If you have either Project Plan 3 or Project Plan 5 subscriptions, you can create custom work week calendars for each project directly in Project for the web.
Each project is created using a default work template, which is based on the typical Monday through Friday work week. However, not all teams follow this traditional work week and need a way to schedule their tasks based on their own unique availability. With Custom Calendars, you can select which days are a part of your work week, and the Project scheduling engine will automatically update the project to only schedule work on those days.
Setting a Custom Calendar
To set up a custom calendar for your project:
- Click on your project's title to open the settings pane. (An example of the project title is "Marketing Campaign" toward the upper left-hand corner within the image below.)
- Under Calendar Settings, select Custom default work week. This will bring up toggle buttons for each day of the week with Monday through Friday selected by default.
- Toggle on the days to include in your work week, and toggle off the others.
- Hit Apply and your project will automatically update to show the new execution dates.
In the example above, you can update the project calendar to use Monday through Thursday as the established work week. When applying these changes, you can see the project’s Finish date pushed from November 2, 2023 to January 15, 2024. The timeline for the project also is updated to show Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as non-working days and extends the tasks accordingly.
Using Resource Calendars
If you have resource calendars set up for your team, you can use those in conjunction with your project’s custom calendar. At the bottom of the project settings pane is a Resource calendars checkbox. If you would like your custom project calendar to override any resource calendars that may be associated with this project, uncheck the box. Otherwise, if the box is checked, all resource calendars will be applied to their respective resources.
Let’s look at an example:
- Resource Nancy has a resource calendar set up which specifies her working hours as Monday through Wednesday.
- Project Marketing Campaign has a custom calendar set up which specifies working days as Monday through Thursday.
- If the Resource calendar box is checked, all of Nancy’s tasks will only be scheduled for Monday through Wednesday, based on her unique resource calendar. All other team members will have their work scheduled Monday through Thursday, based on the Project’s custom calendar.
- If the Resource calendar box is unchecked, all tasks will schedule work Monday through Thursday, based on the Project’s custom calendar only. All resource calendars associated with team members will not be considered.
For more information about how to set up and use resource calendars, check out Resource Calendars in Project for the web - Microsoft Community Hub
Frequently Asked Questions
Who can edit a project’s calendar?
Any member of a project who has a Project Plan 3 or Project Plan 5 subscription can edit the working days of a project. Those who have only a Microsoft 365 or Plan 1 subscription will be able to see the current set work week but will not be able to make any changes.
Can I edit my team’s resource calendars directly in my Project?
No, resource calendars must still be edited in Power Apps. To learn more about how to do this, please check out Resource Calendars in Project for the web - Microsoft Community Hub.
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