Microsoft Office Project 2010 Intermediate

In this blog you're going to learn how to easily set up a project calendar, an important step for Microsoft Office 2010 Project.

If you're like me, you need all the help you can get to stay organized. Having a calendar to keep things in order, including your projects, is vital.

Setting up a calendar in Project 2010 is a logical step in managing your project to its success. The calendar is a tool that allows you manage your resources effectively within the time frame that you have in mind for your project.

Once you know what the project is, you have to have an idea of the timeframe for the project in calendar form. This simple, but powerful tool is quick to set up and customize to meet your project goals. This allows you to track working days and hours. It's easy, by following the simple steps below, to assign time for working on your project.

Even a chronically disorganized person like myself can set up, and follow, a project calendar like this.

Setting up the Calendar

To set up a project calendar, first open the Change Working dialog by clicking Change Working Time on the Project tab:

The Change Working Time dialog should appear:

You can select any of the three base calendars using the drop-down at the top of the dialog:

Then, you can use the options in this dialog to set working or non-working time for particular weekdays or specific dates for this calendar only. For example, you can set each Friday as having only four work hours. You may also designate whole non-working days, such as holidays.

To do this simply select the date to which you would like an exception applied and then enter an exception name below it:

Exceptions will be marked on the calendar and listed under the Exceptions tab.

In addition, you can click the Options button to change the default start and end time (Daily) as well as the number of hours per day, week, and month:

Click OK to apply these changes and close the dialog.