Calendar Options and Task Durations

[Lukas Bradley]

While our project members are working 8 hour days, I only want to assume I'm
going to get 6 actual work hours per day. However, I must be doing something
wrong in Project 2007.

Under Tools | Options, I change the Calendar options to have a default start
time of 10am, and default end time of 4pm. I change the hours per day to 6,
and hours per week to 30. I click the "Set as Default" button and click Ok.

I start a new project, and enter a new task with a duration of 16 hours.
Using a 6 hour workday, this should take 2.5 days. Unfortunately, Project
shows the task taking exactly 2 days, as the previous default of 8 hours per
day seems to be used. To confirm, I increase the time to 24 hours. This
should take 4 days, but does not; it takes 3 days.

How do I *really* set the default work day length to 6 hours?

Thanks for any and all help.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Lukas,

You also have to adapt Tools, Change Working time.
Read all about it in http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm Faq5: Default
Working Hours.
Hope this helps,

 

[Lukas Bradley]

You also have to adapt Tools, Change Working time.

Read all about it in http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm Faq5: Default
Working Hours.

Doing this apparently set the working hours for the current project, but not
for other projects. If I follow the directions in the FAQ, then create a
different project, that project still defaults to an 8 hour workday, even
though both "defaults" are now at 6 hours. It appears as if what Project
considers to be the "Default Calendar" either can't be changed, or isn't the
actual "Default Calendar."

Every time I attempt to use Microsoft Project, a new type of frustration
appears.

Thank you for your help, Jan.

 

[Lukas Bradley]

Doing this apparently set the working hours for the current project, but not

for other projects. If I follow the directions in the FAQ, then create a
different project, that project still defaults to an 8 hour workday, even
though both "defaults" are now at 6 hours. It appears as if what Project
considers to be the "Default Calendar" either can't be changed, or isn't the
actual "Default Calendar."

What's more, selecting the "Use Project default times for these days"
apparently is completely non-related to the Tools | Options, Calendar options
for "Default Projects," when no project is open. I'd love to know where the
option to edit the real "default times" exists.

Microsoft Project product managers please take note. In the end, I might be
doing something wrong. However, after 10 years of Microsoft Project
development, this should be much, much easier than this.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hello Lukas,

Well, we're almost there.
Once you have made a new "Standard" calendar in a project, go to Tools,
Organizer, Calendars tab, select Standard in the project and copy it into
Global.mpt.
From there on, your 6 hrs working day will be the standard calendar for all
NEW projects.
For existing projects you will have to do the reverse copying from Global
into the project.

But yes, trying to discover Project's functioning without any formal
education (classs or at least a book) is a guarantee for a wealth of
frustrations )

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf