Changing Working Time

[Tom C.]

I'd like to set Project to schedule only 7 hours per day instead of the
default 8. I've gone into Options, Calendar and changed the workday to 9-5
from 8-5. I've indicated that the workday is only 7 days long and there are
35 hours per week.

In "Change Working Time" I tried to change the times it schedules from 8-12,
1-5 to 9-12, 1-5. However, then it marks that day as a non-default working
day. I don't really want to do this for every day in the calendar.

How do I go about changing the "default" to be 7 hours per day, so that when
I use "Change Working Time" the default is set to be only 7 hours per day,
9-12 and 1-5? I don't see any way to have those hours to be considered the
default.

I don't want to create a new calendar. I want to change the "Standard"
calendar to be only 35 hours per week. Can I do this and how?

I'm trying to make these changes in the Enterprise Global Template so all
new projects will use this new calendar.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Tom C --

Do the following:

1. Launch Microsoft Project Professional and log into Project Server with
administrator permissions
2. Click Tools - Enterprise Options - Open Enterprise Global
3. Click Tools - Change Working Time
4. Make sure the Standard calendar is selected
5. Select the M through F column headers at the top of the calendar grid
6. Set your working schedule to 9-12 and 1-5
7. Click OK
8. Save and close the Enterprise Global
9. Exit and then relaunch Microsoft Project Professional

After performing the above steps, you will also need to instruct each of
your project managers to perform the following steps in EACH of the projects
they manage:

1. Open a project
2. Click Tools - Options
3. Select the Calendar tab
4. Set the Default Start Time value to 9:00 AM
5. Set the Hours per day value to 7
6. Click the Set as Default button
7. Save and republish the project, then close the project
8. Repeat steps #1-7 for every project

Your PM's MUST perform the preceding set of steps to "synch up" your
Standard calendar with their Calendar settings in each project. If your
PM's fail to perform the preceding set of steps, they will potentially see a
weird schedule and weird Durations in their projects, so make those steps a
requirement for everyone. In addition, you should also perform the
preceding set of steps in each enterprise project template you have created.
You do not need to perform the preceding set of steps in the Enterprise
Global, however, as doing so would have no effect. Hope this helps.

 

[Network Auto Discovery - Fluke Networks]

Dale,

Thanks for this post.

One question:

In our shop, the default calendar is the 'standard' calendar.

It seems that the LOCAL, desktop, install of Project Professional 2003 must
also be configured with the desired 'Calendar Options' that are set in
Project Server 2003.

Even when the Project Server's "Allow projects to use local base calendars"
option is not selected.

I would expect that the local calander, defined in the local Global.MPT
file, would not be used.

However, this is not the case. If the local calendar has an 8 hour day and
Project Server has a 7 hour day, the eight hour day will be applied to a task
even when an Enterprise resource is applied.

Is it possible that I have somehow configured the Project Server to use the
LOCAL standard calander. And all Enterprise resources are also associated
with the LOcal standard calendar?

I ask this because The other customized Project Server calendars display a
suffix of '(Project Calendar )' in the list-of-values box, the standard
calander does not have this suffix.

Thanks,

Walt

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Walt --

Your deduction about the enterprise Standard calendar and the local Standard
calendar is incorrect. To determine the cause of your problem, first do the
following:

1. Log into PWA with administrator permisions
2. Click Admin - Server Configuration
3. Make sure the "Allow projects to use local base calendars" permission is
NOT selected
4. Click the Save Changes button

Second, you confirm that you completed the following steps to set up your
enterprise Standard calendar:

1. Launch Microsoft Project Professional and log into Project Server with
administrator permissions
2. Click Tools - Enterprise Options - Open Enterprise Global
3. Click Tools - Change Working Time
4. Make sure the Standard calendar is selected
5. Select the M through F column headers at the top of the calendar grid
6. Set your working schedule to 9-12 and 1-5
7. Click OK
8. Save and close the Enterprise Global
9. Exit and then relaunch Microsoft Project Professional

