How to copy and paste exception days - MS PRoject

[kmoreau48]

Hello,

I have been using MS project for quite some time now and never figured out how to copy and paste exception days from one calendar to another.

Here is my issue

I work in the construction industry and I create a blank MS project template every year with all the calendars and exception days (holidays) so that when we create a new schedule for a project, all the calendars are available to the user.

My issue is that I have more than 10 different calendars and I need to manually add all the holidays to each calendars. Isn't there a way to copy and paste the exception days from one calendar to the other?

For reference, here are the typical calendars we need :

5 working days, 8 hours per day (1 shift)

5 working days, 10 hours per day (1 shift)

5 working days, 12 hours per day (1 shift)

5 working days, 16 hours per day (2 x 8 hours shift)

5 working days, 20 hours per day (2 x 10 hours shift)

5 working days, 24 hours per day (2 x 12 hours shift)

And then I need the same calendars but for 6 and 7 working days. So basically 18 calendars in total. Every year is a pain to manually add all the holidays to each of them.

[#2]

kmoreau48 --

You are going at this wrong. Take an existing project that has all of the calendars. Click File > Info > Organizer > Calendars. Copy the calendars from the right side of the dialog (in the open project) to the left side of the dialog (to your Global.mpt file). The next time you create a new blank project, all of the calendars will be available.

Also, when you create a custom calendar, it is easiest to copy an existing calendar that has all of your company holidays. And when you create holidays on a calendar, make the holiday recur in the range of 5-10 years to minimize your work.

In addition, you might want to take a look at a couple of my YouTube videos about calendars in Microsoft Project. They are:

https://youtu.be/GrR8v1Y4RN0
https://youtu.be/UOCuJdC9Oqc
https://youtu.be/XHKpEuZRixY
https://youtu.be/msZA6AyTKzM

Hope this helps.

[#3]

@Dale_HowardMVP 

Thank you for the quick reply, I have learned some features I wasn't aware of in MS project.

I was aware I could set up one custom calendar and then copy that one in order to modify the holidays only once. However, I still need to change the working time of each calendar and this can't be copy paste either. So I still have the same issue where I need to change data manually for every single calendar every single year.

For a 8 hours shift, it's easy since there is only the lunch to consider in the schedule.

But for a day with two 10 hours shift, it becomes more tedious to edit the schedule of the calendar (even though I don't have to change the holidays) 

So I was always wondering which one is less work? changing the holidays for each calendar or changing the working schedule for each calendar?

After watching your YouTube videos I thought to myself maybe now it is easier to change the schedule since I can use a rule for the holidays and it will be repeated every year. But then Good Friday and Easter Monday are both dependant on Easter Sunday which in turn does not have a clear rule. Additionally, there are the "Observed" holidays as you explained in one of your video that I need to figure out.

In conclusion, I am still not sure which method is less work after learning those new features. I might have a little less Holidays to change but I still need to change the schedule for 17 calendars.

A simple copy and paste feature would make this task so much faster for both the Holidays and the working schedule.

[#4]

kmoreau48 --

Yup, copy and paste would make your job easier, but that feature is not available in the Microsoft Project desktop application. Sorry, but thanks for your long nice response to my solution.