The article gives a detailed solution to set up the project calendar. Go through the article and you will be confident to set a date and time in MS Project. You will also get to know about the task usage and eight methods that are used in MS Project.

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Civilverse Admin 25 October 2020
Change Working Days and Time In MS Project
civilverse.org/change-working-days-and-time-in-ms-project
Table of Content for Change Working Days and Time in MS Project-
1. Introduction
2. What is Calendar in MS Project?
3. Task Calendar & Resource Calendar.
4. Customizing the Calendar.
5. Setting Working Days
6. Working Hours per day
7. Marking Holidays/Leaves
8. Work Contour
1. Introduction-
The Microsoft Project is a project scheduling tool. It makes the project scheduling easier
to visualize especially when the project involves the hundreds of activities. The MS Project
has the ability to integrate the project timeline with cost and resource.
The MS Project calculates the cost based on the working time of resources. The concept is
as simple as it can be. The more time a resource works the more it costs. Thus, it can be
said that the defining time for a resource to work is important to compute its’ cost.
The time duration for an activity to be completed is defined in MS Project along with
working time of the resource. The time is defined in terms of working days per week and
working hours per day.
For moving ahead, I assume that you are familiar with the basic terminology of MS
Project. If you are starting fresh or want to revise the basic terminology of MS Project, I
suggest visiting the below two links before moving ahead so that we can directly come to
our topic.

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MS Project Terminology- Top 20 Terms Everyone Must Know
MS Project Terminology- 20 Must Know Terms-Part 2
Further, I will be using MS Project Professional to explain the features. The features may
differ in different versions.
2. What is Calendar in MS Project?
The Calendar is a function in MS project that enables the user to define the working days
per week and working hours per day. This feature also provides flexibility to add different
working time on different working days.
The holidays and leaves can be also be defined in the calendar so that these
holidays/leaves can be omitted when calculating the project completion date.
To change working days and time in MS Project-
Project Tab > Change Working Time
Change Working Time Dialog Box
The MS Project comes with the four numbers of default calendars that can be chosen as
per the project requirement.
These calendars are-

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Default Calendar In MS Project
1. Standard (Project Calendar)– It has 5 days working with 8 hours per day and
Saturday and Sunday as non-working days.
2. Night Shift Calendar- It has with 12 am to 8 am working with Sunday off.
3. 24 Hour Calendar with 7 days for 24 hours working every day.
3. Task Calendar & Resource Calendar-
The calendar assigned to a task controls it. The task completion date is calculated as per
the task calendar. On the timeline, the duration is shown as per the calendar and the non-
working days are left off in the calculation.
Task Calendar
Similarly, the calendar assigned to a resource controls it and called the Resource
Calendar. The working hours of a resource unit are primarily defined by the resource
calendar.

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Resource Calendar
4. Customizing the Calendar-
Project > Change Working Time > Create New Calendar > Create Copy/Make a New
Calendar
Creating a Copy of Default Calendar
To change the working days and time in MS Project, the calendar can be customized as
per the project requirement or resource availability.
In create new calendar option, you can either choose to create a copy of any of the default
calendars and make adjustments to it or make a completely new calendar.
Once you choose to make a copy of any of the default calendars or make a new one. Click
on ‘Work Weeks’ option and then ‘Details’ options to change the working days per week
and working time per day.
5. Setting Working days-
Project > Change Working Time > Work Weeks > Details

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The workweeks can be defined in Change Working Time Dialog Box. The workweeks are
mentioned with start and finish dates.
6. Setting Working Time-
Project > Change Working Time > Work Weeks > Details.
Changing Working Time per Day
The days are set to working time as per the resource availability each day. On clicking the
‘Details’ option in Change Working Time Dialog Box, a new dialog box opens up. It has
three options-
Use Project default times for these days. Click on this option if you want to enter
standard 8 am-5 pm working time for the selected day.
Set Days to Non-Working time. Select your non-working day(s) and click on this
option to make it a non-working day in the project calendar.
Set day(s) to these working times: If you want to enter customized timing for each
day, click on this option and enter the working hours in the below available table.
Tip: To enter the same working time for days, press Ctrl key and select days. Now enter
the working time in the table.
7. Marking Holidays/Leaves
Project > Change Working Time > (Select Your Calendar) > Exceptions

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Marking Holiday/Leave in Calendar
The calendar is marked with the holiday(s)/leave(s) to make an exception for that
day/period. With the marking of exception for a day, the MS Project doesn’t count that
day when calculating the completion date.
The ‘Exception’ feature is also helpful when a resource is not available to work on the
project. The unavailability of the resource can be marked in the calendar thus, preventing
the allocation of the task to that calendar on that day.
8. Work Contour–
The work of a resource is distributed equally throughout the duration of the task. This
may not always be true. Some task may require higher working hours in the beginning
and lesser hours in the end. Or lesser hours in the beginning and more hours as the work
proceeds. Many such trends can be observed when working with a huge number of
activities.
The work contour feature helps in distributing the work over the duration of the task in
the desired manner.
Task Tab > Gantt Chart (Bottom Half Part) > Resource Usage > (Select Resource & Right-
Click) > Information > General > Work Contour

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Selecting Resource Usage Sheet
The MS Project offers following pre-defined work contours-
Work Contour
1. Flat
2. Back Loaded
3. Front Loaded
4. Double Peak
5. Early Peak
6. Late Peak
7. Bell
8. Turtle
You can also change the working time per day for a resource directly in the resource usage
view by typing the working hours.
Liked the article ‘Change Working Days and Time In MS Project’? Let me know in the
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Want to read about Project Schedule? Click here.
Check your schedule quality check here.
For Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), Click here.
Happy Engineering!