Third, make sure the enterprise Standard calendar is set as the Base
Calendar for every resource in the Enterprise Resource Pool by completing
these steps:

1. Launch Microsoft Project Professional and log into Project Server with
administrator permissions
2. Click Tools - Enterprise Options - Open Enterprise Resource Pool
3. Click the Select/Deselect All button
4. Click the Open/Add button
5. Examine the Base Calendar column value for every resource
6. Save and close the Enterprise Resource Pool

If you have completed all of these steps, then the system will enforce the
enterprise Standard calendar as the Project calendar for every project and
the Base Calendar for every resource in the Enterprise Resource Pool.
Beyond this, you must also require every project manager to complete the
following steps, as well:

1. Open a project
2. Click Tools - Options
3. Select the Calendar tab
4. Set the Default Start Time value to the Start Time specified in the
enterprise Standard calendar
5. Set the Hours per day value to the number of hours per day specified in
the enterprise Standard calendar
6. Click the Set as Default button
7. Save and republish the project, then close the project
8. Repeat steps #1-7 for every project

Hope this helps.




"Network Auto Discovery - Fluke Networks"

 

[Network Auto Discovery - Fluke Networks]

Thanks again Dale.

This seems like a bug to me. A setting on the server should not be
overriden by a setting on the client.

Specifically, not selecting "Allow projects to use local base calendars"
should force the user to use the calendar defined in Project Server's Global.

Best regards,

Walt

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Walt --

What seems like a bug? Are you saying that all enterprise projects are
ignoring the enterprise Standard calendar somehow?




"Network Auto Discovery - Fluke Networks"

 

[Jeff Cecil]

Hi Dale,

A quick question on this procedure. I followed this but all it does is set
every day to non-standard time(our workday is 7-4, plus 2 alternate shift
calandars). How do I get the Standard time in the Standard Calandar to
reflect 7-4?

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Jeff --

The procedure I detailed in the original post changes the working schedule
for only the Standard calendar. To change the working time on any calendar,
you must select the calendar from the pick list at the top of the dialog,
select the M-F column headers, select the Nondefault Working Time option,
and then set the daily working schedule. The working schedule shown for the
"Use default" option is always 8:00 AM - Noon and 1:00 - 5:00 PM from
Monday-Friday, and there is no way to change this default working schedule.
If you want something different, you must use the Nondefault Working Time
option and specify your schedule. Hope this helps.

 

[Jeff Cecil]

Thanks Dale,

I guess I understood it afterall. It just seemed unbelievable that I can't
have the company default work times be the calandar default working times. I
figured I was missing something.

As usual, I appreciate your response and your attention to this board.

Take care,

Jeff

 

[Network Auto Discovery - Fluke Networks]

Dale,

I am saying that a user can ignore the Enterprise standard calendar's
settings; even when "Allow projects to use local base calendars" is not
selected.

My Enterprise Standard Calendar has a 7 hour day; 35 hour week.

Try the following:

1. Log in to Project Professional 2003 locally "Work Offline"
2. Select "Tools change Working Time"
3. Slect the 'Standard (Project Calendar)' in the For drop-down list
4. Click the 'Options' button
5. Change the Hours per day to 10 ; hours per week 50
6. Press the 'OK' button twice to exit the 'Calendar Settings' dialog box.

7. Exit Project Professional 2003
8. Relaunch Project Professional 2003; this time connect to the server
9. Create a new project; add 1 task; assign a Work estimate of 10
10. Project will compute a Duration of 1 day (because the local calendar
has a 10 hour per day setting)

Go one step further:

11. Assign an Project server Resource to the task. The Project Server
Rseource is associated with the Project Standard calendar, which has a 7 hour
day) ; however, the Duration does not change - still 1 day.

go one more step:

12. Save the Project to the Enterprise Project server. The duration does
not change. I have, in effect, ignored the enterprise Standard Calendar.

