Why Changing the hours per day in one calendar affects all others?

[subzizo]

When i change the hours per day , hours per week or days per month fields in
one calendar i got these changes applied to all calendars even the base
calanders or my custom calenders ....is this a way to prevent the changes
made to one calender from beeing applied to all other calenders?
thanks for help

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi subzizo ,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

When you create a calendar you have the option of creating a New calendar or
basing it on a Copy of the Standard calendar. If you choose the latter,
then any changes you make to the Standard calendar will affect the others.
If you don't want that, then select the New option.

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: http://www.mvps.org/project/

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP



wrote:

 

[Pratta]

Hi subi
What you are saying sounds strange. Make sure that the calendars you create
are applied to the resources you want them to be applied to. Go to the
resource sheet and check the Calendar column, or double click on a resource
to check the calendar.
Its best to make a copy of Standard for each project or program, and then
ensure your resources are assigned to that calendar or a version of it.. New
calendars check for a NA in Actual dates before changing them, so create a
test file and insert a column for Actual Finish to assist in finding out what
you are doing wrong.

Good luck.....Pratta

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

The "hours per day" "hours per week" and "days per month" fields on the
calendar options page does NOT change any of the calendars. I know that
sounds like I'm crazy but none the less it's true. Those settings are
conversion factors used strictly for convenience when you enter or Project
displays durations, to allow you to work with data in your plan without
having to mentally convert everything to hours. Project stores all its data
in minutes. If you enter a task and set its duration to 3 days, Project has
to know how many working hours "3 days" actually stands for. Do you work 8
hours a day so it means 24 working hours or do you work 7 hours a day so it
means 21 working hours? The "hours per day" field on the calendar options
page does exactly that - it tells Project *how many* hours out of the
24-hour day should considered the standard length of the working time. The
calendar, accessed through the Tools menu, tells Project *which* of the
minutes in the day are working time. The "hours per day" should agree with
your Project calendar but setting hours per day DOES NOT change any of the
calendars themselves. Also, hours per day is a global setting so you might
have other calendars with differing numbers of work hours.

 

[subzizo]

Hi Mike ...Thank You V.much for your quick response,your answer was very
helpful for me & if u don't mind i have another logical question ,when i
set the hours per day value why msproject do not calculate the hours per week
automatically? & also why ms project let me set the days per month upto 100
day?

thank you

 

[subzizo]

Hi mike again, am so sorry to tell you that but your method didn't work so
try this & u'll know what i mean
1- tools>change working time
2-click options button>specify the valus in hours per day (8 by default)
then click ok
3-click new button and select new base calendar
4-from the new base calendar press options & specify a new value in the
hours per day let's say 10 (don't forget that this value was 8 in the
standard calendar) & press ok
5-from the main window of change working time choose for > and select any of
the existing calendars let's assume (standard project calendar)
6- from the standard project calendar > press options
& now u'll find what i mean the value in the hours per day is changed to 10
!!
this'll apply either you select to create a new copy of existing calendar or
u selected new base calendar .
i know that somebody'll tell me that this options is global settings for the
project ut in simple words what i mean WHY MICROSOFT DOESN'T LET ME TO
SPECIFY THESE VALUES FOR EACH CALENDER INDEPENDENT OF OTHER CALENDARS ??so
when i apply the new calendar for any task or resource it inherites the
number of working hours from its calendar instead of having to play around
this with the units value for each resource ..

i hope u got what i mean
thank u all
subzizo

 

[subzizo]

hi dear pratta ,
please try the following & u'll get what i mean

1- tools>change working time
2-click options button>specify the valus in hours per day (8 by default)
then click ok
3-click new button and select new base calendar
4-from the new base calendar press options & specify a new value in the
hours per day let's say 10 (don't forget that this value was 8 in the
standard calendar) & press ok
5-from the main window of change working time choose for > and select any of
the existing calendars let's assume (standard project calendar)
6- from the standard project calendar > press options
& now u'll find what i mean the value in the hours per day is changed to 10
!!
this'll apply either you select to create a new copy of existing calendar or
u selected new base calendar .
i know that somebody'll tell me that this options is global settings for the
project but in simple words what i mean WHY MICROSOFT DOESN'T LET ME TO
SPECIFY THESE VALUES FOR EACH CALENDER INDEPENDENT OF OTHER CALENDARS ??so
when i apply the new calendar for any task or resource it inherites the
number of working hours from its calendar instead of having to play around
this with the units value for each resource ..

