an activity that can only occur on a specific day each month

[VTN]

Hi,

I have an approval task that goes to a board committee. This board
committee only meets on a certain day each month. How can I schedule this
activity so that the task gets approved on the next specific day in the month
after its predecessor activity is complete? So for example, if the committee
meets ever 1st of the month, if the predecessor finished on April 15th, the
approval would take place on May 1st.

Thanks!!

 

[Jim Aksel]

great question! There are a couple of solutions, here is probably the easiest
one.
Create a new calendar, let's call it "Board Meetings." Assign this calendar
to the Board Meetings tasks.

Here are the steps (Assumes Project 2003, P2007 is just a little different
but you will get the idea)

New Calendar:
1. Tools/Change Working Time.
2. Select New
3. Name your calendar (Board Meetings)
4. Adjust the the calendar to only have one work day per month (say the 1st
or the first Monday of the month if the first of the month falls on a
weekend).
5. Save.

Assign the Calenadar to a Task
1. Select the task(s) for the board meetings.
2. On the standard toolbar you can select the task information icon (looks
like a white file folder)
3. Pull the advanced tab
4. On the calendar drop down, select your new calendar.

HTH


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If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim Aksel, MVP

Check out my blog for more information:
http://www.msprojectblog.com

 

[VTN]

Jim,

Thanks for responding. I think it sounds like a great solution, and I'm
trying it out.

I'm stuck on Creating a New Calendar, in Step #4. Everything I've tried
gives me an error message. First, I tried to make the default non-working
days and then have the Board meeting day be an exception working day; I got
the error that at least one calendar day must be working. Second, I tried to
make 30 exceptions, one for each day of the month, to be non-working, leaving
only the Board meeting day as working; I got conflicting exception errors.

Can you suggest another way to do this? I'm using Project 2007.

 

[Jim Aksel]

I just gave it a quick try... Just create your execptions one month at a time.
What I did (in 2007) was select every day except the 1st work day of the
month and then made my excption: May2009. Then I did June2009, etc.

You could also do this, starting with some day in the recent past (like
January 1st 2007) you could select all the dates out through the close of
your project (perhaps 12/31/2026. Make them all non-working as one major
exception. However, you can only do this for 999 work days at a time (that's
a software limitation).

Then go back and pick the first day of the month such as 1/1/2007. This
time, make that a work day with the details set to the first day of every
month and set to recurr until 12/31/2026 (again, you only get 999 so the
dates are only an illustration).

Finally, go make a third pass to pick up the months where the first of the
month falls on a Saturday or Sunday.

--
If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim Aksel, MVP

Check out my blog for more information:
http://www.msprojectblog.com