Multiple Project Calendars - Project 2003

[Jens]

Here is my problem.

When you enter work effort in days, project calulates an hourly effort based
on the project calendar. So, if the project calendar allows for 8 hrs per
day, and I assign a resource with a 24 hr calendar 1 days worth of work,
project calculates the finish date 1/3 day after thew start date.

I would like to enter work effort in days, but I would want to set up
multiple project calendars so that a day for an 8 hr resource is 8hrs, and a
day for a 24 hr resource is 24 hrs.

Is this possible?

Thanks

Jens

 

[JulieD]

Hi Jens

the value of "day" is not controlled by the project calendar but by the
definitions found under tools / options / calendar and unfortunately, no,
there is no ability to have two definitions for day within the project in
this sense.

i'm also unsure what you mean by entering "work effort" - are you typing
into the work column or the duration column. The duration column is where
project asks how long the task takes to do (this is stored within project in
minutes, hence it needing a valid definition of "day" when you type 1d or
whatever in here). Work is (generally) calculated by project when you
assign a resource.

So if you say Task A takes 3 days (based on the definition in tools /
options / calendar where day is 8hrs) then project says ah, a 24hr long job,
spread over the project calendar (which is assigned under project / project
information and customised under tools / change working time).

Now when you assign Fred - project says, ah, he works 8 hr days ... so work
is 24hrs and the duration is 3days.
Now if you assigned Bill instead whose base calendar was the 24hr one, then
project will calculate work at 24hrs, show duration in the duration column
still as 3 days (as the gantt chart shows this column as if worked on the
standard calendar) but if you check out resource usage or task usage you
will see that he is actually getting the 24hrs done in one hit without any
sleep (poor bill - do you really do this to your resources).

Hope this makes some sense.
Regards
JulieD

 

[Jens]

Hi Julie

Many thanks for your response.

My 24 hr resources are servers, and we tend to treat them a little less
respectfully than our manpower.

I am beginning to come to the realization, I will have to define "work" in
hours. I have just been trying to understand what the task specific project
calendar controls (in the task details dialogue boxes).

Regards

Jens