Clarity

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  • 1.  Add a taks to a non-working day

    Posted Jan 11, 2016 01:10 PM

    Hi everyone!

    We wonder if there is a way to schedule the start day of a task although on the calendar is set as a non-working day.

    By default the task starts the next working day, but we have an exception in this particular task and we need to start it that day.

    Thanks!



  • 2.  Re: Add a taks to a non-working day

    Posted Jan 11, 2016 01:37 PM

    Hi Flor. I can't speak for all the tools, but in Open Workbench this is possible via temporarily modifying the project calendar. This is client side only, it would be nice if we had Server Side Project Calendars to more easily accomplish what you're trying to accomplish. Are you opening this project in a client tool?



  • 3.  Re: Add a taks to a non-working day

    Posted Jan 11, 2016 02:02 PM

    Hi Robert!

    Thanks for your answer

     

    At least for now, we are working only in Clarity scheduler.

     

    We try to use a rol whithout non-working days, but Clarity ignores the rol calendar settings and uses the general one.

    Is there a way to apply a calendar to a particular project?



  • 4.  Re: Add a taks to a non-working day

    Posted Jan 11, 2016 02:53 PM

    Just did a test - yes, you should be able to do this. Below is in the in-application Gantt in v13.2. Instead of approaching this as a calendar exception problem to solve, I'm telling the task the days, constraints and having autoschedule ignore it when it runs. 'brute force' on the task.

     

    In the WBS below I've setup a 'Saturday and Sunday' task for Saturday February 6th & Sunday February 7th, excluded it from Autoscheduling, and set firm constraints. I setup my dependencies, and put a day lag on the Monday 'Go-Live' milestone after my weekend upgrade task.

    autoschedule 1.jpg

    autoschedule 2.jpg

    autoschedule 3.jpg

    Autoschedule

    autoschedule 4.jpg

     

    And I have the results I am expecting. A non workday task that 'stuck' where I put it, with autoschedule working out the rest of the dependencies around it.

    autoschedule 5.jpg

     

    HTH.



  • 5.  Re: Add a taks to a non-working day

    Posted Jan 12, 2016 10:50 AM

    Thanks a lot Robert! Your answer was very helpfull!

    But... here we have another issue:

    By excluding this non-working day task from Autoscheduling, the summary task doesn't sumarise the % complete of this excluded task. The same happens with the total duration so we can't use the excluding option



  • 6.  Re: Add a taks to a non-working day

    Posted Jan 12, 2016 11:52 AM

    I marked Exclude from Autoschedule just to be thorough. I think the first time I ran it I didn't have it marked and it didn't move, but then again in this test case there's nothing in front of it that would move it.

     

    For 'fixing' tasks like this with autoschedule, another trick I've used from time to time is what I call 'anchor milestones'. If X group of work needs done before the weekend tasks and the weekend task is a successor, place a milestone on the Friday before (in the example above 2/5) and set all it's constraints as 2/5. Have all predecessors butt up against this milestone, then set your weekend task after.

     

    Long story short - scheduling is a bit of an art, bit of a science, but there's never been a scheduling problem that I haven't found a solution for (I geek on scheduling).

     

    Get creative!  I bet you will find a solution that meets all your requirements.



  • 7.  Re: Add a taks to a non-working day

    Posted Jan 13, 2016 11:32 AM

    Hi Robert! Thanks again for your answer.

     

    We tried hard, but we could't make it. Maybe we miss understood something.

    Although we use the anchor milestone the scheluder moves the weekend task on monday or friday (depending on the constraints) and we can't excluding it from Autoscheduling in order to get the % complete and total duration in the summary task.

     

    We also try next:

    1. Exclude from Autoscheduling the weekend task.

    2. Set dates and constraints on saturday.

    3. Complete the "% complete" attribute with "1" (considering that scheduler doesn't move tasks when % complete is higher than 0).

    4. Uncheck the "Exclude from Autoscheduling" attribute.

    5. Run & Publish.

     

    But the result wasn't what we expected: the summary task doesn't summarize the weekend task either.

    It seems the scheduler realized our trick

     

    Maybe it's no possible in Clarity, but we think is a very common request to have calendar exception tasks in project planning.



  • 8.  Re: Add a taks to a non-working day
    Best Answer

    Posted Jan 13, 2016 01:22 PM

    Well, we all tried. Again, one solution would be to use the Client tool such as Open Workbench where the PM can create the Calendar exception for scheduling. The best case scenario would be to have Server Side Project Calendars. Please vote up the idea if it would provide value to your organization.



  • 9.  Re: Add a taks to a non-working day

    Posted Jan 13, 2016 02:22 PM

    Perfect! I've already voted it up!!!

    We will try Open Workbench.

    Thanks!