Task Calendars

• Full control over each task.

For industrial type schedules, especially shutdowns, Task Calendars provide the most amount of flexibility and control over each task.

I have found it most beneficial when a project or schedule has a large variety of work schedules. This is common on plant shutdowns.

Although it is possible to only apply Task Calendars to only a few tasks, I have tended to use them with the entire schedule if I am going to use them.

It also helps to make the task calendar visible so that everyone can see the work schedule for each task. I insert the Task Calendar columnm, as shown in the following image.

Anyone that looks at this schedule will know:

1. The guys installing the concrete are working 10-hr days
2. The concrete will cure around the clock .... obviously
3. The guys installing the piping are working two 10-hr shifts.
4. X-ray, or radiography will happen during night shift only, which is common since it impacts the least amount of other work.

What if Scenarios

One of the benefits task calendars is that you can easily try different what if scenarios.

In the schedule above, if you were wondering what would have if you switched the concrete work over to two 10-hr shifts, you could change the tasks to 10 hr x 2 for a Task Calendar, and MS Project would calculate a new finish for the concrete work.

So you can easily play around with assigning work schedules to certain tasks to see how it affects the schedule.

And if the Task Calendar columnn is visible, everyone that reads the schedule can see that concrete work now has two shifts.

Ignore Resource Calendar

References