Multiple Work Calendars and Duration

[Jens]

I am running multiple calenders for my resources, human resources run on a
normal calendar and non-human resources run 24 hr calendars. On fixed work
tasks, I would task a 24 hr calendar resouce with e.g. 9 days work, the
estimated duration is listed as 9 days?, but the finish date is only 3 days
after the start as it uses the standard calender for it's calculations. I am
trying to avoid artificially increasing the work entered (as it affects the
costing) but would like to see the finish date calculated correctly, i.e.
plus 9 days.

Any ideas?

 

[Gerard Ducouret]

Hello Jens,
If the resource(s) on the task are running with a 24 hr calendar and if the
general setting of Project is Tools / Options / Calendar : Hours per day :
8,00 then the "9 days" task will end after 3 days (24 x 3 = 72h). Don't
confuse Duration and Work.

Gérard Ducouret [Project MVP]

 

[Jens]

Hi Gerard

I think I am OK on the relationship between work and duration. What I was
hoping to do was for duration to be the physical number of caendar days the
task takes. The problem I have is that a 21 day duration task only takes 7
calendar days if I assign a 24 hr resource to a project with an 8hr calendar.

This makes it very messy when trying to assign work in days, and using both
8hr and 24hr resources.

I guess what I need is multiple project calendars that would be used to
caluclate the hourly work effort depending on resource type when entering the
work effort in days.

Am I asking too much of Project, and am I doomed to have to imput work
effort in hrs?

Thanks

Jens

Hello Jens,
If the resource(s) on the task are running with a 24 hr calendar and if the
general setting of Project is Tools / Options / Calendar : Hours per day :
8,00 then the "9 days" task will end after 3 days (24 x 3 = 72h). Don't
confuse Duration and Work.

Gérard Ducouret [Project MVP]

I am running multiple calenders for my resources, human resources run on a
normal calendar and non-human resources run 24 hr calendars. On fixed work
tasks, I would task a 24 hr calendar resouce with e.g. 9 days work, the
estimated duration is listed as 9 days?, but the finish date is only 3 days
after the start as it uses the standard calender for it's calculations. I am
trying to avoid artificially increasing the work entered (as it affects the
costing) but would like to see the finish date calculated correctly, i.e.
plus 9 days.

Any ideas?

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

The base unit of duration is the minute. "Days" are allowed in user input
and display for convenience but are converted to and from hours, thus
minutes, according to the conversion factor on the Tools Options Calendar
page. If it helps, start thinking of "day" as meaning "workday," a single
normal 8-hour work shift, rather than a calendar day and when estimating
durations think in terms of the number of shifts the tasks will require.
Thus a one calendar day task lasting 24 hours start-to-finish, starting
Monday at 8am and finishing Tuesday at 8am, takes 3 8-hour shifts or 3
consecutive workdays to complete. If entering and keeping track of the
tasks is becoming too complicated, start estimating work efforts in hours to
begin with.

You say you are hoping for duration to be equal to the physical number of
calendar days. Sorry, you just can't have that. Project time is measured
in either elapsed time or duration time. Elapsed time is the sort of time
watches and conventional calendars measure. The month of November has 30
days, 720 hours. But duration is specifically defined as the number of
working time units between two points (see PMBOK definitions) and any
non-working time is explicitly excluded from the measure. In the US and
assuming a normal 8 hour workday, the month of November has 20, 21, or 22
work days (22 weekdays minus 1 or 2 day Thanksgiving holiday) giving it a
duration of 160, 168 hours, or 174 hours depending on where you are.

I'd suggest examining your 24 hour calendar resources to see if that's
really accurate. The 24 hour calendar means that once the resource starts
work, that specific individual worker doesn't take a break until the work is
done, regardless of whether the task takes hours, days, weeks, or even
months to complete. People just don't do that.

I'll bet what you're thinking here is that you have, say, a group of 10
welders, some on days, some of swing, some on graveyard with a base calendar
of the 24 hour calendar assigned to the group. You have a welding task that
will take one person 24 hours to do so you're putting 1 day shift, 1 swing
shift, and 1 graveyard guy on it, each one relieving the guy before him and
working until the task is done. There are all kinds of problems with that -
calendar problems are one but also resource allocation and tracking max
allocations as well. I'd suggest a possible better way is to have 3
separate resource listings - Day Shift Welders, max 400%, base calendar
8am-5pm; Swing Shift Welders, max 300%, base calendar 3pm-12mid; Night Shift
Welders, max 300%, base calendar 11pm-8am. You have a task that will take
24 man-hours work and you need to get it done in one continuous stretch of
work going on steadily from start to finish so it gets done ASAP. Enter the
task with 3 days duration. Use the split screen to assign the resources.
Enter all three resources -- Day, Swing, & Grave -- with an assignment of
100% meaning one guy from each of the 3 shifts and give them 8 hours work
each. Duration will still be 3 days, ie, 3 shifts, but the task will go
24/7 until done and take 1 calendar day in the schedule.

