Duration

Hi guys,

Ahmed, I suspect that you are using MS Project Server, as you write the system is suggesting you will save your projects to the server;

I also undrestand you are using the Project Guide to initialize new projects.

I will go straight to the point, as your explanation is a bit too complicated:

there are only 3 calendar types in MSP:

- project calendar: when you initialize a new project, MSP makes a copy of the calendar template stored in the global template, this will become the project calendar, usualy with the name "Standard"

- resource calendar, which is automatically generated by MSP for each resourve in your project; resource calendars use project "Standard" calendar as a base (template)

- task calendar: you will create a new calendar in Tools, Change working time, New; then apply the calendar to a specific task in Project, Task information, Advanced

Assign another calendar to the project in Project, Project Informations, Calendar

Assign another base calendar to resources in Resource table, Base calendar field

If you are using MSP Server, add a 4th "Enterprise" calendar, that the system will as s template for the project calendar.

Now, be careful with the calendar options:

1. Note these options are unique for the whole projet:project calendar, tasks and resources

2. By default, a standard week day is 8-12, 13-17 and a standard week is Mon-Fri; that means 8 hour days and 40 hour weeks, letting aside the month; this setup is found in Tools, Options, Calendar

3. If you want a 6 day, 10 hour a day week, you will: a) change the calendar grid to display for instance 7-12, 13-18 Mon-Sat and Sun off, b) enter the correspondaing values in the Options page: default start time = 7:00, default end time = 18:00, hours per day = 10, hours per week = 60.

This has to be done BEFORE going to Project, Project Information and entering the project start date, as this field will set up both date and TIME; if you wantto change the calendar as explained above AFTER the project is built, enter the date and time in the following format: "01/03/07 [space]07:00" meaning March 1st, 2007, 7 AM.

that’s all folks

bqa 3la kheir, as we say in Algeria

Dear Alexandre , moutaz

I hope im correct about what ill explain well here what i understood

MS project is having around 4 calenders

base calender and project calender and tast calender and resource calender too

so what im interested in here is the the MS proj software have its defult values like this:

the base calender is 8 hours per day and 5 days per week and the starting hour of work is 8:00am and ending at 5:00pm with one hour break

ok this is his base if you start a new project MS proj is asking you some things like :

when is the project will start and if i want to save my project on server or not and this is the first step in the project guide the critical one is the next step

in the project guide which is called : Define general working time and here you setup the project calender

now everybody must take care of something if u defined your working time differently than the program defults

which is 8:00 till 5:00 and 8 hours per day and 5 working days per week for sure it will appear those fractions in the duration

cause the program will take what u entered measure it or divide it according to its defult and give u in fraction the deviation between what he have and what you entered

i can give numerical example for this:

lets start with MS project and start new project:

leave everything as default in the MS proj if not modify them

so before to start the new project go to :

Tools menue: and select :Options

and then go to calender and select or modify the defaults of the program by entering 8:00 am and 5:00 pm in both default starting and default ending time for a working day

and then move to hours per day enter 8

and then move to hours per week enter 40

and put days per month = 20 so now PRESS THE BUTTON "Set as Default"



now you are sure that the program is having its original Defaults

now go to make new project and even if you have different values for working like 10 hours or something else dont bother ur head now

then go to define the project and enter the starting day of the project enter any day you want lets say 1st of march this year

now now move to the next step

which is server one click now and then finsih this step

NOW GO to define general working times step and as i think this is the project calender which will be the tast calender if u didnt specify any calender to a task

lets think this way that my project working time will be

10 hours and 6 working days and start from 8:00am till 7:00pm

with one hour break for lunch

ok so he ask u now to select calender template

well leave it as standard cause its just a template u r using to identify your project calender

ok and move to the next step



the program ask u now "Which days of the week are the usual work days for this project? "we select all of them except sunday cause we want 6 days per week

and now choose the other choice which is "I want to adjust the working hours shown for one or more days of the week "

