What Are Work Schedules in Project Insight?

Work schedules in Project Insight define when work can happen. They control standard working days, working hours, holidays, non-working days, project calendars, user availability, and task scheduling.

Project Insight uses work schedules with intelligent scheduling to help calculate when tasks can start, when they can finish, and whether resources have capacity during a given time period.

Most teams can keep work schedules simple by using one system default schedule. Teams with more advanced scheduling needs can also use user work schedules, project work schedules, template schedules, and task-level schedules.

How work schedules are used in Project Insight

Work schedules help Project Insight answer three scheduling questions:

• When is work allowed to happen?
• Which days should be skipped because they are holidays, PTO, or non-working days?
• How much capacity does each resource have during a given time period?

Project Insight builds schedules based on the User's Calendar and the Project's Calendar. These schedules help determine task dates, resource availability, and capacity in resource allocation reports.

Keep work schedules simple when possible

If your organization follows the same work week, workday length, and company holidays across most users and projects, use one System Default Work Schedule.

Project Insight automatically applies the system default schedule to users and projects unless another schedule is selected. This keeps scheduling easier for project managers, user managers, and resource managers.

The Project Insight system default work schedule usually starts with common settings, such as a Monday through Friday work week and a standard 8-hour workday.

When to use more advanced work schedules

Use more advanced work schedules when the system default schedule does not accurately reflect how your teams, users, projects, or tasks operate.

Advanced work schedules may be needed when:

• Users work different days or hours
• Teams are in different countries or regions with different holidays
• Projects follow a special calendar
• Templates need to create projects with a specific schedule
• Tasks can only happen on certain days or outside normal working hours
• Resource capacity planning needs to account for PTO, vacation, leave, or non-standard schedules

Work schedules can be adjusted at the following levels:

• User work schedule
• Project work schedule
• Template project work schedule
• Individual task work schedule

Which work schedule does Project Insight use?

Project Insight looks for work schedules in a specific order when calculating project and task schedules.

1. First, Project Insight checks whether the task has its own Work Schedule.
2. Next, Project Insight checks whether the assigned task resources are using a Personal Default or Project Default schedule.
3. If no resource schedule applies, Project Insight uses the Project Schedule.

This order matters because user calendars, project calendars, and task schedules can each affect when work is scheduled.

Where work schedules are managed

Work schedules can be managed in different areas of Project Insight depending on what kind of schedule you need to update.

User work schedules

Use a user work schedule when an individual resource has non-working days, PTO, vacation, leave of absence, different work hours, or a different weekly schedule.

A user's work schedule starts with the System Default Work Calendar. You can then make changes that reflect how the user's schedule is different from the default.

User work schedules are important for resource availability and capacity planning because Project Insight uses each user's schedule to calculate their capacity during a given time period.

Read more about managing each User's Work Schedule.

Project work schedules

Use a project work schedule when a project follows a different calendar than the system default schedule.

For a project, you can either:

• Select from multiple system-wide calendars when your organization uses different calendars for different teams, countries, or regions.
• Change the calendar for a specific project by editing the Project Work Schedule.

The project work schedule starts with the System Default Work Calendar. You can then make project-specific changes when that project needs a different schedule.

Template project work schedules

A project template can also have a work schedule. When a project is created from that template, the template's work schedule applies to the new project.

This is useful when different project types need different calendars by default. A template work schedule can override the system-level default schedule for projects created from that template.

Individual task schedules

Use an individual task schedule when a task needs to be scheduled independently from the project calendar.

This is useful for tasks that can only happen on a weekend, must happen on a certain day, or depend on a resource such as equipment, a room, or a machine with its own availability.

Learn more about setting Task Work Schedules on the Task Detail Advanced screen.

How work schedules affect resource capacity

Work schedules affect capacity because Project Insight uses them to calculate when each resource is available to work.

If a user has PTO, vacation, leave, non-working days, or a non-standard work schedule, those dates and hours can reduce that user's available capacity. Project Resource Allocation Reports use user work schedules to show each user's capacity for a selected time period.

Keeping work schedules accurate helps project managers and resource managers understand whether work can realistically be assigned and completed on time.

Best practices for work schedules

• Use one system default schedule when most users and projects follow the same calendar.
• Create multiple system-wide schedules only when teams, countries, or regions need different standard calendars.
• Use user work schedules for PTO, vacation, leave, part-time schedules, or non-standard working hours.
• Use project work schedules when a project follows a different calendar than the system default.
• Use task work schedules only for advanced scheduling needs.
• Plan carefully before adding many different schedules because work schedules affect scheduling, capacity, and resource allocation.