Setting up calendar defaults

In the Calendar tab, you set up the default calculations for project schedules. Actual project calendars are set up in the Working Time dialog box.

1. Go to File > Options
2. Click the Schedule tab.
3. Enter in the daily, weekly, and monthly translation values in the fields provided.
4. Select the date format in the Output Date Format box.
5. Enter a default start date for tasks in the New Task box. New tasks can be started on current date or default start date. If new task is supposed to start on current date and different date is defined in Project Start Time, new task will be constrained Start not early than. Input date format is always MM/DD/YY. For example, if task start time or finish time is December 31, 2025, you should enter it as 12/31/25.
6. Enter the Project Start Time. Project start time is always deterministic. If you change the project start date the project schedules will shift to match the change.
7. Enter the Project Status Date. Status date is used to report the project’s progress on the day you set. In RiskyProject Professional project status dates is used for project diagnostics, particularly for the DCMA 9A, DCMA 9B, DCMA 11, DCMA 13, and DCMA 14 tests. In both RiskyProject Professional and Risk Project Lite project status date is also used in the Tracking Chart to show actual project performance (green line).
8. Define the Project Calendar. Project calendars are used for scheduling tasks if task or resource calendars are not defined. Default project calendar is Standard.

About Project Deadlines (Professional Version Only)

Deadlines affect the results of the probabilistic calculations, but do not affect the results of deterministic current schedule calculation.

1. Earliest Project Deadline: if any task is started or finished before this date, the task and the complete project will be marked as canceled for the particular iteration. Start and finish time of the project will be adjusted. If the finish time of the task date is before the earliest project deadline, the task will have zero duration and begin on the earliest project deadline.
2. Latest Project Deadline: if any task is started or finished after this date, the task and the complete project will be marked as canceled for the particular iteration. The start and finish time of the project will be adjusted. If the start date of the task is after latest project deadline, the task will have zero duration and begin on the latest project deadline.
3. Maximum project duration:: actual project start time plus maximum project duration is the maximum project finish time. It affects the project schedule the same way as Latest Project Deadline.

When any task within a project reaches the project deadline, the project will be marked as canceled for the particular iteration. However, task duration, start and finish times can vary between the different iterations due to the risks and uncertainties; therefore, tasks can reach the deadline in a single iteration, but not in another. RiskyProject calculates the project success rate based on the number of iterations where the project is successfully completed.

Example:

• Maximum Project Duration is 5 years.
• Actual start time is Oct 1,2003
• Projected Finish time is Oct 1, 2009
• Project will be canceled because Oct 1,2003 + 5 years: Oct 1,2009

Maximum project duration is working time (not calendar time). For example, one-month maximum project duration is 20 working days. It is done to make maximum project duration consistent to duration of any task.

Earliest Project Deadline and Latest Project Deadline are shown as red vertical lines on the Gantt chart. You cannot scroll Gantt charts beyond these dates.

If the project is outside of Earliest Project Deadline and Latest Project Deadline, the Monte Carlo simulations will not execute. For example:

• Actual Project Start Time: Oct 1,2008
• Projected Finish Time: Oct 1,2011
• Earliest Project Deadline: Jan 1,2008
• Latest Project Deadline: Jan 1,2011

In this example, the projected the probabilistic calculation will not proceed.

About Probabilistic Calendars (Professional Version Only)

Calendar tab allows you to define Probabilistic calendar for Monte Carlo simulations. You can define probabilities that certain calendar will be used.

To use probabilistic calendar you need to define calendars in Working Time dialog first:

1. Click the Schedule tab. In the Schedule and Calendars group, click Working Time.
2. Define base calendars that will be used for your probabilistic calendar. For example, if you would like to model that March will be 50% non-working, you need to create a base calendar entitled 'March non-working'.

After this you can enter probabilities for each base calendar. For the example above, enter 50% probability for the standard calendar and 50% probability for 'March non-working'. The sum of all probabilities must be exactly 100%.

See also

Setting up your project defaults
Probabilistic calendar