Calendar windows

Calendar windows

The Calendars window manages the project's calendar library: which working days, working times and days off there are, and which calendar is the project calendar. The form next to the list is the same as in the Resource calendar window. This article says for each field what it does, what the default is and what you notice of it. How to make a calendar and give it to tasks is in Making and assigning a calendar; how the app counts working days is in Calendars and working days.

Where to find it

• Calendars — Planning › Calendar › Calendar or Settings › Calendar › Calendar.
• Calendar of a task — the field Calendar in the Edit task window or the Properties panel. See Task dialog and properties panel.
• Resource calendar — the Resources panel, column Calendar: pick a calendar, pick + Resource calendar for a new one, or click the pencil (Edit…) for the chosen calendar. See Resource panel.

The library in the Calendars window

On the left is the list of calendars, on the right the form of the chosen calendar. The project calendar has a star. A calendar with invalid input has a red triangle (This calendar contains invalid input).

• New calendar (the plus) — adds a calendar named New calendar with the app's default content: Monday to Friday, 07:00 to 16:00, a standard workday of 8 hours. If Enable construction mode is on (the default), Dutch holidays are in it too, without the construction break; if it is off, the list is empty. If you do not want those holidays, choose Generate holidays… and in it No holidays. (The names Bouwkalender NL and Standaardkalender stay Dutch in every language.)
• Duplicate — copies the chosen calendar under the name {name} (duplicate).
• Delete (the bin) — deletes the chosen calendar. Disabled when only one calendar is left. If it was the project calendar, the first remaining calendar becomes the project calendar. Tasks and resources that used the calendar fall back to the project calendar.
• Set as project default — makes the chosen calendar the project calendar. On the calendar that already is it, Project calendar appears with a star. Effect: every task without its own calendar counts in this calendar, and so does a resource without its own calendar. A task that you gave a calendar yourself keeps it.
• Apply — writes all changes of the whole list to the project in one go, recalculates the schedule and closes the window. It does not recalculate if nothing changed on balance. Disabled while there is invalid input in one of the calendars. Enter in an ordinary text field does the same, but keeps the window open.
• Cancel — closes the window and throws away everything you changed since opening (or since the last Enter). Esc and the cross act as Cancel. A click beside the window does nothing, so you do not lose input.

By default a project has the calendar Bouwkalender NL (construction mode on) or Standaardkalender (construction mode off), with Monday to Friday 07:00 to 16:00.

The form

Basics

• Name — the name in the list and in the drop-downs for tasks and resources.
• Work days — a button per weekday, from Mon to Sun; a pressed button is a working day. The order follows Week starts on (App settings, tab Planning). Default: Mon to Fri. Two quick buttons: Mon–Fri sets Mon–Fri, 07:00 to 16:00, 8 hours; a configured break becomes the implicit break of 12:00, 60 minutes again; Continuous (24/7) sets all seven days, 00:00 to 24:00, 24 hours. On a calendar with work blocks both buttons change the blocks: Mon–Fri removes the blocks of Saturday and Sunday and keeps those of Monday through Friday; Continuous (24/7) puts one block from 00:00 to 24:00 on every day. Turn a day off with its own button and its blocks disappear; turn it on again and it gets back the blocks it had when you opened the dialog or after the last preset. If that day had no blocks then, it gets the blocks of the first working day (Sunday first). If no day has blocks any more, for example because you turned all days off, it gets the blocks of the first working day as it was when you opened the dialog or after the last preset. If the calendar had no blocks then either, it gets the blocks from start, end and break, and otherwise 07:00 to 12:00 and 13:00 to 16:00. Effect: a task only works on working days. The app cannot calculate a calendar without working days (The calendar has no working days set).
• Start (hour) and End (hour) — the start and end of the working day, as a clock time in the Time format from the settings (24-hour or 12-hour). Default: 07:00 and 16:00. The arrows (or the arrow keys) adjust in steps of 15 minutes; the end may be 24:00 (in 12-hour notation 12:00 AM), the start must be before the end. Effect: together with the break they determine the standard workday. They do not count for the dates of a task in days; they do count for tasks in hours. These fields are only there for a calendar without work blocks. If the calendar has work blocks per weekday, those take precedence and you set the times in the Working times block.
• Break starts and Break duration (minutes) — the start and length of the break, with the same 15-minute steps. Default: 12:00 and 60 minutes. If you set the duration to 0, the working day is continuous. The break must lie entirely within the working day and may not swallow all of it. Effect: the standard workday is end minus start minus break; for a task in hours no work is done in the break. The same fields disappear under the same condition as Start (hour).
• Calendar with work blocks — if the calendar has working-time blocks per weekday (for example a calendar from MS Project: 08:00 to 12:00 and 13:00 to 17:00), the dialog always shows the Working times block, also when Enable hour planning is off. You change the blocks there directly. Start (hour), End (hour) and the break are then not shown. Effect: the app calculates with the blocks, also for tasks in days (Standard workday).
• Standard workday — read-only: the length of the workday that occurs most often, without trailing zeros, for example 8h or 7.5h. Default: 8. Effect: this is the length of a day when converting between days and hours and for tasks in hours. If the calendar has work blocks, the field shows the most common day sum of the blocks. The number follows at once when you change the blocks. The info icon next to the name gives this explanation too. If no weekday has working time, the field shows a dash (—). A calendar with its own hours per day (for example from Primavera P6) keeps that value for export. If that value differs from the number, the window shows an orange block with both numbers directly below the field. See Days and hours.