Hope this helps


--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer/Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Hi Gerard

I think I am OK on the relationship between work and duration. What I was
hoping to do was for duration to be the physical number of caendar days
the
task takes. The problem I have is that a 21 day duration task only takes 7
calendar days if I assign a 24 hr resource to a project with an 8hr
calendar.

This makes it very messy when trying to assign work in days, and using
both
8hr and 24hr resources.

I guess what I need is multiple project calendars that would be used to
caluclate the hourly work effort depending on resource type when entering
the
work effort in days.

Am I asking too much of Project, and am I doomed to have to imput work
effort in hrs?

Thanks

Jens

Hello Jens,
If the resource(s) on the task are running with a 24 hr calendar and if
the
general setting of Project is Tools / Options / Calendar : Hours per day
:
8,00 then the "9 days" task will end after 3 days (24 x 3 = 72h). Don't
confuse Duration and Work.

Gérard Ducouret [Project MVP]

I am running multiple calenders for my resources, human resources run
on a
normal calendar and non-human resources run 24 hr calendars. On fixed
work
tasks, I would task a 24 hr calendar resouce with e.g. 9 days work, the
estimated duration is listed as 9 days?, but the finish date is only 3 days
after the start as it uses the standard calender for it's calculations.
I am
trying to avoid artificially increasing the work entered (as it affects the
costing) but would like to see the finish date calculated correctly,
i.e.
plus 9 days.

Any ideas?

 

[Jens]

Hi Steve

Thank you very much for your detailed response. It certainly helps in
getting my head around some of the definitions. One clarification and one
question remain.

My 24 hr resource is computer time. We have multiple servers that I need to
assign as resources to a project. My manpower I have on an 8 hr calendar

Question. It is possible to specify three types of calendars (perhaps it's
only two),

The first is the project calendar, which is used to convert days work to
minutes. The second is the resource calendar, which specifies work hours per
day for a resource. It is also possible to specify a project calendar
specific to a task (in the task details dialogue boxes), but I have no idea
how the latter influences anything. It does not seem to make any difference
in the final outcome. Perhaps you could provide some insights.

Many thanks

Jens

The base unit of duration is the minute. "Days" are allowed in user input
and display for convenience but are converted to and from hours, thus
minutes, according to the conversion factor on the Tools Options Calendar
page. If it helps, start thinking of "day" as meaning "workday," a single
normal 8-hour work shift, rather than a calendar day and when estimating
durations think in terms of the number of shifts the tasks will require.
Thus a one calendar day task lasting 24 hours start-to-finish, starting
Monday at 8am and finishing Tuesday at 8am, takes 3 8-hour shifts or 3
consecutive workdays to complete. If entering and keeping track of the
tasks is becoming too complicated, start estimating work efforts in hours to
begin with.

You say you are hoping for duration to be equal to the physical number of
calendar days. Sorry, you just can't have that. Project time is measured
in either elapsed time or duration time. Elapsed time is the sort of time
watches and conventional calendars measure. The month of November has 30
days, 720 hours. But duration is specifically defined as the number of
working time units between two points (see PMBOK definitions) and any
non-working time is explicitly excluded from the measure. In the US and
assuming a normal 8 hour workday, the month of November has 20, 21, or 22
work days (22 weekdays minus 1 or 2 day Thanksgiving holiday) giving it a
duration of 160, 168 hours, or 174 hours depending on where you are.

I'd suggest examining your 24 hour calendar resources to see if that's
really accurate. The 24 hour calendar means that once the resource starts
work, that specific individual worker doesn't take a break until the work is
done, regardless of whether the task takes hours, days, weeks, or even
months to complete. People just don't do that.

I'll bet what you're thinking here is that you have, say, a group of 10
welders, some on days, some of swing, some on graveyard with a base calendar
of the 24 hour calendar assigned to the group. You have a welding task that
will take one person 24 hours to do so you're putting 1 day shift, 1 swing
shift, and 1 graveyard guy on it, each one relieving the guy before him and
working until the task is done. There are all kinds of problems with that -
calendar problems are one but also resource allocation and tracking max
allocations as well. I'd suggest a possible better way is to have 3
separate resource listings - Day Shift Welders, max 400%, base calendar
8am-5pm; Swing Shift Welders, max 300%, base calendar 3pm-12mid; Night Shift
Welders, max 300%, base calendar 11pm-8am. You have a task that will take
24 man-hours work and you need to get it done in one continuous stretch of
work going on steadily from start to finish so it gets done ASAP. Enter the
task with 3 days duration. Use the split screen to assign the resources.
Enter all three resources -- Day, Swing, & Grave -- with an assignment of
100% meaning one guy from each of the 3 shifts and give them 8 hours work
each. Duration will still be 3 days, ie, 3 shifts, but the task will go
24/7 until done and take 1 calendar day in the schedule.

