Task Calendars and Lag in MS PROJECT 2013

Hi,

today I will answer to this question: “You have 2 tasks which own different task calendars (Standard 5day and 7day calendar). They are connected FS and have a lag, lets say 5 days. Which calendar does the lag use?”

OK! I will show you that in MS PROJECT 2013. First let me create 7-days calendar with MY CALENDAR name:

Now, I am going to modify MY CALENDAR:

OK! Now I will add four Tasks to My Project with 10 days duration each:

Now I will tell that TASK 1, and TASK 4 have MY CALENDAR, as default Calendar, and TASK 2 and TASK 3 have Standard Calendar as default Calendar. I will show that settings only on TASK 1, and you can do the same thing with other Tasks:

Finally I get:

As you can see Task 1, and Task 4 will start on Monday, 25.02.2013, and will finish at Wednesday 06.03.2013, because the work will be performed during a weekend. On the other hand, Task 2, and Task 3 will start on Monday 25.02.2013, but will finish at Friday 08.03.2013, because the work will not be performed at weekend.

Now I am going to connect Task 1, and Task 2, and Task 3, and Task 4as well, and I will get:

Everything looks fine! Notice that Task 2 will start at Thursday 07.03.2013, and Task 4will start at Saturday 09.03.2013.

Now to the point! I will put a 5 days lag for Task 2, and Task 4:

and I will get:

Now, the explanation:

Task 1 will finish at Wednesday, 06.03.2013
Task 2 will start after 5 days lag, at Thursday 14.03.2013. That is because Task 2 has Standard Calendar, so this 5 days of Lag is only working days (means: Thursday 07.03.2013, Friday 08.03.2013, Monday 11.03.2013, Tuesday 12.03.2013, and Wednesday 13.03.2013)
Task 3 will finish at Friday, 08.03.2013
Task 4 will start after 5 days lag, at Thursday 14.03.2013. That is because Task 4 has MY CALENDAR, so this 5 days of Lag is working days + weekend (means: Saturday 09.03.2013, Sunday 10.03.2013, Monday 11.03.2013, Tuesday 12.03.2013, and Wednesday 13.03.2013)

To conclude, MS Project 2013 uses for the lag, the calendar of the successor.

Regards,

About Nenad Trajkovski

Location: Zagreb, Croatia Occupation: Project Manager Interests: Project Management and MS PROJECT He was born in Zagreb, Croatia at 1963. After completing his college he started working on projects in different business areas (banking, manufacturing, automotive industry, distribution, oil companies, etc.) developing and implementing ERP systems into different companies. He has got a lot of experience working with people in different business processes and also possesses great knowledge in information technologies and financial services. Today he works as a business consultant, adn Project Manager in PERPETUUM MOBILE d.o.o. Zagreb. He is a regular lecturer for Project Management in MS Innovation Center in Varaždin, Logosoft Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina and SEAVUS GROUP in Skopje Macedonia. He was named the best lecturer of WINDAYS 2008 while his lecture was also voted as the best. In addition, he was in TOP 10 lecturers at the MS SINERGY 2009 and MS VISIA 2009, 2010. Shares first place as the best lecturer of KulenDays 2009 and 2010 and PMI Conference 2009 in Zagreb. He is also a regular lecturer in the MS Community. He is a Certified Accountant and a PMP (Project Manager Professional) and a PMI-RMP (Risk Manager Professional), MCP, MCT, and Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist - Microsoft Project 2010. From 01.01.2012 awarded with MVP (Microsoft Most Valuable Proffesional - Microsoft Project)!

View all posts by Nenad Trajkovski →

5 Responses to Task Calendars and Lag in MS PROJECT 2013

Christopher P. Thames says:

March 6, 2013 at 1:43 pm

Reblogged this on KnoGimmicks Social Media & Web Design.

John says:

March 4, 2013 at 10:20 am

Great stuff as usual Mr. Nenad.
I would like to add my contribution for an eventual future post on calendars. When creating a calendar and setting different working hours period specific to some countries for only a limited time; e.g: 1 month for example. We need to pay attention that setting ‘Start date’ and ‘End date’ only will result in MS project 2007 taking into account week-ends in between as working days too.
Consequently, our Schedule overall is wrong and the FInish date of the project is wrong.
I found a way to avoid this. Simply, selecting ‘weekly’ as a Recurrence pattern in the exception list.
Hope this will be helpful. 🙂

choekot says:

February 27, 2013 at 3:53 pm

Last bullet in the explanation, the second sentence, I believe it’s a typo when you say “…because Task 2 has MY CALENDAR…”, and you mean “…because Task 4 has MY CALENDAR…”, right?

- Nenad Trajkovski says:
  
  February 28, 2013 at 8:59 am
  
  YES! That was a typo. Thanks!
  
  - Volker Sonnabend says:
    
    February 28, 2013 at 11:07 am
    
    Thanks for the answer!!!
    I suppose now, that this (MS Project 2013 uses for the lag, the calendar of the successor) is a fix setting which cannot be changed!!!