Resource calendar on Server 2007

[Roy]

I have projects that most resources use a standard calendar, but my
installation resources (generic) use a 5 day 10 hour calendar. I am using
fixed duration, non-effort driven for my tasks. Initially I assigned the
resources and their hours to my tasks with standard calendar. One 20 day
task, for example, has 7500 hours applied and MS Project told me I had 46.9
resources assigned (20 days, 8 hours = 160. 7500 divided by 160 yields the
46.9). I created a Global 5 day 10 hour calendar (not the Standard) and then
applied it to the Installation resources. I expected to see the allocation
become 37.5 resources, but the allocation did not change. I noticed when I
created the new calendar there was not an "options" choice to re-set the
start and end times to match the new calendar. Can someone help me?

 

[Roy]

This might help someone else having a similar problem. In Server, when you
are assigning a resource that has a special calendar, you must ensure that
the task does not have a task calendar assigned (task calendar takes
percedence). If you have already assigned the resource you will have to
perform the following steps:
In PWA, under the Admin function, define the special calendar in the Global
Calendars area. Now go into the Resource center and assign the special
calendar to the resource.
Go to your project on Server.
Remove the resources from the tasks
Remove the task calendars from the tasks
Re-assign the resources to the tasks
Depending on whether or not you a using "Fixed Duration" your duration may
change (but your true duration will not in you are using Fixed Duration - MS
Project is merely telling you that on an 8 day basis, the duration is
different). For example, I had a 20 day task (5 day, 8 hour basis, Fixed
Duration) with 47 resources applied and 7500 hours. When I followed the
steps above and applied a 5 day 10 hour calendar to the resource, the 7500
hours remained the same, the resource units became 37.5 and the duration
showed 25 days. However, the start and end dates for the task remained
unchanged. How could the duration increase by 5 days and the dates not
change? The true duration did not really change. Looking at the resource
usage they still worked 20 days. What MS Project was telling me was that
based on my project calendar, this task would take 25 days (37.5 resouces at
8 hours per day takes 25 days for 7500 hours).

Not exactly intuitive, but reasonable, I guess.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Roy --

Thank you for troubleshooting and solving your own problem, and then sharing
the results with the rest of us. Everything you have described about
Microsoft Project is predictable and shows that the software is working as
designed (such as the part about Task Calendars overriding the Project and
Resource Calendars). Your statement "not exactly intuitive" is absolutely
true. Microsoft Project is a sophisticated scheduling tool, and many of its
features are defnitely NOT intuitive. This is why, so many times, that
answers given in this newsgroup refer the questioner to take training or
purchase a book on the software.

So, thanks so much for sharing your problem, your solution, and your
analysis of the problem and solution!