Hope this helps


--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer/Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Hi Gerard

I think I am OK on the relationship between work and duration. What I was
hoping to do was for duration to be the physical number of caendar days
the
task takes. The problem I have is that a 21 day duration task only takes 7
calendar days if I assign a 24 hr resource to a project with an 8hr
calendar.

This makes it very messy when trying to assign work in days, and using
both
8hr and 24hr resources.

I guess what I need is multiple project calendars that would be used to
caluclate the hourly work effort depending on resource type when entering
the
work effort in days.

Am I asking too much of Project, and am I doomed to have to imput work
effort in hrs?

Thanks

Jens

Hello Jens,
If the resource(s) on the task are running with a 24 hr calendar and if
the
general setting of Project is Tools / Options / Calendar : Hours per day
:
8,00 then the "9 days" task will end after 3 days (24 x 3 = 72h). Don't
confuse Duration and Work.

Gérard Ducouret [Project MVP]

"Jens" <[email protected]> a écrit dans le message de
I am running multiple calenders for my resources, human resources run
on a
normal calendar and non-human resources run 24 hr calendars. On fixed
work
tasks, I would task a 24 hr calendar resouce with e.g. 9 days work, the
estimated duration is listed as 9 days?, but the finish date is only 3
days
after the start as it uses the standard calender for it's calculations.
I
am
trying to avoid artificially increasing the work entered (as it affects
the
costing) but would like to see the finish date calculated correctly,
i.e.
plus 9 days.

Any ideas?

 

[Steve House [MS Project MVP]]

Back up a sec - the Project calendar DOES NOT control converting days into
hours or minutes. The options settings in Tool, Options, Calendar,
HoursPerDay does that. The Project calendar specifies WHICH hours out of
the 24 are working hours and so count towards duration. If I have the
options set for 8 hours per day but a calendar that says working hours are
0800 - 2000 (12 hours with no lunch taken), a task that runs for the full
workday on Monday, starting Mon 8am and finishing Mon 8pm, is a 1.5 day
task.

You can create as many different base calendars as you need. For example -
here in Canada Quebec has different legal holidays and hours of work from
Ontario. Many companies also work cross-border, with some resources in
Canada and others in the USA so there is a 3rd set of work hours and
holidays to take in account. So we have 3 base calendars right there. Now
some companies also work more than a simple day shift, having people on both
days and swing shifts. So now we have *6* base calendars. You may have
some workers who work 40 hours by working 5 days of 8 hours each. You might
have other departments that work 40 hours as 4 days of 10 hours each, so
there's a whole 'nother set. And it could go on and on. One of those
calendars, typically the most generic or perhaps the normal work time of
headquarters, would be selected as the project calendar.

The project calendar and the resource calendar perform exactly the same
function as defining the hours in which work can take place and thus control
which of the day's hours count towards duration. The project calendar
applies to tasks that do not have resources assigned and also to other
non-task time metrics such as lag time that use duration rather than elapsed
time. The resource calendar applies to the task once the resource is
assigned to it. The task calendar also does the same thing as the other two
but as an exception calendar when neither the project calendar or the
resource calendar of the resources assigned is appropriate.

Here's an example of the three in action. I have the project calendar as
0800-1200 and 1300-1700, the standard. Billy Bob works days but he works
0900-1200 and 1300-1800 so his resource calendar shows those hours. I have
a server rebuild to do but we can't take the system offline during the
business day to do it. To use as a task calendar we create a base calendar
that shows hours of work of 000-0200 and 1800-2400. We input our task
"Server Maintenance" with 1 day duration and have it start no earlier than
next Monday (only constraining it for simplicity of discussion), The task
will be scheduled for Mon 0800-1700. Now we assign Billy Bob to it. The
schedule moves to start Mon at 0900 and finish at 1800. Now we go to the
advanced tab and assign our custom calendar as its task calendar. Surprise!
The hours stay 0900-1800 because the resource calendar normally controls.
But now we click the checkbox "scheduling ignores resource calendars" next
to the task calendar entry and the task will move to go from 1800-0200.
Basically with that checkbox we control whether the task follows the
resource's work schedule or the resource will change his hours of work in
order to do that task.