Working times

This block is there when Enable hour planning is on (App settings, tab Planning), and always for a calendar with work blocks. Here you set working times and shifts per weekday. A calendar without work blocks only gets blocks with hour planning on: through a preset or Set per weekday…. See Setting working times.

• Presets — buttons that set the working times in one go: Day shift (Mon–Fri 08:00 to 16:00, an ordinary day calendar), 2 shifts (Mon–Fri 06:00 to 22:00, 16 hours), 3 shifts (Mon–Fri 06:00 to 06:00 next day, 24 hours), Night shift (Mon–Fri 22:00 to 06:00, 8 hours) and 24/7 (all days 00:00 to 24:00). Behind the built-in buttons are your own presets, with a cross to delete them.
• Save as preset… — saves the current working times as your own preset, on this device, so you can reuse them in any project. You give a name (Name for your own preset) and click Save or Cancel.
• Set per weekday… — turns a day calendar into an hour calendar: the current times become the working-time blocks of every working day, with the break as a gap. For an hour calendar the button is called Hide working times or Show working times and folds the editor in or out. For an hour calendar the editor is open by default.
• The editor — per weekday a list of blocks (band) with a start and end time, in the same time format as Start (hour). The tick next day lets a block run past midnight (a night shift). A block until 24:00 (in 12-hour notation 12:00 AM) ends exactly at midnight; next day is then off. If you type an end time before the start (02:00 for a block from 22:00), the block runs on to the next day and next day turns on by itself. Add band (the plus) adds 08:00 to 16:00. Copy to all workdays (only on Mon–Fri) copies the blocks of that day to Monday through Friday. A day without blocks is called Non-working. As soon as a day has more than one block, the bottom shows the hint A gap between two bands is a break — adjust the times as needed. Effect: the blocks take precedence. A weekday with blocks is a working day, and the fields Start (hour), End (hour) and the break disappear.

Holidays

• Generate holidays… — opens the generator. Country chooses Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, United Kingdom, Austria, Switzerland or No holidays. Region only appears if the country has regions; default National. Construction holiday only appears for the Netherlands and when Enable construction mode is on, with the choices None (default), North, Central and South and the hint Advisory dates — verify with Bouwend Nederland. A preview line says how many holidays will come (… holidays, …–…), expandable for the list. Generate puts the result in the calendar you are editing (it only counts after Apply), Cancel closes the generator. Effect: the whole Holidays list is replaced, including what you added yourself. The years the generator covers run from the year before the project start up to and including the year after the project end (without a project end: up to three years after the start). See Generating holidays and the construction break.
• Regenerate — appears next to the button when the generated holidays no longer cover the project period, with the text Holidays cover …–…; project runs to …. Regenerate? A click generates the same choice (country, region, construction break) again for the new period. Without it, days outside the generated years are ordinary working days.
• Holidays — the list of days off: Description, From and Until, and a bin per line. Add holiday adds a line with today as From and an empty Until. An empty Until is one day. Without lines it says No holidays yet. Effect: all days in the period are non-working days in this calendar, for tasks on this calendar and for resources that use it. An invalid line gets a red border and a text (Enter a valid start date., Enter a valid end date, or leave it empty for a single day. or The end date is before the start date.) and blocks Apply.

Error messages and exceptions

Errors in the working times appear under the fields and block Apply: Enter a valid start time as HH:MM., Enter a valid end time as HH:MM., Start time must be before end time., Enter a valid break time as HH:MM., Break duration must be a whole number of minutes of 0 or more., The break must fall entirely within the configured working day. and The break cannot take up the whole working day.

The calendar only knows days off as an exception. A calendar from an MS Project or Primavera file can also have working exceptions, an extra working day; the window does not show or edit those.

The Resource calendar window

• Resource calendar — the form above, in a window with only Apply and Cancel. Esc and the cross act as Cancel; a click beside the window does nothing and Enter does nothing here. You edit one calendar in it: an existing one, or a new one, with the default name Resource calendar, that is linked to the resource after Apply (Cancel leaves nothing behind). If you open it in the Library view of the resource panel, it edits a calendar in the library; in the Project view it edits the calendar of the project, even if that came from the library. Effect: a resource calendar determines when the resource is available in the histogram, in overallocation and in leveling; it does not change the dates of a task. Apply does not recalculate. If the calendar is also on tasks or is the project calendar, the schedule does change: it is then marked out of date and Calculate recalculates it. See Setting a resource calendar.