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Change of Calendar in MS Project

9 replies [Last post]
Thu, 2006-10-12 06:21
Bo Johnsen
User offline. Last seen 9 years 26 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 28 Feb 2006
Posts: 119
Groups: Building Information Modelling, Civil Engineering
Is it possible in MS Project with a few key strokes to change the calendar for an entire project (i.e. all activities) from a 5days/week calendar to a 6days/week calendar and still maintain all original start and finish dates and links?

Of course the durations would have to change.

The programme is not resource loaded as yet, so it will not have any impact on manhours, however, before adding resources I would like to change the calendar to reflect our actual work-calendar.

I’ve thought about making a new (empty) project with 6days calendar and then copy & paste relevant columns with or without use of Excel, but maybe MS Project already have a neat feature for this built-in. Any suggestions?

Regards,

Bo



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Replies

Mon, 2006-11-06 10:38
#1
Yazeer Sivori Ser...
User offline. Last seen 1 year 49 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 31 Mar 2006
Posts: 8
Groups: GPC Malaysia, Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas, Sarawak Primavera User Group (SPUG)
Hemm... Bo,

Me not good in writting.

Planning style is your preference, as long as it works on-site, and the client is happy!
Whatever your reason, let me try to answer this cosmetic solution... without using excel.

Unconventional issue, w alternative unconventional suggestion.
>> multiplying duration w 1.2 = dates may be differ a bit. That would assume every activity takes 20% extra.

The cosmetic solution ...
1 - Copy & Paste "Start" to "Start1", and "Finish" to "Finish1" fields (i.e unused custom fields)
2 - Set the calendar: Saturday as ’nondefault working time’
3 - Now, copy & paste "START1" to "START" and "FINISH1" to "FINISH" - you should notice the duration has changed!
4 - Wait a sec... to complete the con-job (bad name), set all activities’ constraint type to -> As Soon As Possible! And maybe you want to clear the custom fields.

Though not accurate & unconventional, Your programme looked cosmetically great!
Start Date maintained, Finish Date Maintained, links maintained.
a plan that has no start or finish dates on the sixth day it is!
Agree, no straight solution, at least its a free advise :)

Honestly, unadvisable the planning way.

Have a nice day.

Please shoot if theres discrepancy (or don’t understand me typo)

p/s: Probably thanks that the early plan was for 5-day week (recommended for some float). If it was 7-day 24-hour shift week... (I don’t know where to get the 8th day!)


Yazeer
Petronas Malaysia
yazeer_jay@hotmail.com
yazeer@petronas.com.my
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Mon, 2006-10-16 03:46
#2
Bo Johnsen
User offline. Last seen 9 years 26 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 28 Feb 2006
Posts: 119
Groups: Building Information Modelling, Civil Engineering
Hi Alexandre,

Sorry for not expressing myself clearly. By "manual" I meant that there wasn’t any feature available in MS Project for this and that I had to use something else, e.g. Excel, and then copy columns back and forth (No, I hadn’t thought about do it the old fashioned "manually", i.e by calculator).

Excel with a ROUNDUP-function was what I intended to use. I guess I co also do it in MS Project by making e.g. a formula for "Number 1" such as "Durations x 1.2" and some integer functions, copy the values (i.e. without formula) to "Number 2" and then copy "Number 2" back to "Durations" or something similar......, well, maybe as you said Excel is easier.

Thanks again,

Bo

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Mon, 2006-10-16 02:59
#3
Bo Johnsen
User offline. Last seen 9 years 26 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 28 Feb 2006
Posts: 119
Groups: Building Information Modelling, Civil Engineering
Hi John / Alexandre

Thanks for the answers.

The reason while I’m asking is that I time after time have "inherited" 5-days programmes from other fellow engineers/planners & sub-contractors, when they know we are working 6 days/week.

For tender purposes many choose to do a time schedule just with the default template of MS-Project (i.e. 5 days), this being indifferent from nowhere in the world or no matter what company I worked in. When it then comes to actual contract award and you have to do a more detailed time schedule (this is where I normally come into the picture) you suddenly have to resource load the schedule and calculate manhours, hence the need for the actual work calendar (i.e. 6days/week).

However, when transforming the tender schedule into the contract schedule (e.g. clause 8.3.programme for FIDIC contracts) it is necessary to maintain original durations of misc. activities and then maybe use these overall activities/durations for splitting up into more detailed sub-programmes.

I can see I have to do the "manual" conversion with multiplication of 1.2 and so on. No easy way out....

Thanks,

Bo
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Fri, 2006-10-13 09:08
#4
John Lawson
User offline. Last seen 12 years 16 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 6 Oct 2004
Posts: 113
Groups: Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas
Hi Bo,

I wonder what you are asking is really feasible or desirable?

You are asking to increase your calandar from a five day week to a six day week and maintain orginal dates. By the very nature of adding the extra day you will have a plan that has no start or finish dates on the sixth day!

a) Are you not best change your callandar as described by earlier replies.
b) Add colums for the start and finish dates, then populate with the original dates (copy & paste).
c) Multply all your durations by a factor of 1.2 (i.e.6/5).
d) Let the software produce your new dates and then manually adjust the durations to get something similiar.

Alternativly, chage your callanadr and ignore your original dates - just increase a few select durations to maintain your project completion dates, i.e "pack out" the plan to be in line with the earlier one.

Regards

John

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Fri, 2006-10-13 06:48
#5
Will Russell
User offline. Last seen 12 years 32 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 9 Apr 2003
Posts: 48
Groups: None
All you have to do is go to Tools|Change Working Time - ensure that you have Standard (Project Calendar) in the drop down menu at the top, select the column of the day you want to make the working day and then select "Nondefault working time", press okay and that’s it
THAT’S ALL FOLKS
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Thu, 2006-10-12 22:16
#6
Sukumaran Subaram...
User offline. Last seen 10 years 6 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 2 Mar 2005
Posts: 229
Groups: GPC Malaysia
Open column for Task Calendar. Select 6 days/week calendar for first activity and then select the activities below you want to fill.

The field you want to copy must be at the beginning of the selection. On the Edit menu, point to Fill, and then click the direction you want.

Regards.
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