the material resource.
You can adjust the usage and consumption rate of a material resource on an
assignment. The work value, or material usage, for assignments of material
resources can be variable or fixed. When you adjust the amount of work using
material resources, you are adjusting the number of units of the material
resource you're applying to the assignment.

On the View menu, click Task Usage.
In the Task Name field, select the assignment you want to change.
Click Assignment Information , and then click the General tab.
In the Start and Finish boxes, type the dates you want to start and finish
using the material resource.
The start and finish dates define the length of the assignment, or
assignment span. If the resource has variable material consumption and if
it's a fixed-unit or fixed-work task, changing the assignment changes the
total work or material usage.

Thanks,

 

[TomF]

JulieS,

Thanks so much for your extra help.

You are exactly correct when you say "How would anyone looking at a schedule
be able to know if a day is 24 hours or 8 hours? It would vary depending
upon which resource was assigned." This is precisely what I want. Becuase
the duration of my 24hr/7day per week resource is 45 days (24 hour days), I
don't want to list this duration as 1080 hours (management won't understand
how long that is without a calculator...). If they saw 45 days and looked at
the resource they would immediatly know that these are 24 hour days. With
many other parallel tasks on-going during this 45 day period with normal 8
hour per day resources , I cannot change my entire project chart to 24 hour
days. So how can I clearly express these durations? Any help?

Thomas

 

[JulieS]

Hi Thomas,

Because some of your resources work 24 hours per day and some only work 8
hours per day, I suggest focusing less on Duration and more on task Start
Date/Time and task End Date/Time and Work.

However, there is another "work around" that may give you what you seek
using a custom calendar and a custom number field.

Create a new calendar (Tools>Change Working Time). Copy the 24 hours
calendar, name it (I used Long).

Then insert a custom Number field ([Number1] for example) in the task
table. Choose Tools>Customize Fields and select the [Number1] field.
Rename the field to something like "Duration in '24-Hour' days"
Click the Formula... button and use the following formula:

(ProjDateDiff([Start],[Finish],"Long"))/1440

In the Customize fields dialog box, click the Use Formula option for the
task and group summary rows.

This will show the number of 24 hour "days" between the start and end of the
task.

Hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Durations are ALWAYS recorded, scheduled, and tracked in hours (actually
minutes to be accurate). The units of Days, Weeks, and Months are only
conveniences for data entry and display so you don't have to convert them
yourself by hand. A task with a duration of 1000 working minutes is the
same length regardless of whether it is a man or a machine doing it or
whether it runs continuously or is periodically interrupted for time off.
The working day is irrelevant except in the sense it tells you how many of
the little squares on the calendar on the wall pass by as you work that 1000
total minutes of activity.

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

See my other post - you are confusing working days with duration. Duration
is the number of minutes - ALWAYS minutes - between start and finish. How
many workdays it takes to burn those minutes depends on the hours per day
the resource works, but the number of working days IS NOT the duration.