and move to another step



enter the new working time change only 5:00 pm till 7:00 pm to have in you project calender 10 working hours and leave the one hour break for lunch and press apply for all days button

then press save and go to step 3 link

skip the step for entering holidays and vacations and so on and move to another step

take care now the program is giving u his default which is

8 hours

40 hours

and 20 days

now change those to be like this

10

60

26

and start to enter activity A and activity B and activity c

and lets assume that A will start on 3/2/07 and end of 3/5/07 on the calender u will find out that those r 3 days from friday 2nd of march and saturday 3rd of march

and monday 5th of march but the duration will not be 3 will be 2.8 so u r working now everyday 10 hours this mean ur project calender is faster than the base calender

which is for MS project default 8 and 40 and 20

so what happened is the program saw that the first 2 days u finished 20 hours working from an activity which needs 3 days working on his calender so the last day will be 8/10 = 80%

so this activity with ur rate of working will not finished more fast or more earlier than the calender states it will finish in 2.8 days not 3



what to do if u wanna avoide this ok u must make a task calender and let the base calender or the MS project and the project calender are identical

so close the program open it again and before to start anything go to tools options and in calender tab change everything to default 8 40 and 20 and press set as default



press new project and go thru the same steps dont modify anything leave everything as default and eneter again A B and C with the same dates

u see he give u 3 days 2 days and 2 days without fractions

now suppose u want activity A to have this scheme which is 10 hours 6 days go to make calender and assign this calender to that activity

go to tools and now this time go or press change working time and press in this tab the button new

now u wanna make a task calender

name it like 6 h 10 days calendar

and choose the second option make a copy of standard calender

and now edit ur working hours and select all saturday in the calendar and edit the working hours for them to be from 8 till 7 with one hour break and press Ok

now u can go for activiy b or d and double click it and then u will specify in advanced tab the new calender u want for this activity

and u will not see 1.8 day u will see 2 days but estimated duration 2 days?

anyway i think when we plan we enter the duration and let the program to tell me the finish date

its very rarely to enter the start and the finish date and the program tell me the duration

cause when u plan u know every precess and how much it can take

i hope i was correct about what i explained

thanks.........

yâ moutaz,

the three following time fields must match together:

1. Tools, Change working time, the first time in the standard day, say 08:00

2. Tools, Change working time, Options (OPtions, Calendar), the standard (default) start (beginning) time,

3. Project, Project informations, Project start date (and time)

Display the time in the date fields and check these 3 values.

If the standard start time is 8:00 and the project start date is monday next at 9:00, every task one day long in the project will start at 9:00 am and finish at 9:00 am the following day.

bqa 3la kheir

Mountaz, Ahmed,

Be careful to the following:

Calendar option "Default start time" MUST BE coherent with the "opening hour" of a standard day as defined in the calendar dialog box;

i.e. if you define the standard day as "8:00 - 12:00 and 13:00 - 17:00", you have to enter 8:00 and 17:00 as default start and default end time in the calendar options;

also, as changing these settings after the project is built will NOT change the project start date-and-time, yu should go to Project, Project infos, display the time with the date and make sure the project starts at the beginning of the day and not later.

Cheers,

Alexandre

we have the same prob and i think in MS project we have two or 3 kind of calenders and i started to change the data in the options calenders and i started to change the hours per day and i put it once 8 and once 10 and once 24 while my original setting at starting the project was 10 hours per day for working including saturday and this mean 6 days per week and 60 hours per week and after i started to enter the activities he started to give me something like 1.8 one day and 80% of a day which mean i guess that the program took the next day as his default working hours as 8 and he divided 8/10 cause when i go to tool menu and options and calender and i started to change or to play with the values in working hours per day like this 24 he gave me 0.75 day which mean one day which mean i guess or according to my understanding he took 20 divided by 24 and it was 75% i really dont know for sure if somebody can explain to us or help us cause im new commer in this and this is my first action with MS project thanksss....