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Task should not be started on weekend but can run continuously during weekend
I have several tasks that takes 18 to 25 days in row. Those tasks should be started from Monday to Friday. I could not made a schedule for those tasks
Or......how about this "end around run"? As soon as the "milestone" takes on a non-zero value, the Monday through Thursday only custom calendar as the Task Calendar does the trick.
John 🙂
21 Replies
- Thank you everybody. I added tasks that take 0.5 or 1.5 days (As setup Task with standard calendar) before every task (with 24 hours calendar). It is solved now but it is not a good solution.
- Shahram
As John proposes, the predecessor task, 'Setup' in his example, should have the lowest possible value that Project allows us, and that is 1 minute. Even so, there could be an exceptional case in which this approach was not a solution, such as the 'Setup' starting at the last minute on Friday.
IgnacioBecause the "Milestone" task has a Monday through Thursday only Task Calendar (8:00 AM-5:00 PM), the continuous task cannot start at the last minute on Friday, nor any other time on Friday for that matter. Also, the continuous task could start on the last minute Monday through Thursday, which may not be practical or desirable.
So let's tweak the custom calendar for the "milestone" task as follows: Limit the "milestone" start time to 8:00 AM through 4:00 PM Monday through Friday. That allows a 1 hour setup window to start the continuous task.
And here's how it works for a couple of scenarios:
As I said, it's not perfect, but it probably close enough for a reasonable approach.
John
- Shahram179,
What exactly is "not a good solution"? Is it because the Run task starts at noon on Monday instead of at 8:00 AM Monday?
Try the approach I show in my screen shot above. The continuous task will start a minute "late" (i.e. 8:01 AM instead of 8:00 AM) on any day Monday through Friday but I think that's a good compromise, unless you want to go with a VBA approach as I mentioned earlier.
John- Great. Your solution works for my project.
Here's one approach.
1. Create a "start" milestone that uses the Standard calendar (M-F) for each of the continuous tasks.
2. For those tasks that may run 24/7, set their Task Calendar to the built-in "24 hours".
3. Make the start milestone the predecessor to the continuous tasks.
Note, if most of the tasks in your plan use the Standard calendar, the start milestones will automatically take on the Standard calendar, but if your plan has a separate custom calendar (e.g. 9 hour days, etc.), then set the Task Calendar for each milestone to be the Standard calendar.
Hope this helps.
John
Hi
I think that using the milestone as a predecessor does not prevent its successor task from starting on Saturday or Sunday, because since the milestone has a duration of 0 days, it will not be affected by any calendar.
Perhaps dividing the continuous task from Monday to Sunday, with Jhon's idea, into Start task A (1d/Calendar Monday to Friday)) and Remaining task A (Dur-1/Calendar Monday to Sunday), linked Finish-Start.
Still, there may be exceptions where this approach may not be appropriate and would require review.
Regards.
Ignacio Martín- Ignacio Martin,
Yes, you are correct, I didn't test out my approach before posting. The approach you suggest will of course work but I think a more robust solution is with a macro.
John
