Force Project to use only working days for fixed-duration, "eday"

[CK_PMP]

I've built a schedule that uses a mix of elapsed days ("edays") and business
days ("days"). Some tasks are given in terms of one, and some in terms of
another. (Yes, it's necessary). I'm assigning resources to tasks not by the
normal utiliation percentage, but rather by the number of hours (work) each
resource will be devoting to a particular task, and letting MS Project
calculate their actual utilization over the span of the task. These are not
"effort-driven" tasks, but rather fixed-duration tasks. (e.g., we have 30
days to complete task X, and I'm assigning folks to work between 4 and 16
hours each on task X between 09/01/08 and 09/31/08).

This works great for tasks that are given in terms of working days ("days"),
as Project uses the default calendar and assumes 8 hrs/day. (So someone who
will devote 4 hours to a 5 day task will have a utilization of 10%).

However, it doesn't work at all for tasks given in total elapsed days, since
Project is assuming 24/7 working hours. I want to be able to specify that a
task will take place over 30 elapsed days, but will only be worked on during
normal work hours as specified in the project calendar. The Gantt Chart is
using the standard work calendar. Unfortunately, individual tasks that are
given in terms of edays can be forced to use the standard calendar (they
default to "None.")

There are two possible fixes:
1) Most desirable would be to force Project to only count work against
normal working hours, even if a task is expressed in "edays."
-OR-
2) Do a universal translation from edays to days. There are far too many
tasks to to this manually. A universal replace wont work because "30 edays"
is a very different duration than "30 days." So I'd need Project to determine
when 30 edays means 20 days and when it means 19 days, and so forth, based on
the calendar.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

CK_PMP --

In your scenario, I would recommend you create a custom calendar called
something like 7-Day Work Week. This calendar should show Sunday through
Saturday as working days, with the working schedule on every day as 8:00
AM - 5:00 PM. Then I would assign this 7-Day Work Week calendar as a Task
Calendar on any task that must be worked on the 7-day work week schedule by
doing the following:

1. Double-click the task in question.
2. In the Task Information dialog, click the Advanced tab.
3. Click the Calendar pick list and select the 7-Day Work Week calendar.
4. Select the "Scheduling ignores resource calendars" option.
5. Click the OK button.

Hope this helps.

 

[CK_PMP]

I think I need to clarify my issue.

I want the standard work calendar to apply across the entire project for ALL
tasks (8hrs/day, 5days/week, 40hrs/week, 20day/mo). This includes the tasks
with duration specified in edays.

For example, fixed-duration task X will start at date D, and will occur for
exactly 30 elapsed days. That may end up being 20 working days, or it may
end up being 19 or 18, depending on when date D falls. The number of hours
allotted to this task is fixed, and spread among several work resources. I
need Project to consider only the standard working hours when calculating
utilization (in the "Task Form" pane). That is...

Hours Assigned / Work Hours = GOOD
Hours Assigned / Elapsed Hours = USELESS

Also, I'd like Project to move the task start and end dates to the next
working day for each of these.

Finally, for fixed-duration tasks, I do not have the option to assign a
calendar at the task level (my original post should have said "can NOT be
forces to use..."

Sorry if I was unclear initially.

Regards.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

CK --

I'm not sure your clarification helped. eDays are 24 hour calendar days
that include weekends, so I think that your use of eDays is your problem. I
think you would be better off to enter your Duration in Days (not eDays) and
then use a 7-Day Work Week calendar as I suggested to override the schedule
for certain tasks to make them happen on a 7 day per week schedule. Just a
thought. Maybe someone else has an opinion for you.

 

[CK_PMP]

Maybe someone else can chime in here and, A) offer a solution to the issue at
hand, and/or B) let me know I'm not going insane here. I think Mr. Howard is
trying to offer a solution to the exact opposite of my problem.

 

[Rod Gill]

'Fraid not, he has provided the correct answer. ed is always 7 day 24 hour
working ignoring the calendar and cannot do what you ask.

Create a new 7 day 8h per day calendar and call it 7 day working
Select project, project Information and set the 7 day working calendar to be
the project calendar. All Resources need to have the 7 day working calendar
as their base calendar so they too do 7x8.

From what you posted I too would answer as Dale did. The only thing to
change is that now you want all tasks at 7x8 is to change the project
calendar, not individual task calendars. It's safer to leave Standard
calendar as 5x8

--

Rod Gill
Microsoft MVP for Project

Author of the only book on Project VBA, see:
http://www.projectvbabook.com

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Rod --

Thanks for watching my back. I love it when you post a correct answer to a
user's question, but the user rejects the answer because he/she doesn't like
it.

 

[JulieS]

Hello CK_PMP,

Sorry, but I'm going to "chime in" with Dale and Rod-- with possibly
one *slight* adjustment. I think what you want is to be able to set a
task duration in *calendar* days (30 calendar days) on some tasks but
only have resources working them during regular working hours Monday
through Friday.

Do as Dale suggests, create a 7 day per week, 8 hours per day
calendar. and assign that calendar to the specific tasks. (You most
certainly *can* assign a task calendar to fixed duration tasks.)
However, if you only want your resources to work M > F, do not select
the option "scheduling ignores resource calendars". Project will
schedule the resources' work during working time in common on the task
and resource calendar (Monday through Friday), but schedule the start
and end dates of the task to occur based upon 7 days per week.

So:
A) Okay, now 3 "chime ins" -- all offering the same or very similar
solutions.
B) Sorry -- I can't vouch for anyone's sanity with regards to
Project -- not even my own.

Julie
Project MVP

 

[CK_PMP]

THANK YOU! This is what I was looking for. The other solutions (not that I
didn't LIKE them) did not force the resources to ONLY work M>F.

 

[JulieS]

You're welcome. Glad to have helped and thanks for the feedback.

Julie

 

[Steve House]

My view is the only thing that ever counts in scheduling a project is
working time, or working days if you prefer. I have 40 man-hours worth of
work for 1 resource to accomplish. For simplicity we'll say the resource
works 100%. The schedule MUST encompass 40 working time hours between when
the task starts and ends. Whether that is 2 elapsed days, 5 elapsed days,
or a full elapsed year is totally irrelevant to anything to do with the
project schedule. The only question that matter is, if the task start at X
date and time, at what date and time Y will 40 man-hours of work been done.
As I've said in other posts - schedules aren't driven by the passage of
time, they're driven by the conduct of work. If task begins 16 June, the
only date that matter to the schedule is the date when it will have been
possible to have done the required number of man hours. The answer to your
problem is to never, ever attempt to schedule using elapsed days because
elapsed time is never a schedule driver.