MSProject 2013 - making two12 hr shifts/day

[derek112]

I'm planning work with two 12 hour shifts/day (7am-7pm & 7pm-7am) for a 1-2 week overall duration. I need to know all that is required to setup on "Project"-->"Change Working Time" to make the schedule look right. Does anything else need to be set up? - Thanks

[JulieS]

I would set up the two shifts using two separate calendars. I would set a "day" (File > Options) as 12 hours. The 7a to 7p should be fairly easy to create. The calendar that spans over night will have to roll over to the next day. For example: the task starts Monday at 7:00 pm. So the 7:00 pm to 12:00 am on Monday. Tuesday will start at 12:00 am to 7:00 am. Then starts up again Tuesday night at 7:00 pm until 12:00 am.

You'll want to set up your resources using one of the base calendars. Then as you assign those resources, the start of the task will adjust based upon the working calendar.

[derek112]

Sorry, I'm lost at the "two separate calendars" part. I can set the options for 7am start, 7pm finish, 12 hrs/day for the "first" calandar; I also changed "timescale" to "hours." This sort of gives me what I want, but I can't figure out how to have, say, "Task 1" start at 7 am and end at 2 pm on the same day. I don't know how to set up the "second" calendar unless you're talking about a separate schedule file which doesn't make sense - I want 2-12 hr/shifts to appear on one Gantt chart - Thanks.

[JulieS]

You create calendars in Project > Change working time > Create new calendar. See:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/pr...102809468.aspx

for details on changing the work weeks to something other than 8-12, 1-5.

[derek112]

Sorry for being a pain, but I just want to know how set up two 12 hr shifts/day: 7am-7pm & 7pm-7am and be able to enter start/stop dates/times for each task. I spent several hours trying to get "Change Working Time" to reflect that in my schedule and there isn't enough detail in the vague instructions in the link above for me to get it to look right. Are there any other instructions that may help? Is MS Project 2103 even teh right tool to do this? I know I can do this enitire schedule in about 30 minutes using Excel.

[JulieS]

If you intend to manually enter every task start and finish date, I would suggest using manually scheduled tasks and set the Project calendar to the 24 hours calendar.

Whether Project is the "right" tool depends upon what you need to do. You can treat Project like Excel using manually scheduled tasks and typing everything in. If you want project to do more it certainly can. It is a scheduling tool - so by creating links (predecessors and successors) along with resources you can create a dynamic schedule that if Task A is linked to Task B, C, and D - the schedule of B,C, and D will change if A is changed.

However, it takes effort to set up the Project file from the start - longer than 30 minutes. The payoff is in update and maintenance of the plan in Project plus the automatic scheduling. I suggest a good hands-on minimum 2-day class.

Let me know the details of your shifts (which days per week, do they take breaks, etc) and I'll walk you through step-by-step.

[derek112]

Here are the details:

7am, Sunday, through 7am, following Sunday, two 12 hr shifts/day, 7am-7pm & 7pm-7am. I do not need to denote breaks, off days, etc.

[JulieS]

Assuming you are using resources create two base calendars:

Day Shift
Project ribbon - Click change working time.
Click Create new Calendar to create a new calendar.
Name it "Day Shift" (or whatever) and click OK to create the new calendar.
In the Day Shift calendar click the Work Weeks tab and select the only entry - Default.
Click the Details button to open the details dialog
In the Details dialog select Sunday through Saturday.
Click the Set day(s) to these specific working times.
In the From section type 7:00 am and in the To section type 7:00 pm.
Click OK to close the Details dialog and return to Change Working time.
Click OK to close the Change Working time dialog box.
Save your project file.

Night Shift
Project ribbon - Click change working time.
Click Create new Calendar to create a new calendar.
Name it "Night Shift" (or whatever) and click OK to create the new calendar.
In the Night Shift calendar click the Work Weeks tab and select the only entry - Default.
Click the Details button to open the details dialog
In the Details dialog select Sunday through Saturday.
In the From Section type 12:00 am and in the To section type 7:00 am.
In the second row enter 7:00 pm to 12:00 am.
Click OK to close the Details dialog and return to Change Working time.
Click OK to close the Change Working time dialog box.
Save your project file.

On the resource sheet view create your resources and select either Day Shift or Night shift as their base calendars.