i hope u got what i mean
thank u
subzizo

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Take another look at my post from a couple of days ago, Subizo. The "Hours
per Day" entry on the Options page is a conversion factor only and does not
change the hours associated with any of the calendars. I know it seems like
it says it does and it certainly seems like it should work that way you
think it does, but trust me, it does not. When you enter a task duration as
XX days or YY weeks, Project has to convert that number into hours before
it's stored in its database. The "hours per day" and "hours per week"
setting controls how many hours Project interprets your entry of "Task A, 6
days" represents. Changing those values does NOT change any of the
calendars in any way shape or form, I can't stress that strongly enough!

Try this little experiment. With the calendar as the default 0800-1200 and
1300-1700 standard calendar and hours per day equal to 8, enter a 1-day task
X. It will show starting at 8am and ending at 5pm. Change the calendar so
the workday is 0800-1200 and 1300-1800. The task is still 1 day 8am to 5pm.
Change the "hours per day" to 7. The duration now becomes 1.14 days but the
*times* are still exactly the same, 8am to 5pm. Now change the calendar to
show the workday ends at 4pm (0800-1200 and 1300-1600). The duration stays
at 1.14 days but the task now ends the next workday at 9am.

How could 8 hours be 1 day at one moment and 1.14 days the next? Because
you changed the definition of a "day." How could the finish time for a one
day task not change when you changed the end time of the work day and made
it loinger? Because the calendar doesn't specify how LONG a day is, it
specifys WHICH minutes in the day are working minutes and which minutes
aren't. But why did it change when you made the day shorter yet the
duration stayed the same? You still have to do 8 hours of work but by
quitting time on the first day you've only done 7 so you still need to do
one more hour the next day.

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi subzizo ,

You might like to see FAQ Item: 5. Default Working Hours

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: http://www.mvps.org/project/

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
Project MVP

 

[JulieD]

Hi

the information under tools / options / calendar (which you're seeing when
you press the OPTIONS) button in step 4 is a DEFINITION that is set for the
project file not a setting for a calendar. When you use the term "day" or
"week" or "month" in the duration column (or in lead / lag entries) Project
needs to know what you mean when you say "a day" (or "a week" or "a
month") - this is the only use for these three settings.

I tend to explain it this way:
Imagine a staff meeting between your people - you've got some who work 8
hours, some who work 10 hours and some poor souls who work 12 hour "days".
Now the GM says "I want to know how long it's going to take to get the
report out the door" ... at which time someone says, "oh 2 days" - the
question is now who's 2 "days" is it - and what would be needed at this
meeting and what would generally be decided at such a time is the definition
of the term "day" ... not defined by how many hours are actually being
worked by each person, but as a term that has the same meaning for all of
the them. This is what project is after. So you can say that for your
company when you use the term "month", you mean 100 days (odd but it's your
definition).

The hours set under tools / change working time should reflect the actual
hours worked by the resources so they (and you) know a) when they're
available and b) what they're doing when.

Hope this helps
Cheers
JulieD

 

[Scott Mansfield]

I've been reviewing the "calendar" posts and this one seem to best reflect
the issue I'm having: if I change the hours per day for one base calendar,
the other base calendar changes as well. Is that just the way Project works?

What I'm trying to accomplish is to have one base calendar which will
schedule people for 5 hours a day and 25 per week. So if someone is assigned
6 hours of work, it rolls to a second day in the schedule. If I can't get a
calendar to schedule only 5 hours a day and a second calendar to handle 8,
what's the next best thing? Adjusting the Max Units for each person seems
klunky. Thanks

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

I have never seen a base calendar influence an other base calendar.
What you try to do should be perfectly possible.
Of course a base calendar modifies the resource calendars derived from it -
maybe that is the misunderstanding?

HTH