Why do you need to assign the servers? Are they limited as to what they can
do at one time. something like a disk rebuild that requires exclusive use?
IMO, things like servers need to be scheduled if they're in limited supply
and so their availability will determine how much can go on at once. If
they are on a 24 hour calendar they're not limited by time but they still
might be limited by the number of tasks they can accommodate at once. If
they are, then list and assign them. If they can basically be loaded up as
much as needed at any given time, then don't even bother with listing them

Hi Steve

Thank you very much for your detailed response. It certainly helps in
getting my head around some of the definitions. One clarification and one
question remain.

My 24 hr resource is computer time. We have multiple servers that I need
to
assign as resources to a project. My manpower I have on an 8 hr calendar

Question. It is possible to specify three types of calendars (perhaps it's
only two),

The first is the project calendar, which is used to convert days work to
minutes. The second is the resource calendar, which specifies work hours
per
day for a resource. It is also possible to specify a project calendar
specific to a task (in the task details dialogue boxes), but I have no
idea
how the latter influences anything. It does not seem to make any
difference
in the final outcome. Perhaps you could provide some insights.

Many thanks

Jens

The base unit of duration is the minute. "Days" are allowed in user
input
and display for convenience but are converted to and from hours, thus
minutes, according to the conversion factor on the Tools Options Calendar
page. If it helps, start thinking of "day" as meaning "workday," a
single
normal 8-hour work shift, rather than a calendar day and when estimating
durations think in terms of the number of shifts the tasks will require.
Thus a one calendar day task lasting 24 hours start-to-finish, starting
Monday at 8am and finishing Tuesday at 8am, takes 3 8-hour shifts or 3
consecutive workdays to complete. If entering and keeping track of the
tasks is becoming too complicated, start estimating work efforts in hours
to
begin with.

You say you are hoping for duration to be equal to the physical number of
calendar days. Sorry, you just can't have that. Project time is
measured
in either elapsed time or duration time. Elapsed time is the sort of
time
watches and conventional calendars measure. The month of November has 30
days, 720 hours. But duration is specifically defined as the number of
working time units between two points (see PMBOK definitions) and any
non-working time is explicitly excluded from the measure. In the US and
assuming a normal 8 hour workday, the month of November has 20, 21, or 22
work days (22 weekdays minus 1 or 2 day Thanksgiving holiday) giving it a
duration of 160, 168 hours, or 174 hours depending on where you are.

I'd suggest examining your 24 hour calendar resources to see if that's
really accurate. The 24 hour calendar means that once the resource
starts
work, that specific individual worker doesn't take a break until the work
is
done, regardless of whether the task takes hours, days, weeks, or even
months to complete. People just don't do that.

I'll bet what you're thinking here is that you have, say, a group of 10
welders, some on days, some of swing, some on graveyard with a base
calendar
of the 24 hour calendar assigned to the group. You have a welding task
that
will take one person 24 hours to do so you're putting 1 day shift, 1
swing
shift, and 1 graveyard guy on it, each one relieving the guy before him
and
working until the task is done. There are all kinds of problems with
that -
calendar problems are one but also resource allocation and tracking max
allocations as well. I'd suggest a possible better way is to have 3
separate resource listings - Day Shift Welders, max 400%, base calendar
8am-5pm; Swing Shift Welders, max 300%, base calendar 3pm-12mid; Night
Shift
Welders, max 300%, base calendar 11pm-8am. You have a task that will
take
24 man-hours work and you need to get it done in one continuous stretch
of
work going on steadily from start to finish so it gets done ASAP. Enter
the
task with 3 days duration. Use the split screen to assign the resources.
Enter all three resources -- Day, Swing, & Grave -- with an assignment
of
100% meaning one guy from each of the 3 shifts and give them 8 hours work
each. Duration will still be 3 days, ie, 3 shifts, but the task will go
24/7 until done and take 1 calendar day in the schedule.

Hope this helps


--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer/Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Hi Gerard

I think I am OK on the relationship between work and duration. What I
was
hoping to do was for duration to be the physical number of caendar days
the
task takes. The problem I have is that a 21 day duration task only
takes 7
calendar days if I assign a 24 hr resource to a project with an 8hr
calendar.

This makes it very messy when trying to assign work in days, and using
both
8hr and 24hr resources.

I guess what I need is multiple project calendars that would be used to
caluclate the hourly work effort depending on resource type when
entering
the
work effort in days.

Am I asking too much of Project, and am I doomed to have to imput work
effort in hrs?

Thanks

Jens

:

Hello Jens,
If the resource(s) on the task are running with a 24 hr calendar and
if
the
general setting of Project is Tools / Options / Calendar : Hours per
day
:
8,00 then the "9 days" task will end after 3 days (24 x 3 = 72h).
Don't
confuse Duration and Work.

