How to Run Successful Projects III: The Silver Bullet (3rd Edition)

   

Overview

The using organization and project calendars module introduces how calendars are used by Microsoft Project 2000. The main lesson in this module is to tailor a calendar and associate it with the current project.

Objectives

The participant will:

  • Know how to amend a standard calendar.

  • Know how to set a standard calendar as the project calendar.

Preparation

Review the contents of this module and do each of the exercises at least once to familiarize yourself with the logic and outcome.

Presentation

The activities in this module cite the aims for each exercise. The level is suitable for basic users.

ACTIVITY

10.1 How to add public holidays to the standard calendar.

EXERCISE 10.1 ¢ LEVEL: BASIC ¢ UPDATE STANDARD CALENDAR TO INCLUDE PUBLIC HOLIDAYS

  • Pick Tools menu.

  • Choose Change Working Time command.

  • Click on scroll arrow to move to October.

  • Click on last Monday.

  • Select Non-working Time.

  • Repeat for all Public Holidays for the year ahead.

    New Year's Day

    January 15

    February 19

    May 28

    July 4

    September 3

    October 8

    November 12

    November 22

    Christmas Day

Dialog

Explain that MS Project is set up for a 40- hour working week with no work taking place on Saturdays or Sundays. No public holidays have been entered into MS Project.

Calendars Calendars are used by the scheduler to map task and project durations onto an actual set of dates. The calendar allows for
  ¢ public holidays
  ¢ company holidays
  ¢ weekends
  ¢ and working hours
  to be accounted for by the scheduler.
  MS Project 2000 provides a Standard Calendar which can then be amended as required by the user . It is recommended that you have one person within an organization amend the standard calendar and provide it to all project managers.

ACTIVITY

10.2 How to create a new project calendar using the standard calendar.

EXERCISE 10.2 ¢ LEVEL: BASIC ¢ AMEND PROJECT CALENDAR

  • Pick Tools menu.

  • Choose Change Working Time.

  • Select Standard (Project Calendar).

  • Click on New button.

  • Name the new calendar "Golf."

  • Select "M to Th" on the heading line. This selects every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in the calendar.

  • Change finishing hours to "19:00."

  • Click on F and change to Non-working Time.

  • Click on OK button.

Dialog

Explain that project calendars can be used to reflect information specifically related to a project such as the working hours or non-working days. The workhours are used by the scheduler to understand how many hours of work are available in each day to complete the amount of work which has been calculated for each task. For this project we will work a 4-day week, 10-hour day. We set workhours for all Mondays through Thursdays to finish at 19:00 and set Fridays as non-working.

ACTIVITY

10.3 How to ensure that the project is using the appropriate calendar.

EXERCISE 10.3 ¢ LEVEL: BASIC ¢ RESET PROJECT CALENDAR

  • Pick Project menu.

  • Choose Project Information command.

  • Calendar = "Golf."

  • Click OK button.

Dialog

Explain that if you do not reset the project calendar, the project will always use the standard calendar as the default. Having created a new calendar we must now have the project use this calendar. What is the current finish date of the project? We are still working 40 hours per week so why has this changed?

   
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