Managing Enterprise Project and Resource Calendars


In Microsoft Project, calendars are used by the scheduling engine to understand how unique calendar itemsfor example, holidays, part-time employees, and so onaffect the plan for accomplishing work. Out of the box, only one calendar, Standard, is the base calendar for building all other calendars. Standard identifies every day as a work day from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. except Saturday and Sunday. The Standard calendar is the default for all calendars until you define and assign additional, more useful calendars.

Normally, at least one additional calendar is created that contains the installing company's holidays and is given a name such as Company calendar. When assigned to a project, resource, or task, the Company calendar becomes the base calendar for most scheduling calculations. When assigned to a project, the Company calendar becomes the base project calendar. When assigned to a resource, the Company calendar becomes the base resource calendar. This base project or resource calendar can then be further refined for the calendar events that may be unique to that project or resource.

Enterprise calendars are managed through the Enterprise Global template. If a specific resource calendar is required, it is managed through the Enterprise Resource Pool in association with the resource.

Enterprise project calendars can be created only by users who have read/write access to Enterprise Global. Enterprise resource calendars can be managed only by users who have read/write authority to the Resource Pool. These permissions are granted through the security model.

PAGE 143.


Review "Project Server Permissions" in Appendix C of the Microsoft Project Server 2003 Administrator's Guide to gain a thorough understanding of the necessary security setting to manage calendars.

Enterprise project calendars can be created by the administrator for use throughout an organization.

Managing Enterprise Project Calendars

When Project Server is first installed, it has one base calendar named Standard, and it is the default project calendar and resource calendar.

Every project saved to Project Server must specify which enterprise base calendar it is using. Any new enterprise calendar created in the Enterprise Global template is available to become the enterprise calendar for projects stored on the Project Server. Therefore, if a company operated in several countries, it may have several base calendars describing the unique calendar items for each country. Each of these base country calendars is available to be applied to the specific project or resources assigned to the project.

To create a new calendar, follow these steps:

1.

Open Project Professional.

2.

Select Tools, Enterprise Options, Open Enterprise Global.

3.

Select Tools, Change Working Time.

4.

Click the New button.

5.

Name the calendar and make sure that the Copy of Standard is selected.

6.

Adjust the calendar as necessary.

7.

Click the Close button.

It is often necessary to create several base calendars for operations that have offices around the world. For example, you have workers in the United States and Germany working on the same project. The German resources will have different bank holidays that need to be considered when scheduling those resources on your project. Because all resources are assigned a resource calendar from the list of base calendars, it is necessary to create calendars for all holiday or working time variances on your project.

TIP

You cannot delete or rename the Standard enterprise project calendar.


To delete a calendar, follow these steps:

1.

Open Project Professional.

2.

Select Tools, Enterprise Options, Open Enterprise Global.

3.

Select Tools, Organizer.

4.

Select the Calendars tab.

5.

Select the project calendar on the right side to be deleted or renamed.

6.

Delete or Rename as necessary.

Managing Resource Calendars

When a new enterprise resource is created in the Enterprise Resource Pool, it is automatically assigned to the Standard calendar, and a resource calendar named for the resource is created from the base calendar for the resource. To assign an enterprise resource to a different base calendar, you must manually select a different calendar for the resource. In this way, you can account for the world resources mentioned previously, and their unique work schedules will be available to the scheduling engine.

Task scheduling is calculated for a resource by combining the information from the assigned base calendar for the project and the resource's assigned base calendar. If either calendar changes, the enterprise resource's assignments might change. For example, you have an 8-hour task on a Wednesday in your schedule. This Wednesday is not special; it is just another workday. Under normal conditions, the scheduling engine sees no project calendar exceptions for the workday and schedules a resource to work 8 hours that day.

Assume also that you need to assign a resource who only works part-time, 8:00 a.m. to noon. The resource calendar for this person has been adjusted to his specific workday. If he is assigned to this task, the scheduling engine uses the resource calendar information to schedule the 8 hours work for two 4-hour days, 8:00 a.m. to noon Wednesday and Thursday, unique to this particular resource.

The project manager cannot permanently alter a resource calendar from within a project schedule because resource calendars are maintained in the Resource Pool and are read into the schedule on opening. Calendar changes for planning purposes are allowed, but the project cannot write calendar changes back to the Resource Pool. If the project manager attempts to make resource calendar changes in the schedule, he receives a warning that all changes to enterprise resources will be lost, as shown in Figure 11.8.

Figure 11.8. Resource calendar change warning.


This means that as long as the project manager has the schedule open, the changes he makes in the resource calendar apply. On closing and reopening the project, the resource calendar changes revert back to the resource's enterprise resource calendar held and managed in the Resource Pool, and the project-specific calendar changes are lost. Resource calendar information is cached in the schedule from the Resource Pool each time the schedule is opened in Project Professional. The benefit to this control is that no individual project manager can permanently alter a resource calendar. Only the user responsible for resource information can alter a resource calendar. Because resource calendars are held and maintained through the central Resource Pool the system guarantees that all project managers receive the same information about calendar data for any individual resource that may be assigned to multiple projects.

When a resource needs unique scheduling information added to his calendar, it must be performed in the Resource Pool.

To alter a resource calendar, follow these steps:

1.

Open Project Professional.

2.

Select Tools, Enterprise Options, Open Enterprise Resource Pool.

3.

Select the resource or resources needing calendar changes.

4.

Select the individual resource in the pool.

5.

Select Tools, Change Working Time.

6.

Make the necessary changes to the individual resource calendar.

7.

Repeat for each resource as necessary.

8.

Save and close the Enterprise Resource Pool.

The changes will be available to all project managers the next time they open their projects.



    QuantumPM - Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 Unleashed
    Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 Unleashed
    ISBN: 0672327430
    EAN: 2147483647
    Year: 2005
    Pages: 227
    Authors: QuantumPM LLC

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