Gérard Ducouret [Project MVP]

"Jens" <[email protected]> a écrit dans le message de
I am running multiple calenders for my resources, human resources
run
on a
normal calendar and non-human resources run 24 hr calendars. On
fixed
work
tasks, I would task a 24 hr calendar resouce with e.g. 9 days work,
the
estimated duration is listed as 9 days?, but the finish date is only
3
days
after the start as it uses the standard calender for it's
calculations.
I
am
trying to avoid artificially increasing the work entered (as it
affects
the
costing) but would like to see the finish date calculated correctly,
i.e.
plus 9 days.

Any ideas?

 

[Jens]

Hi Steve

Once again, many thanks for the time taken. Our use of servers is a little
different from normal. We have some very compute intensive applications that
we run, and as a result, hardware is often a physical limitation. Hence the
scheduling.

If I understand you correctly, there is only one allowed value for the hours
per day used by project. For "fixed work" tasks, I need to schedule work in
hours, and cannot use days, if I am using resources with different calendars .

New question, is it possible to define "resource pools" but with the
inclusion of "work speed" for a specific resource. e.g. Server A might run
twice as fast as Server B. So task X will take twice as long to run on Server
B than on Server A? I suspect I am pushing Project a little too hard.

Many thanks

Regards

Back up a sec - the Project calendar DOES NOT control converting days into
hours or minutes. The options settings in Tool, Options, Calendar,
HoursPerDay does that. The Project calendar specifies WHICH hours out of
the 24 are working hours and so count towards duration. If I have the
options set for 8 hours per day but a calendar that says working hours are
0800 - 2000 (12 hours with no lunch taken), a task that runs for the full
workday on Monday, starting Mon 8am and finishing Mon 8pm, is a 1.5 day
task.

You can create as many different base calendars as you need. For example -
here in Canada Quebec has different legal holidays and hours of work from
Ontario. Many companies also work cross-border, with some resources in
Canada and others in the USA so there is a 3rd set of work hours and
holidays to take in account. So we have 3 base calendars right there. Now
some companies also work more than a simple day shift, having people on both
days and swing shifts. So now we have *6* base calendars. You may have
some workers who work 40 hours by working 5 days of 8 hours each. You might
have other departments that work 40 hours as 4 days of 10 hours each, so
there's a whole 'nother set. And it could go on and on. One of those
calendars, typically the most generic or perhaps the normal work time of
headquarters, would be selected as the project calendar.

The project calendar and the resource calendar perform exactly the same
function as defining the hours in which work can take place and thus control
which of the day's hours count towards duration. The project calendar
applies to tasks that do not have resources assigned and also to other
non-task time metrics such as lag time that use duration rather than elapsed
time. The resource calendar applies to the task once the resource is
assigned to it. The task calendar also does the same thing as the other two
but as an exception calendar when neither the project calendar or the
resource calendar of the resources assigned is appropriate.

Here's an example of the three in action. I have the project calendar as
0800-1200 and 1300-1700, the standard. Billy Bob works days but he works
0900-1200 and 1300-1800 so his resource calendar shows those hours. I have
a server rebuild to do but we can't take the system offline during the
business day to do it. To use as a task calendar we create a base calendar
that shows hours of work of 000-0200 and 1800-2400. We input our task
"Server Maintenance" with 1 day duration and have it start no earlier than
next Monday (only constraining it for simplicity of discussion), The task
will be scheduled for Mon 0800-1700. Now we assign Billy Bob to it. The
schedule moves to start Mon at 0900 and finish at 1800. Now we go to the
advanced tab and assign our custom calendar as its task calendar. Surprise!
The hours stay 0900-1800 because the resource calendar normally controls.
But now we click the checkbox "scheduling ignores resource calendars" next
to the task calendar entry and the task will move to go from 1800-0200.
Basically with that checkbox we control whether the task follows the
resource's work schedule or the resource will change his hours of work in
order to do that task.

Why do you need to assign the servers? Are they limited as to what they can
do at one time. something like a disk rebuild that requires exclusive use?
IMO, things like servers need to be scheduled if they're in limited supply
and so their availability will determine how much can go on at once. If
they are on a 24 hour calendar they're not limited by time but they still
might be limited by the number of tasks they can accommodate at once. If
they are, then list and assign them. If they can basically be loaded up as
much as needed at any given time, then don't even bother with listing them

Hi Steve

Thank you very much for your detailed response. It certainly helps in
getting my head around some of the definitions. One clarification and one
question remain.

