Calendar Issue

[DS]

I'm using MS Project 2003. I have 2 tasks that run simultaneosly and are
unrealted (no relationship between them) they are set with a duration of 7
days or 56 working hours using Project default settings. In fact they would
be 7 days if I oly used the standard 8 hr calendar. Both are displayed
properly on the Gantt for 7 working days. Depending on the project, we
sometimes work 10 or 12 hr days. So, I have created 2 new calendars. One is
a 12hr day for 7 days a week. The second is 10 hr days for 6 days a week.
When I assign the calendars to the tasks, the Gantt bars shorten, but
duration stays the same and work is listed as 0 hrs. Worse, when I assign a
resource, both Gantt bars go back to full 7 day length and work displays as
56 hrs.

I need the Gantt and Duration to show that with the 10 hr work day and 1
resource that this task is now 5.6 days? Can this be done? Right now it
seems as if I need to manually calculate my duration and it's causing alot of
grey hair.

Thanks in advance.

 

[JulieS]

Hello DS,

You're partially there. It sounds as though you have created the
calendars (10 hrs/6 days and 12 hrs/7 days) but you've missed two
steps.

If you want project to calculate a "day" = 10 hours, you need to
specify that information to Project through Tools > Options,
Calendar tab. Set "Hours per day" = 10 and Hours per week = 60.

Work only becomes calculated when you assign resources. It sounds
as though your resources are still working on the 8 hours per day, 5
days per week "standard" calendar. Display the Resource Sheet view
and set the correct base calendar for each resource.

If your definition of a day is 10 hours, and your resource can work
10 hours per day, a 56 work hours task should correctly calculate at
5.6 days with the above set.


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

 

[DS]

This is a great help. Thank you for the quick response. One addition to the
this. While that solves the problem for the 10 hr work day/6 day work week,
I still have the 12 hr day running for another team at the same time (same
project different part) and I need to display tasks for that on the same
Gantt as the 10 hr work day. Is there a way to section off a project to
handle both the 10 and 12 hr calendar pieces? If not could it be done with a
Master Project using Insert- Project that displays the both the 10 hr day and
12 hr day pieces? Or is there another option that is better, easier or
smarter?

Thanks Julie...I really appreciate this.

 

[JulieS]

Hi DS,

Sorry, no, to your question about sectioning. The definition of "a
day = a certain number of hours" is project wide and shows the
duration measurement based upon that definition everywhere in that
project file.

Project allows us mere mortals to use terms like "day" and "week" to
define durations but Project is truly using minutes in all
calculations. So when you enter a task with a 2 day duration
Project is really saying, "okay, that's 1200 working minutes" based
upon 1 day = 10 hours and 60 minutes per hour.

If you then assign a resource (DS) who has calendar which allows 12
working hours per day, the duration is still 1200 minutes but
because DS works 12 hours per day, the finish date/time of the task
adjusts as DS can accomplish the calculated 1200 of work (assuming
DS is assigned at 100%) in less time.

So, a couple of suggestions:

1) Change the display of the dates (start and finish) to show date
and time through Tools > Options, View tab.

2) Make sure that the people who are going to be reading your
project file understand that you've defined a "day" as 10 hours, so
relying 100% on duration won't make sense. I'd just share
start/finish dates and times as needed.

3) You might consider talking "work" as your measurement. Then I
can say "DS I need you to accomplish 24 hours of work and I expect
you'll have it done in 2 days as you work 12 hours per day. I may
have another resource (Julie) who I need to perform 24 hours of
work, but because Julie only works 8 hours per day, my expectation
is she will finish it in 3 days."

You could create two separate project files one with the 10 hour and
another with the 12 hour tasks, however when you combine them into a
master file, you'll have the same issue. The master project file
will hold the single definition for the duration display.

I hope this helps and doesn't confuse things even more

Julie