Modify working and nonworking times

When you are working with calendars in Microsoft Project Professional 2010, there are some different things that you can do to accurately account for working and nonworking time in your organization. The following sections provide examples for each kind of change and show you the steps that you must follow to make each change.

Note:  Steps in this article assume that you are already creating or editing a calendar. For more information about how to create a calendar, see Create a new enterprise calendar or Copy an existing calendar. For more information about how to edit a calendar, see Edit an existing calendar.

What do you want to do?

Change a working day into a nonworking day

Change a nonworking day into a working day

Change the working times for a working day

Change the working times for each day of a work week

Change a working day into a nonworking day

Occasionally, you may have to turn a working day into a nonworking day. For example, if your organization observes specific days as holidays, you can turn those holidays into nonworking days. Microsoft Project Server 2010 will not schedule work on nonworking days.

To change a working day into a nonworking day:

1. Click the date on the calendar that you want to convert into a nonworking day.

2. On the Exceptions tab, type a name for the nonworking day in the Name column. The Start and Finish columns are automatically populated with the date that you clicked in Step 1.

Note:  Although you can create multiple exceptions that contain a specific day, only the lowest-level exception will apply on that day. For example, you might have one exception that changes the standard working times for a month, and another exception that calls out a specific day within that month as a nonworking day. Because the single-day exception is at a lower level than the month-long exception, the single nonworking day exception is applied on that day. You cannot create multiple single-day exceptions on the same day.

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Change a nonworking day into a working day

There may be times when your organization has to work on what would otherwise be a nonworking day. For example, say your organization participates in a convention each year that occurs over a weekend. You can convert weekend days of the convention into working days, so that Project Server 2010 knows to schedule work on those days.

To change a nonworking day into a working day:

1. Click the date on the calendar that you want to turn into a nonworking day.

2. On the Exceptions tab, type a name for the working day in the Name column, and then press Enter.

Note:  While you can create multiple exceptions that contain a specific day, only the lowest-level exception applies on that day. For example, you might have one exception that changes the standard working times for a month, and another exception that calls out a specific day within that month as a nonworking day. Because the single-day exception is at a lower level than the month-long exception, the single nonworking day exception is applied on that day. You cannot create multiple single-day exceptions on the same day.

1. Click the row that you added for the working day, and then click Details.

2. In the Set working times for these exceptions section, click Working times, and then set the working times for that day by adjusting the times in the From and To columns.

3. If your organization observes these working times on a regular basis (for example, once a month or once a year), under Recurrence pattern, choose whether these times should recur Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly, and then set the following options:

   • Daily    Set the frequency for these working times. For example, every 10 days.

     Tip:  If you find that the working day exception is happening very frequently, you may find it easier to change the default calendar options under Schedule on the Project Options dialog box in Project Professional 2010. All calendars begin with these default days and times. It may be easier to change the default calendar options than to set up exceptions that recur frequently.

   • Weekly    Specify how often you want the working times to recur, and on what day of the week you want them to recur. For example, every two weeks on Saturday.

   • Monthly    Choose what day of the month and at what monthly frequency you want the working times to recur. For example, day 15 of every third month, or the third Saturday of every sixth month.

   • Yearly    Choose on which day of the year you want the working times to recur. For example, August 21, or the third Saturday of July.

4. In the Range of recurrence section, specify the period when you want the recurrence to take place, if appropriate.

   • Start    Choose the date when you want the recurrence pattern to begin.

   • End after    If you want the recurrence to happen only a set number of times, choose End after, and then type the number of instances when the working times should occur.

   • End by    If you want the recurrence to happen only during a certain time period, choose End by, and then choose when the recurrence should stop.

5. Click OK.

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Change the working times for a working day

While the specific days on the calendar may be accurately accounted for as working and nonworking, there may be working days that use a different time schedule than the typical 8-hour work day. You can adjust the working times for a specific working day so that work is accurately scheduled on that day.

To change the working times for a working day:

1. Click the date on the calendar for the working day that you want to adjust.

2. On the Exceptions tab, type a name for the changed working day in the Name column, and then press Enter.

Note:  While you can create multiple exceptions that contain a specific day, only the lowest-level exception applies on that day. For example, you might have one exception that changes the standard working times for a month, and another exception that calls out a specific day within that month as a nonworking day. Because the single-day exception is at a lower level than the month-long exception, the single nonworking day exception is applied on that day. You cannot create multiple single-day exceptions on the same day.

1. Click the row that you added for the changed working day, and then click Details.

2. Under Set working times for these exceptions, click Working times, and then set the working times for that day by adjusting the times in the From and To columns.

3. If your organization observes these working times on a regular basis (for example, once a month or once a year), under Recurrence pattern, choose whether these times should recur Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly, and then set the following options:

   • Daily    Set the frequency for these working times. For example, every 10 days.

   • Weekly    Specify how often you want the working times to recur, and on what day of the week you want them to recur. For example, every two weeks on Saturday.

   • Monthly    Choose what day of the month and at what monthly frequency you want the working times to recur. For example, day 15 of every third month, or the third Saturday of every sixth month.

   • Yearly    Choose what day of the year you want the working times to recur. For example, August 21, or the third Saturday of July.

4. In the Range of recurrence section, specify the period when you want the recurrence to take place, if appropriate.

   • Start    Choose the date when you want the recurrence pattern to begin.

   • End after    If you want the recurrence to happen only a set number of times, choose End after, and then type the number of instances when the working times should occur.

   • End by    If you want the recurrence to happen only during a certain time period, choose End by, and then choose when the recurrence should stop.

5. Click OK.

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Change the working times for each day of a work week

If your organization has a specific work week (or set of work weeks) when the working times are different from the default, you can make those changes to the working times for each day in a work week, during a set period of time. For example, if your organization does not use the default Monday through Friday, 08:00 to 17:00 schedule, you can change the working times for each day in the work week to reflect your organization's accurate schedule.

To change the working times for each day of a work week:

1. Click the date on the calendar where you want the changed working times to begin.

2. On the Work Weeks tab, type a name for the changed work week or weeks in the Name column, and then press Enter.

3. Change the date in the Finish column for the row that you just added, to reflect the last day that you want to include in the changed work week or weeks.

4. Click Details.

5. In the Select day(s) section, click the day of the week that you want to use adjusted working times. Press Ctrl and click, or press Shift and click to select multiple days.

6. If you want to turn the selected day or days into nonworking time, click Set days to nonworking time.

7. If you want to change the working times for the selected day or days, click Set day(s) to these specific working times, and then set the working times by typing in the From and To columns.

8. Click OK.

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