Calendar Month

[Bernard Bourée]

I would like to work with calendar month, that is when I enter 1mon in a
duration the task should start at the first workable day and ends at the
last one.
How to achieve that ?


Bernard

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Bernard,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

That what it does now. What are you expecting?

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: <http://www.mvps.org/project/>

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on )

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP

 

[Bernard Bourée]

Thanks Mike
But could not find an answer to my question

Bernard

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

What he was telling you, Bernard, was that the behavior of Project as it
comes from the box is exactly what you said in your question that you wanted
it to do, so obviously you're expecting it to do something else. There are
an average of 20 working days in a month. If I have a task that starts of
this Monday, 24 Jan and I specify its duration to be 1 month, Project will
show it ending on the 18th of Feburary, 1 month (20 working days) later.
What date would you rather see it showing?

 

[Bernard Bourée]

Steve

Thanks for your reply.
Well probably my English is far from perfect and my question not clear.
Foe me a "calendar" month don't have a fixed number of days. it could be
20 , 21 or even 23.
If I say that I receive 12 salaries per year, that is one each month
there is a descprepency between my monthly salary and the fixed 20 days.

If I have a task that will take 6 calendar months to be performed and
that I fix the starting date to january the 1st or better the 3rd for
2005 foe being the first workable day and define the duration to be 6x20
days I will not have a task ending on june 31 but june the 17th; of
course it is the same if I put 6months.

Bernard

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Bernard,

As you rightly say, calendar months have different numbers of working days
and Project cannot manage this. You either have to define a month as being,
perhaps, 22 days, or use weeks instead. 6 months is 13 weeks. You cannot
be more presise than that without calculating an exact number of days -
after all, how would project know what value to give if you plan a task for
2 months and then the start date changes to a different month? No, you have
to tell Project the number of working days for the Duration.


Mike Glen
Project MVP

 

[Bernard Bourée]

Mike

Thanks, that does not solve my problem but state clearly how MSP works.
It could also be interesting to be able to define a special calendar
where month means "calendar month" or "calendar year" etc.

Regards
Mike Glen a écrit :

 

[Mike Glen]

Well, yes...but...! Project planning needs to have some mathematical basis.
If you pay someome by the hour to undertake 20 manhours of work, then that's
what you should plan for - 20 manhours of work. If you use unspecified
months, then the pay bill will vary depending on the number of days in the
month and the ensuing plan will have variable end dates and associated
budget. No, you need to estimate the plan based on working periods and I
would recommend weeks or smaller periods as these are precise.


Mike Glen
Project MVP

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Tasks durations are always measured in terms of working time hours (actually
Project uses minutes). When you see days, weeks, months, or years in the
duration field in the plan, remember that it is really being stored in hours
and those larger units are just there for convenience, nothing more.

Remember that duration always relates to man-hours of work to be done by a
resource. Since the number of working hours in a calendar month varies from
month-to-month, using a calendar month as you say you'd like would make it
impossible ever to create a valid project plan or budget.

--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

 

[Bernard Bourée]

Steve House [MVP] a écrit :

Tasks durations are always measured in terms of working time hours
(actually Project uses minutes). When you see days, weeks, months, or
years in the duration field in the plan, remember that it is really
being stored in hours and those larger units are just there for
convenience, nothing more.

Remember that duration always relates to man-hours of work to be done by
a resource. Since the number of working hours in a calendar month
varies from month-to-month, using a calendar month as you say you'd like
would make it impossible ever to create a valid project plan or budget.

Thanks all for your replies

Bernard