Working days and holidays

1. Click Resources on the ribbon.

2. Under Calendars, click Standard (it says project calendar underneath).

3. Under Working week, tick the days your team works and untick the others.

Oakfield Villa Build works Monday to Saturday, so Saturday is ticked and only Sunday is shaded on the chart. Every task moves at once to fit the new week. Ctrl+Z undoes the change.

A calendar must have at least one working day.

Under Working hours there is a row for each working day, with one or more stretches of time:

• Change a time by typing in its box, for example 07:30. You can also type 0730, or just 7 for 7 o’clock. Use the 24-hour clock: 17:00, not 5pm. Enter takes you to the next box, down through the week.
• Click + to add another stretch, for example an evening shift.
• Click × to remove a stretch.

The standard day has two stretches, 08:00–12:00 and 13:00–17:00, which leaves the lunch hour free.

If your days no longer add up to the plan’s Hours in a working day or Hours in a working week, a note under Working hours says so. Change those figures in Project › Edit project… to match. (The Oakfield plan works 6 × 8 = 48 hours a week, so its week is set to 48.)

1. In the Resources panel, click the calendar. For a company-wide holiday, that’s Standard.

2. Under Days off, type the date in From and press Enter. To fills in with the same day and the cursor moves to it. For several days in a row, type the last one there.

3. Press Enter again and type a Reason, for example Public holiday.

4. Press Enter in the Reason box, or click Add days off.

The day appears in the list underneath. To take it away again, click × beside it.

At the Day and Hour zooms, holidays are shaded on the chart, with a mark under the date. Any task that runs across the holiday finishes a working day later. In this picture Monday 12 October has just been added as a public holiday. The roof now finishes on the 14th instead of the 13th, and everything after it moves a day.

Days off on the project calendar apply to everyone, including people you add later.

Every person you add in the Resources panel gets their own calendar, starting as a copy of the project’s. Change it in the same way: click the person, then change their working week, hours and days off.

• A person’s own days off apply only to them, for example annual leave.
• A person still takes the project’s holidays. Their list shows them under Project holidays, also observed here. Untick one if that person works through it.

Which calendar does a task follow?

1. The calendar chosen in the task form, if there is one.

2. Otherwise, if one person is assigned to the task, that person’s calendar.

3. Otherwise (nobody, or several people), the project calendar.

The task form says which applies, for example Scheduled on: Project calendar.

Click Add calendar to make a calendar that doesn’t belong to a person, for example Night shift or Weekend crew. To use it, open a task’s form and pick it under Calendar.

You can rename any calendar by typing in its name box. A calendar can’t be deleted while it is the project calendar, belongs to a person or is used by tasks. Desktop Plan tells you which.