show calendar days in the duration column including non working da

[Sherif]

Pretend I work in a world with no weekends or holidays...I would like for the
Duration column to show calendar days (include weekends, holidays etc...)

For instance I have a date range of 9/7/08 - 7/3/09 and the column counts
220 days...in actuality there are 300 Days....how do I show 300 days!?!?!

 

[Redneck David]

Create a calendar where all days are work days (Tools/Change Working Time).
Then assign that calendat to you project (Project/Project Information).

If you are using Resources in your schedule you may need to check the ignore
Resource Calendar in the task information window.

 

[Steve House]

The other posts have set you on the right track in their suggestion to make
Sat and Sun workdays in the base calendar you've chosen to be the project
calendar. Don't forget to make the hours per week field on the Calendar
Options page agree with the new numbers. But I have to suggest you really
consider carefully the wisdom of that approach. Tasks are usually broken
down the the level of one task equals the work down by one resource or
resource team, that is, either one person working alone or a group of people
like a surgical team who will work together as a single unit. Scheduling
every day as a work day means that when you assign a person to a task, they
will not have any days off at all between the time the task begins and when
it ends. Do you really work your resources like that? Every jurisdiction I
have ever been in has legally mandated days off for almost all workers.

A fundamental principle of projects is that progress is driven by resource
doing work that creates deliverables. But of course, work can only take
place when the resources are physically present. Therefore a prject that
will take 300 days to complete will take 300 WORK days. Calendar days that
are non-working may as well not exist. But because the days between two
dates includes a mix of working days and days off, the non-working days have
to be deducted from the calendar days in order to come up with the number of
days that matter as far as driving the project towards completion.

Just something to think about

 

[JulieS]

Hello Sherif,

Just to add to the merriment...

It's not clear to me whether you really want your resources to work 7
days a week or if you just want to show the difference between the
finish date and start date of a task in "calendar" days.

Both Richard and "Redneck David" have given you good directions on how
to change the project calendar to a 7-day per week schedule and Steve
has pointed out that generally when referring to duration in Project
we are referring to working days.

Non-the-less, if you wish to leave the calendars alone, you can create
a calculated field that will show the number of calendar days
(including Saturday and Sundays) between the start and finish. Add a
spare duration field (Duration1 for example) to your task table.
Customize the field (right click in the column heading and choose
customize) and click the formula button. In the formula box enter the
following formula:

DateDiff("d",[Start],[Finish])*[Minutes Per Day]

The duration1 column will now show the number of days between the
start and finish dates of each task.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional information
about Microsoft Project