Displaying multiple timezones for tasks

[abo999]

Here is my scenario:

I'm lead PM with a team working on systems maintenance over the course of a given weekend. The maintenance will run 24 hours/day over the weekend, and involves work in both NA and EMEA. I'm also supported by two other PMs to maintain constant PM coverage over the full period. I'm based in EMEA, the start/finish times are planned in MST (GMT-7h)

Because the team is split over two regions, to make it easy on the folks doing the tasks I wanted to show the start/finish times in both MST and GMT. This was fairly easy with a formula in a custom field:

[Start]+[Number10]/24 where the Number10 field contains the 7 hour timezone offset

However...

When I hand off to another PM based in the US, the formula breaks (returns #Error) and I'm assuming this is to do with where we are all located?

Is there a better way to do this? I'm not wanting to do anything trick with the different timezone columns; all the updates, calculations etc. will be done with [Start] and [Finish] fields, I just want to add a couple of extra columns to show the date and time in GMT.

[#2 · Accepted solution]

abo999,
What version of Project are you using? What version if the US based PM using?

Your custom field formula works fine for me (US based) but simply adding raw numbers doesn't always work. I suggest you use this formula in custom Start and Finish fields:
Start1=dateadd("h",7,[Start])

Hope this helps.
John

[#3]

@John-project 

Thanks for this. We're all on Project 2016 though there *may* be a slight difference in version due to regional licencing?

I've made a quick test project with the formula you suggested and asked my colleagues to test it. Will see what happens!

[#4]

abo999,
You're welcome and thanks for the feedback. Let us know how it works.
John

[#5]

Thanks John, I've had some feedback and it appears this has worked, the error message is not showing. The only thing is, it does not calculate for summary tasks. It doesn't matter for this particular job, but I'd like to know why!

[#6]

@abo999 

In the Custom Fields window make sure you have checked "Calculation for group and summary rows" to "Use formula".

John

[#7]

Why didn't I spot that??? :D Thanks again, that has completely answered my questions and future maintenance weekends will be a bit smoother!