Project 2016 - Introduction

Lesson – Working with Calendars

Project 2016

U SING C ALENDARS

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Discussion

When you first start a project, the Standard base calendar is applied to the project and is referred to as the project calendar. This calendar sets Monday through Friday, from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, as working time, and Saturday and Sunday as nonworking time. When you begin to enter task and resource information, your project schedule is set according to the default project calendar. The default working and nonworking times in the Standard calendar may not apply to your project. While Microsoft Project also provides two other base calendars, Night Shift and 24 Hours , these may not work for your project either. In this situation, you can create a new base calendar, containing the working and nonworking times specific to your project, and then apply it to the project, thus creating a new project calendar. If you need to create a new project calendar, do so before entering project information. If the Standard calendar works for your project, except for certain resources, you have two options. You can modify an individual resource calendar by setting working hours and nonworking time specific to a resource. You can also create a new base calendar and assign it to all resources that adhere to the same schedule. Either way, you create a new resource calendar. Modify resource calendar options and create a new resource calendar before you assign resources to tasks or after making the assignments. If resources are already assigned to tasks, the schedule will adjust according to the new resource calendar settings. Modifying resource calendar options is particularly helpful for marking vacation time on the calendar. Resource calendars do not apply to material resources. You can also create a resource calendar by changing a resource’s availability over time. When you change a resource’s availability, you indicate the maximum units available during certain time periods. That way, tasks are scheduled according to when the resource is available. For example, you can change a resource’s availability if the resource is available to work part-time (units = 50%) in July and August and full- time (units = 100%) in September and October. Task information is also scheduled according to the Standard project calendar by default. However, if you have tasks that must be worked on during certain hours or days of the week, you can create a task calendar. To create a task calendar, you create a new base calendar to reflect the task’s schedule and then assign it to the appropriate tasks.

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