Even when the Project schedule is Calculate the duration is 1 day

When I go to tools, change working time and click on the Options tab I see
that the 10 hour day and 50 hour week settings are still in effect.


Correct?

Thanks,

Walt

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Walt --

You are making a mistake about calendars, my friend! When I read your post,
I saw the mistake in your are making.

Your issue has nothing to do whatsoever with local calendars. It concerns
the Hours Per Day value set in step #5 of your process. In fact, I think
you may have missed a step that the user performed between #5 and #6, in
which the user clicked the Set as Default button on the Calendar page of the
Options dialog. Doing so would force every future new project to use 10
hours of Work per day to calculate the Duration. Thus, if the user creates
a new project while connected to Project Server, the software will calculate
the Duration of every task using the 10 Hours Per Day value, but the
software will also determine the schedule of each task using the enterprise
Standard calendar. Thus, your user has created a situation where the Hours
Per Day value conflicts with the available daily work hours shown on the
Standard calendar. This is not a good thing!

In this user's situation, I would recommend that you insist that he return
the default Hours Per Day value back to 8 hours. I believe this will solve
your problem.

Let us know if this helps.




"Network Auto Discovery - Fluke Networks"

 

[Network Auto Discovery - Fluke Networks]

Dale,

Thanks for the help...sorry about the delay.. I got pulled in another
direction fpor a while.

Best regards,

Walt

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Walt --

You are more than welcome, my friend! I presume my solution actually solved
your problem. Let me know if it did not.




"Network Auto Discovery - Fluke Networks"

 

[dclarcq]

Hello Dale, we are running 2003 Professional and Server and are relatively
new. A few of our PM's are asking why certain durations do not seem to be
calculating as we would expect. On the project we entered whole durations and
whole days in predecessors and so. Now some projects show odd decimals like
8.44 days for work and predecessors. Another example is a task starts on 3/31
ends on 4/4 but has a duration of 2.77 days. What could cause this? In
resource enterprise, we are using standard calendar as the base with default
as 8AM-12PM, 1PM-6PM, M-F. In Enterprise Global, I have the working time and
the calendar options mirroring that information. 45 hrs weeks, start at 8,
end at 6. When checking the working time of a random project, I see the times
I had mentioned before. The tasks have "none" calender. Is this enough
information to make an assumption, please let me know. Any help is greatly
appreciated. Thank you for your time.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

dclarcq --

Your mistake is in attempting to set the Hours Per Day, Hours Per Week,
Default Start Time, and Default End Time values in the Enterprise Global
file. Setting those values in the Enterprise Global has absolutely NO
effect on each user's project. In fact, the Enterprise Global does only two
things in the Project Server environment:

1. It is your organization's corporate "library" of custom Fields, Views,
Table, Filters, Groups, Reports, etc.
2. It can be used to set the default currency for every enterprise project

What you will need to do is to ask your PM's to set the four Options values
on the Calendars tab in EVERY ONE of their enterprise projects. You should
also set the same values in any enterprise project templates you have
already created in the Project Server database. The strange Duration values
your PM's are seeing are due to the fact that the enterprise Standard
calendar is "out of synch" with their Options settings for those four values
on the Calendar tab. Hope this helps.

 

[dclarcq]

Thank you, Dale. I am beginning to understand. Is it possible, as the admin
with access to all projects to do this for them? Would their be a difference
in the outcome. We have over 200 project files for 7 People. The other
question is, we have tried a few of them already and some of the tasks that
have actuals already are not changing back to even hours or days, is this to
be expected?
Your help is very much appreciated.
Thanks!
DClarcq

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

dclarcq --

This need to be done in every project. Teach your PM's how to do this and
then hold them accountable for this behavior. In addition, you should also
set these values in every enterprise project template, so that any new
projects created from those templates will have the right Options values
specified. I'm not sure what is happening with existing projects, however.
It's difficult to diagnose the problem from a distance. Hope this helps.

 

[dclarcq]

Dale, your posts are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

dclarcq

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

dclarcq --

Thank you for your kind comment!