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The first step is to setup the calendars as all calculations regarding effort, duration, etc. are based on this. If you follow the standard 8-5, 40 hours a week routine, you can probably skip this, but if your work times are different, you must set the calendars up before you do anything else.

Otherwise, all calculations get messed up and it is nearly impossible to fix it later.

The only option then is to undo all the planning done and start again from this step.

1. Select “Options…” under “Tools” in the main menu.
2. Click on the “Calendar” tab and set the options per your work hours as shown in Figure 1. You can click on “Set as Default” button to make these settings default for all your projects.

Figure 1: Calendar options
3. Click “Change Working Time…” under “Tools”.
4. Click on “Create New Calendar” button to customize the calendar based on holidays and other non-working times you may have as shown in Figure 2.

Note: The Standard calendar can also be edited to account for non-working days other than the weekends.

Note: Any number of calendars can be created. Although the project can be assigned only one calendar, each task and resource can be based on different calendars.


Figure 2: Creating a new calendar
5. Set non-working days for the anticipated duration of the project as shown in Figure 3. This can be done at any time and is not necessary to be done at this stage. Working hours for any specific day can also be edited by clicking on the “Details” button in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Adding non-working days and holidays to the calendar
6. Click on the “Details” button after selecting the “Work Weeks” tab and set work hours for each work day as shown in Figure 4.

Note: This needs to be done in case the default times as desired have not been applied to the project calendar.


Figure 4: Changing default work times for each day of the week
7. Set the project calendar as shown in Figure 5 by clicking “Project Information” under “Project” menu.

Figure 5: Setting up the Project Calendar

The calendar setup is complete. Calendars for the project, tasks and resources can be selected later. Next, the tasks have to be planned.

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