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I have an automatically planned activity that has to take place the upcoming weekend. How can I configure an activity in that way?

Thank you very much.

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My suggestion is to use a Task calendar that restricts working time to weekends. Assign the task calendar to the "weekend only" task and select the option "Scheduling Ignores Resource Calendars". By that method you do not have to modify resource calendars nor create extra "spare" resources.

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  • I have never heard of this functionality, but it sounds great and I will investigate. It sounds like the is the correct answer to me. – Marv Mills Apr 2 '15 at 15:02
  • I have just worked through this and it is spot-on. At last, a solution to the problem :) Thanks Julie, I will be using this technique from now on. I don't much like having to create a separate calendar for it, but that is better by far than having to create separate resources for it! – Marv Mills Apr 2 '15 at 15:29
  • Just remember, you can apply the same calendar to multiple tasks. It is just an additional base calendar and can be applied to tasks or resources. – JulieS Apr 3 '15 at 15:35
  • Aah, great. That's the way, how it works. Thank you very much. I'd vote up your answer, but with my reputation account ... Happy Easter. :o) – Robbit Apr 4 '15 at 17:38
  • Glad it works for you @Robbit. I hope you had a Happy Easter. – JulieS Apr 6 '15 at 13:33
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By default in the project calendar the weekends are not working days. So to schedule a task to occur partially or fully over a weekend you need to apply a resource to the task that has the weekend as working days.

If you are not using applied resources then you do have the option of making the weekends working time in the project calendar, but then that will apply for all tasks, and Project will schedule them over the weekend(s) which may not be what you need.

I commonly have to schedule weekend deployments of key IT systems. I set up special weekend resources that only work over weekends and allocate them to the weekend deployment tasks. These are then only scheduled to take place over weekend working.

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  • Thanks for these workarounds. It's rather odd, that this major application doesn't support an exception, where the resources are allowed to work at times which are regularly excluded. Thus I have to create every resource/user twice, or even three times, if I need night hours. – Robbit Apr 1 '15 at 12:21
  • Well you can indeed set exceptions as described. You can go to a resource's project calendar on the Resource Sheet and set up an exception for a specific weekend as working time. However it is date driven to only applies between defined dates. Additionally if you mark a resource as working all weekend MS-Project can potentially allocate more tasks to them than you wanted. If that works for you then fine. For me I want to make sure that weekend tasks, and only those tasks, are done at the weekend, hence I need a weekend-only resources. – Marv Mills Apr 1 '15 at 15:12
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You can also set the task to "edays" instead of days, that will get the task to span the weekend days. However, when you apply the resources, you will get an allocation error in your indicator column. You can select to ignore the error. That might work well if you just had one item that was like that. Otherwise the calendar alterations as mentioned might work best.

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