Calendars & Consolidated Projects

[pjelliott]

I have a few projects that I need to consolidate into a master project.
At present, some of these use different calendars (e.g. one uses a 7-day
working week while the others use a 5-day working week).
If I insert these into a consolidated project to manage my resources over
multiple projects, how will project deal with the different calendars? Will
this cause problems with the overall master project?
I'm using Project 2007 SP2.
Many thanks
Kind regards
Peter

 

[JulieS]

Hi Peter,

If resources are assigned to the tasks, it is the working time defined in
the resource calendar which will drive the schedule of the task. From your
post, I am not sure whether you have created a resource pool file or if each
project file has its own resources. If you use the same resources across
projects, you need to work with a resource pool file. See help on Resource
pools.

I hope this helps.

Julie

 

[pjelliott]

Julie

Thanks for your response.

I have created a resource pool from which all the projects within the
consolidated project are resourced.

Generally, our staff work to a 5-day week and this is the case for all the
projects in the consolidated master project with the exception of one which,
due to extremely tight deadlines and time constraints, will require a 7-day
week.

Various members of staff will be required to work over numerous projects,
including the 7-day week one, so I need to have all the projects on a single
consolidated project to review resource allocations across all projects.

From your post, I am thinking that, if it's the working time defined in the
resource calendar that drives the schedule, I can't mix a 5-day and 7-day
working week in a consolidated project file - is that the case? If so, how do
I reconcile resources over my multiple projects that require different
working hours?

Thanks again for your help.

Kind regards

Peter

 

[MrAlNather]

Julie

Thanks for your response.

I have created a resource pool from which all the projects within the
consolidated project are resourced.

Generally, our staff work to a 5-day week and this is the case for all the
projects in the consolidated master project with the exception of one which,
due to extremely tight deadlines and time constraints, will require a 7-day
week.

Various members of staff will be required to work over numerous projects,
including the 7-day week one, so I need to have all the projects on a single
consolidated project to review resource allocations across all projects.

From your post, I am thinking that, if it's the working time defined in the
resource calendar that drives the schedule, I can't mix a 5-day and 7-day
working week in a consolidated project file - is that the case? If so, how do
I reconcile resources over my multiple projects that require different
working hours?

Thanks again for your help.

Kind regards

Peter







- Show quoted text -

Hi,

If you add the 7 day calendar to the task (task information, advanced
tab, calendar drop down) and check the box "scheduling ignores
resources calendars", this should do what you're after.

Paul

 

[JulieS]

Hi Paul,

It looks like MrAlNather has chimed in with the perfect answer. You
can over ride the usual driver (Resource calendars) with task
calendars. So, if you've created a 7-day week calendar, apply that
calendar as a task calendar and select the option "scheduling
ignores resource calendars". On those specific tasks, the 7-day
calendar will "win" over the resource calendar.

Julie

 

[JulieS]

Sorry for the delay Paul. I actually replied to you several hours ago
through a newsreader and just now realized the post is not showing here. So,
to answer your question:

As noted below, the "hierarchy" of calendars is:
The working days/times in the Project Calendar serve to initially schedule
tasks.
If resources are assigned, the working days/times in the resource calendar
take over the scheduling. So if you have a project calendar where Sun - Sat
is working time, assigning a resource who only works Mon - Friday, means the
task will not be worked on during Sat & Sun.
However, you can over ride the resource's calendar through task calendars.
If you double click on a task to show the Task Information dialog, on the
Advanced tab is a choice for Task Calendars. Select the 7-day project
calendar and select the option "Scheduling ignores resource calendars".
To apply this to all tasks, click the Task Name column heading, click the
Task Information button on the Standard toolbar and then you can apply the
change to all tasks currently entered in the project.

I hope this helps.

Julie

 

[pjelliott]

Julie

Many thanks - that helps.

Kind regards

Peter

 

[JulieS]

You're most welcome Peter and thanks for the feedback.
Julie