My 24 hr resource is computer time. We have multiple servers that I need
to
assign as resources to a project. My manpower I have on an 8 hr calendar

Question. It is possible to specify three types of calendars (perhaps it's
only two),

The first is the project calendar, which is used to convert days work to
minutes. The second is the resource calendar, which specifies work hours
per
day for a resource. It is also possible to specify a project calendar
specific to a task (in the task details dialogue boxes), but I have no
idea
how the latter influences anything. It does not seem to make any
difference
in the final outcome. Perhaps you could provide some insights.

Many thanks

Jens

The base unit of duration is the minute. "Days" are allowed in user
input
and display for convenience but are converted to and from hours, thus
minutes, according to the conversion factor on the Tools Options Calendar
page. If it helps, start thinking of "day" as meaning "workday," a
single
normal 8-hour work shift, rather than a calendar day and when estimating
durations think in terms of the number of shifts the tasks will require.
Thus a one calendar day task lasting 24 hours start-to-finish, starting
Monday at 8am and finishing Tuesday at 8am, takes 3 8-hour shifts or 3
consecutive workdays to complete. If entering and keeping track of the
tasks is becoming too complicated, start estimating work efforts in hours
to
begin with.

You say you are hoping for duration to be equal to the physical number of
calendar days. Sorry, you just can't have that. Project time is
measured
in either elapsed time or duration time. Elapsed time is the sort of
time
watches and conventional calendars measure. The month of November has 30
days, 720 hours. But duration is specifically defined as the number of
working time units between two points (see PMBOK definitions) and any
non-working time is explicitly excluded from the measure. In the US and
assuming a normal 8 hour workday, the month of November has 20, 21, or 22
work days (22 weekdays minus 1 or 2 day Thanksgiving holiday) giving it a
duration of 160, 168 hours, or 174 hours depending on where you are.

I'd suggest examining your 24 hour calendar resources to see if that's
really accurate. The 24 hour calendar means that once the resource
starts
work, that specific individual worker doesn't take a break until the work
is
done, regardless of whether the task takes hours, days, weeks, or even
months to complete. People just don't do that.

I'll bet what you're thinking here is that you have, say, a group of 10
welders, some on days, some of swing, some on graveyard with a base
calendar
of the 24 hour calendar assigned to the group. You have a welding task
that
will take one person 24 hours to do so you're putting 1 day shift, 1
swing
shift, and 1 graveyard guy on it, each one relieving the guy before him
and
working until the task is done. There are all kinds of problems with
that -
calendar problems are one but also resource allocation and tracking max
allocations as well. I'd suggest a possible better way is to have 3
separate resource listings - Day Shift Welders, max 400%, base calendar
8am-5pm; Swing Shift Welders, max 300%, base calendar 3pm-12mid; Night
Shift
Welders, max 300%, base calendar 11pm-8am. You have a task that will
take
24 man-hours work and you need to get it done in one continuous stretch
of
work going on steadily from start to finish so it gets done ASAP. Enter
the
task with 3 days duration. Use the split screen to assign the resources.
Enter all three resources -- Day, Swing, & Grave -- with an assignment
of
100% meaning one guy from each of the 3 shifts and give them 8 hours work
each. Duration will still be 3 days, ie, 3 shifts, but the task will go
24/7 until done and take 1 calendar day in the schedule.

Hope this helps


--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer/Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs



Hi Gerard

I think I am OK on the relationship between work and duration. What I
was
hoping to do was for duration to be the physical number of caendar days
the
task takes. The problem I have is that a 21 day duration task only
takes 7
calendar days if I assign a 24 hr resource to a project with an 8hr
calendar.

This makes it very messy when trying to assign work in days, and using
both
8hr and 24hr resources.

I guess what I need is multiple project calendars that would be used to
caluclate the hourly work effort depending on resource type when
entering
the
work effort in days.

Am I asking too much of Project, and am I doomed to have to imput work
effort in hrs?

Thanks

Jens

:

Hello Jens,
If the resource(s) on the task are running with a 24 hr calendar and
if
the
general setting of Project is Tools / Options / Calendar : Hours per
day
:
8,00 then the "9 days" task will end after 3 days (24 x 3 = 72h).
Don't
confuse Duration and Work.

Gérard Ducouret [Project MVP]

"Jens" <[email protected]> a écrit dans le message de
I am running multiple calenders for my resources, human resources
run
on a
normal calendar and non-human resources run 24 hr calendars. On
fixed
work
tasks, I would task a 24 hr calendar resouce with e.g. 9 days work,
the
estimated duration is listed as 9 days?, but the finish date is only
3
days
after the start as it uses the standard calender for it's
calculations.
I
am
trying to avoid artificially increasing the work entered (as it
affects
the
costing) but would like to see the finish date calculated correctly,
i.e.
plus 9 days.

