Non-Standard calendars in a consolidated plan

[Dale]

Each week I need to create a consolidated plan consisting of ~45 subprojects
to generate a report. The problem is that a couple subprojects use
non-standard calendars. For their individual projects, tasks default to the
non-standard calendar they have defined for their project, however, when I
insert it into the consolidated plan using the Standard calendar, the tasks
default to the Standard calendar and the dates are changed. I know that if
the Project Manager's assign the non-standard claendar to each task the
consolidated plan will match theirs but they do not want to go into each task
and assign the calendar. Is there another way arond this problem?

 

[Gérard Ducouret]

Hello Dale,
I tried again and the consolidation with different calendars works fine for
me.
Did you use the Insert / Project menu to insert the sub-project in the
master-project?

Gérard Ducouret

 

[Dale]

Hi Gerard. Yes, I inserted the individual projects.

I'm using 2000, what version did you use?

What happens is the standalone project uses a non-standard calendar with
Thursday and Friday marked as non-working days. Then as an example one task
starting on Monday with a 5 day duration would end on Tuesday of the
following week.

When I insert it into the master plan which has Thursday and Friday as
working days, the task is re-calculated and the end date becomes Friday. If
I assign the non-standard calendar to the task prior to insertion (or after
for that matter), the end date stays at next Tuesday. However, the PM's
refuse to go into every task and assign the calendar.

I also tried to turn off the automatic calculation of dates. This brought
in all of the files identical to when they were standalone, however, now none
of the roll-up summaries I need are calculated.

 

[Gérard Ducouret]

Dale,
"the PM's refuse to go into every task and assign the calendar." : I
understand that !
My first try was with 2003 version, but right now I made a second try with
the 2000 version : everything works fine ... until I share resources between
the 2 projects (Master and Sub) ? ;-{
I guess that the 2 projects have different calendars with the same name :
that's the problem.
Rename the calendar in the sub-project : for ex. "Cal with Thursday and
Friday off" before doing the consolidation.
Tell us if that works for you !

Gérard Ducouret

 

[Dale]

Gerard,
You're right. That was the first thing I looked at. The PM for the
original project I noticed the problem with had updated the standard calendar
so I asked him to re-name it. Unfortunately, it still had the same problem.
I think the issue is because the individual tasks have a calendar of None and
default to the project calendar. Therefore in the standalone, everything
works as expected, but in the consolidated one, the dates are adjusted.
Unless there is some setting I'm overlooking in the Project options.

Dale

 

[Dale]

Here's another flavor of the problem. I have a task in a sub-project using a
custom calendar that uses a predecessor with a lag of 25 days. The task has
a calendar assigned to it for 'Weekends only'. In the stand-alone project,
the lag time is calculated using the default custom calendar and works out to
9/9, then because of the task calendar the start date is Saturday 9/10.
However, in the consolidated plan, the lag of 25 days gets you to 9/2 so the
task starts on 9/3.

Another issue a PM working in the group investigating this has found is that
MS Project 2000 uses the default calendar when calculating lag days, but 2002
and 2003 use the task calendar if there is one assigned to calculate lag
time. 2002 Pro works the same as 2000 and uses the default calendar.