Days per month.

[richu]

Hi,

I am using a 6-days calendar with 10hrs/day. What will be the days per
month in tools/option/calendar? Will it be 26days (30days per month
minus weekly off) or 24 days (6days per week x 4 weeks per month).

Richu

 

[Rob Schneider]

AFAIK, neither is what Project does. In Help for that dialogue box:

====
Days per month. Defines the number of days that you want Office Project
2007 to assign to a task when you enter a duration of a month. For
example, by default Project assumes that you want a duration of one
month to equal 20 days. If you enter a duration of two months for a
task, with the default settings, Project assumes a duration of 40 days.
This setting also works with the Hours per day setting. For example, if
a month is equal to 20 days and a day is equal to 8 hours, then Project
assumes that a task that requires two months to complete has a duration
of 320 hours. The default setting is 20.
====

So it just is a way for your inputing, say "20m" into 400d if the days
per month is 20.

Because of this complexity and the fact that our ancestors defined month
lengths with some complex algorithm known only to them, I simply avoid
the idea of using Months (except for high level reporting/analysis).
For defining a project plan, I recommend using Days, or Hours if that
feels better. And internally, Project keeps track of all this time in
minutes anyway.


--rms

www.rmschneider.com

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

It will be exactly what you will put in. The working time calendar does not
automatically update tools, options, calendar.
Greetings,

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf

 

[Steve House]

The "days per month" is an average value. Since the default of 20 is based
on a 5 day work week, I'd say use 24 for a 6 day work week. Bear in mind
what these numbers actually do. The Hours per Day, Hours per Week, and Days
per Month settings serve strictly to define conversion factors for duration
entry and display - they really don't control anything else. Durations are
always stored and calculated in minutes to the nearest tenth. When you
input that a task has a duration of "3 days" or "2 weeks" or "1.5 months"
Project has to convert those entries into minutes for storage. Similarly,
when it writes to a duration field for display, it has to convert from the
minutes of duration actually stored in the database into the units in which
you prefer to see durations displayed. If you never enter or display
durations in months (and it's a very good idea not to), your actual setting
in the "Days per Month" option becomes irrelevant as it doesn't influence
anything else.