Any ideas?

 

[Steve House [MS Project MVP]]

You don't "need" to schedule in hours rather than days but doing so may help
the mental process, help you keep all your ducks in line.

There's not any "efficiency factor" rating built-in. You decide what
resources to apply to which tasks and the efficiency is something you need
to keep track of in your own mind when you estimate the durations and then
make the corresponding assignments. Remember, Project doesn't add anything
to your own expertise, it just helps do the math.

--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer/Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Hi Steve

Once again, many thanks for the time taken. Our use of servers is a little
different from normal. We have some very compute intensive applications
that
we run, and as a result, hardware is often a physical limitation. Hence
the
scheduling.

If I understand you correctly, there is only one allowed value for the
hours
per day used by project. For "fixed work" tasks, I need to schedule work
in
hours, and cannot use days, if I am using resources with different
calendars .

New question, is it possible to define "resource pools" but with the
inclusion of "work speed" for a specific resource. e.g. Server A might run
twice as fast as Server B. So task X will take twice as long to run on
Server
B than on Server A? I suspect I am pushing Project a little too hard.

Many thanks

Regards

Back up a sec - the Project calendar DOES NOT control converting days
into
hours or minutes. The options settings in Tool, Options, Calendar,
HoursPerDay does that. The Project calendar specifies WHICH hours out of
the 24 are working hours and so count towards duration. If I have the
options set for 8 hours per day but a calendar that says working hours
are
0800 - 2000 (12 hours with no lunch taken), a task that runs for the full
workday on Monday, starting Mon 8am and finishing Mon 8pm, is a 1.5 day
task.

You can create as many different base calendars as you need. For
example -
here in Canada Quebec has different legal holidays and hours of work from
Ontario. Many companies also work cross-border, with some resources in
Canada and others in the USA so there is a 3rd set of work hours and
holidays to take in account. So we have 3 base calendars right there.
Now
some companies also work more than a simple day shift, having people on
both
days and swing shifts. So now we have *6* base calendars. You may have
some workers who work 40 hours by working 5 days of 8 hours each. You
might
have other departments that work 40 hours as 4 days of 10 hours each, so
there's a whole 'nother set. And it could go on and on. One of those
calendars, typically the most generic or perhaps the normal work time of
headquarters, would be selected as the project calendar.

The project calendar and the resource calendar perform exactly the same
function as defining the hours in which work can take place and thus
control
which of the day's hours count towards duration. The project calendar
applies to tasks that do not have resources assigned and also to other
non-task time metrics such as lag time that use duration rather than
elapsed
time. The resource calendar applies to the task once the resource is
assigned to it. The task calendar also does the same thing as the other
two
but as an exception calendar when neither the project calendar or the
resource calendar of the resources assigned is appropriate.

Here's an example of the three in action. I have the project calendar as
0800-1200 and 1300-1700, the standard. Billy Bob works days but he works
0900-1200 and 1300-1800 so his resource calendar shows those hours. I
have
a server rebuild to do but we can't take the system offline during the
business day to do it. To use as a task calendar we create a base
calendar
that shows hours of work of 000-0200 and 1800-2400. We input our task
"Server Maintenance" with 1 day duration and have it start no earlier
than
next Monday (only constraining it for simplicity of discussion), The
task
will be scheduled for Mon 0800-1700. Now we assign Billy Bob to it. The
schedule moves to start Mon at 0900 and finish at 1800. Now we go to the
advanced tab and assign our custom calendar as its task calendar.
Surprise!
The hours stay 0900-1800 because the resource calendar normally controls.
But now we click the checkbox "scheduling ignores resource calendars"
next
to the task calendar entry and the task will move to go from 1800-0200.
Basically with that checkbox we control whether the task follows the
resource's work schedule or the resource will change his hours of work in
order to do that task.

Why do you need to assign the servers? Are they limited as to what they
can
do at one time. something like a disk rebuild that requires exclusive
use?
IMO, things like servers need to be scheduled if they're in limited
supply
and so their availability will determine how much can go on at once. If
they are on a 24 hour calendar they're not limited by time but they still
might be limited by the number of tasks they can accommodate at once. If
they are, then list and assign them. If they can basically be loaded up
as
much as needed at any given time, then don't even bother with listing
them

Hi Steve

Thank you very much for your detailed response. It certainly helps in
getting my head around some of the definitions. One clarification and
one
question remain.

