Resources with different hours per day

[Larry]

I am currently trying to schedule a project where some of the people work 4
10 hour days and some of the people work 5 8 hours days. I can not get MS
Project 2003 to support both 8 hour and 10 hour days. Can this be done?

 

[Pat Garard]

G'Day Larry,

Purely for convenience, I'm going to refer to the 5x8 people as full-time
and the 4x10 people as part-time.

I am also going to be very brief.

1. Set up Project to accomodate your full-timers:
Tools>Options
Calendar (Tab)
Hours per day=8
Hours per week=40

Be aware that whenever you assign a "duration" or "work" of
x days/weeks to a task, project uses these settings to calculate
what that means in terms of hours of work to be done
(Company Standard Day/Week - my terms).

While on this "Calendar" tab, adjust the default start/end times
carefully.
Make sure that the Business is "open" for (at least) 10 hours/day.
Work
will be scheduled ONLY during these hours and if they are not set
correctly
your part-timers may find themselves standing OUTSIDE THE DOOR for
part of their 10-hour day - and your schedule will go to hell....

2. Set up your Project Calendar for the full-timers - ie normal 5 x 8 hour
days,
Monday to Friday. (THIS MUST MATCH EXACTLY the hours/day and
hours/week in 1 above, or you will get anomolies in the Gantt
Chart.)

3. Set up a Special Calendar for the part timers - Say Mon-Thu @ 10
hours/day
Friday non-working.

4. For simplicity, estimate durations/work etc in hours - if this is not
convenient,
then remember (Standard) days (of work) are 8 hours (NEVER 10) ,
(Standard) weeks are 40 hours (Company Standard Day/Week).

5. Because your workers ALL work 40 hours per week, there will be few (if
any) anomolies on the Gantt Chart.
However for future reference:
If your part-timers worked only 8 hours per day (instead of 10),
and
you assigned them to a 1 (Company) week task, then the duration
would be 5 (Company) days, but the Gantt Bar would be 6 days
long [6 (Company) working days INCLUDING the friday they
don't work].

I hope this helps.

 

[JulieD]

Hi Pat

could you please expand on:

While on this "Calendar" tab, adjust the default start/end times
carefully.
Make sure that the Business is "open" for (at least) 10 hours/day.
Work
will be scheduled ONLY during these hours and if they are not set
correctly
your part-timers may find themselves standing OUTSIDE THE DOOR for
part of their 10-hour day - and your schedule will go to hell....

as my understanding of the use of this setting is quite different to what
you've outlined here.

Regards
JulieD
also Australia

 

[Mike Glen]

Yes - you might like to see FAQ Item: 5. Default Working Hours

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: http://www.mvps.org/project/

Mike Glen
Project MVP

 

[Pat Garard]

Hi Julie - still trying to be brief.....

Work will only be scheduled when the business is "open".

In this case, the part-timers are available for 10 hours on
their working days - but they can be scheduled to work
ONLY between the (Company) default start/finish times.
The interval between these times is when the Company is
"open" (my term).

Now if Larry sets these times to 8:00am/6:00pm, the
part-timers will be able to offer ALL their (available)
10 hours during "Company" hours, otherwise they will
work fewer hours than available since the factory is
"closed" (my term). Of course they will be unable to
take any lunch/tea breaks unless this is widened to
(say) 7:00am/6:30pm.

This interval must also accommodate overtime. Overtime
can not be worked while the shop is "closed".

If Larry sets up as above (8am/6pm), his full-timers can
be assigned up to 2 hours overtime each day - but his part-
timers get no overtime at all. That is why he needs to set
these times to match the reality of his particular "business".

This is a real-world limitation to save Project Managers
having red faces through scheduling work that is, in fact,
limited by "Company"/"Site"/"Shop" opening hours......

 

[Pat Garard]

Hi (again) Julie - I FAILED to read your last sentence....

Before you allocate any resources, Project will use the
default start/finish times as default task start/finish times,
where YOU give start/finish times in DAYS only (as in
Project Help).

As soon as you begin to assign resources, the Calendar
information for the resources is used........with the results
already discussed!!

The interactions within Project can be quite complex, and
lead to very strange results where not fully understood.

Some sequences during resource allocation can be irreversible,
unless you are very experienced.

If you assign a resource incorrectly, it is usually better to delete
the resource, ensure that the task duration is what it was to
begin with, and then begin allocating resources again.

 

[JulieD]

Hi Pat

that is my understanding, as Larry is using resource calendars to define the
working time of the 10hr people he doesn't need to worry about "ensuring his
business is open" ... project will assign work for the 10hr resources after
the 8hr day "finishes".

Cheers
julieD

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Pat - FYI - the Default Start and End Time entriess on the Calendar Options
page have nothing to do with controlling the hours of business or the work
day, at least not directly. All Project's date fields are actually
date/time fields. When you input a date such as the Project Start date or a
contraint, a time is also included. If you enter into the field by
selecting a date from a pulldown calendar Project uses the Project Calendar
to determine the time it uses. But if you manually type a date into the
field in question but choose NOT to include the time, Project uses the
Options Default Start Time (or End Time as the case may be) to supply the
time portion of the data. That's really all they do.


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

G'Day Larry,

Purely for convenience, I'm going to refer to the 5x8 people as full-time
and the 4x10 people as part-time.

I am also going to be very brief.

1. Set up Project to accomodate your full-timers:
Tools>Options
Calendar (Tab)
Hours per day=8
Hours per week=40

Be aware that whenever you assign a "duration" or "work" of
x days/weeks to a task, project uses these settings to calculate
what that means in terms of hours of work to be done
(Company Standard Day/Week - my terms).

While on this "Calendar" tab, adjust the default start/end times
carefully.
Make sure that the Business is "open" for (at least) 10 hours/day.
Work
will be scheduled ONLY during these hours and if they are not set
correctly
your part-timers may find themselves standing OUTSIDE THE DOOR for
part of their 10-hour day - and your schedule will go to hell....

2. Set up your Project Calendar for the full-timers - ie normal 5 x 8 hour
days,
Monday to Friday. (THIS MUST MATCH EXACTLY the hours/day and
hours/week in 1 above, or you will get anomolies in the Gantt
Chart.)

3. Set up a Special Calendar for the part timers - Say Mon-Thu @ 10
hours/day
Friday non-working.

4. For simplicity, estimate durations/work etc in hours - if this is not
convenient,
then remember (Standard) days (of work) are 8 hours (NEVER 10) ,
(Standard) weeks are 40 hours (Company Standard Day/Week).

5. Because your workers ALL work 40 hours per week, there will be few (if
any) anomolies on the Gantt Chart.
However for future reference:
If your part-timers worked only 8 hours per day (instead of
10), and
you assigned them to a 1 (Company) week task, then the duration
would be 5 (Company) days, but the Gantt Bar would be 6 days
long [6 (Company) working days INCLUDING the friday they
don't work].

I hope this helps.
--
Regards,
Pat Garard
Australia
_______________________

I am currently trying to schedule a project where some of the people work
4
10 hour days and some of the people work 5 8 hours days. I can not get
MS
Project 2003 to support both 8 hour and 10 hour days. Can this be done?