My 24 hr resource is computer time. We have multiple servers that I
need
to
assign as resources to a project. My manpower I have on an 8 hr
calendar

Question. It is possible to specify three types of calendars (perhaps
it's
only two),

The first is the project calendar, which is used to convert days work
to
minutes. The second is the resource calendar, which specifies work
hours
per
day for a resource. It is also possible to specify a project calendar
specific to a task (in the task details dialogue boxes), but I have no
idea
how the latter influences anything. It does not seem to make any
difference
in the final outcome. Perhaps you could provide some insights.

Many thanks

Jens

:

The base unit of duration is the minute. "Days" are allowed in user
input
and display for convenience but are converted to and from hours, thus
minutes, according to the conversion factor on the Tools Options
Calendar
page. If it helps, start thinking of "day" as meaning "workday," a
single
normal 8-hour work shift, rather than a calendar day and when
estimating
durations think in terms of the number of shifts the tasks will
require.
Thus a one calendar day task lasting 24 hours start-to-finish,
starting
Monday at 8am and finishing Tuesday at 8am, takes 3 8-hour shifts or 3
consecutive workdays to complete. If entering and keeping track of
the
tasks is becoming too complicated, start estimating work efforts in
hours
to
begin with.

You say you are hoping for duration to be equal to the physical number
of
calendar days. Sorry, you just can't have that. Project time is
measured
in either elapsed time or duration time. Elapsed time is the sort of
time
watches and conventional calendars measure. The month of November has
30
days, 720 hours. But duration is specifically defined as the number
of
working time units between two points (see PMBOK definitions) and any
non-working time is explicitly excluded from the measure. In the US
and
assuming a normal 8 hour workday, the month of November has 20, 21, or
22
work days (22 weekdays minus 1 or 2 day Thanksgiving holiday) giving
it a
duration of 160, 168 hours, or 174 hours depending on where you are.

I'd suggest examining your 24 hour calendar resources to see if that's
really accurate. The 24 hour calendar means that once the resource
starts
work, that specific individual worker doesn't take a break until the
work
is
done, regardless of whether the task takes hours, days, weeks, or even
months to complete. People just don't do that.

I'll bet what you're thinking here is that you have, say, a group of
10
welders, some on days, some of swing, some on graveyard with a base
calendar
of the 24 hour calendar assigned to the group. You have a welding
task
that
will take one person 24 hours to do so you're putting 1 day shift, 1
swing
shift, and 1 graveyard guy on it, each one relieving the guy before
him
and
working until the task is done. There are all kinds of problems with
that -
calendar problems are one but also resource allocation and tracking
max
allocations as well. I'd suggest a possible better way is to have 3
separate resource listings - Day Shift Welders, max 400%, base
calendar
8am-5pm; Swing Shift Welders, max 300%, base calendar 3pm-12mid; Night
Shift
Welders, max 300%, base calendar 11pm-8am. You have a task that will
take
24 man-hours work and you need to get it done in one continuous
stretch
of
work going on steadily from start to finish so it gets done ASAP.
Enter
the
task with 3 days duration. Use the split screen to assign the
resources.
Enter all three resources -- Day, Swing, & Grave -- with an
assignment
of
100% meaning one guy from each of the 3 shifts and give them 8 hours
work
each. Duration will still be 3 days, ie, 3 shifts, but the task will
go
24/7 until done and take 1 calendar day in the schedule.

Hope this helps


--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer/Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs



Hi Gerard

I think I am OK on the relationship between work and duration. What
I
was
hoping to do was for duration to be the physical number of caendar
days
the
task takes. The problem I have is that a 21 day duration task only
takes 7
calendar days if I assign a 24 hr resource to a project with an 8hr
calendar.

This makes it very messy when trying to assign work in days, and
using
both
8hr and 24hr resources.

I guess what I need is multiple project calendars that would be used
to
caluclate the hourly work effort depending on resource type when
entering
the
work effort in days.

Am I asking too much of Project, and am I doomed to have to imput
work
effort in hrs?

Thanks

Jens

:

Hello Jens,
If the resource(s) on the task are running with a 24 hr calendar
and
if
the
general setting of Project is Tools / Options / Calendar : Hours
per
day
:
8,00 then the "9 days" task will end after 3 days (24 x 3 = 72h).
Don't
confuse Duration and Work.

GÃf©rard Ducouret [Project MVP]

"Jens" <[email protected]> a Ãf©crit dans le message
de
I am running multiple calenders for my resources, human resources
run
on a
normal calendar and non-human resources run 24 hr calendars. On
fixed
work
tasks, I would task a 24 hr calendar resouce with e.g. 9 days
work,
the
estimated duration is listed as 9 days?, but the finish date is
only
3
days
after the start as it uses the standard calender for it's
calculations.
I
am
trying to avoid artificially increasing the work entered (as it
affects
the
costing) but would like to see the finish date calculated
correctly,
i.e.
plus 9 days.

Any ideas?