Microsoft project add Holidays - project calendar

Need to enter holidays in your Microsoft Project Plan? Read this step by step guide to entering non working time in your schedule.

Why would you enter holidays in your project schedule?
Microsoft Project treats holidays as normal working days

Microsoft project sets weekends as non working or down time by default. It doesn't automatically set holidays as non working time, so you need to manually input non working time and holidays for your project schedule. stakeholdermap.com

What might I need to set as non working time in Microsoft Project?

  • Bank Holidays
  • Public Holidays
  • Religious Holidays
  • New Year's day
  • Saints Days
  • School Holidays
  • Annual Leave
  • Jury Service
  • National Service
  • Regional Holidays
  • Any other offically recognised holidays taken by your project team
TIP: Some countries will have public holidays, which are not generally taken as time off. If you are working with a global team check with your Human resources department to find out which holidays are officially non-working time.

Steps to add holidays to your MS Project schedule

Open the Project menu and click on Change Working Time
change working time in ms project

This dialog box will appear
dialog box to add non working time and exceptions in microsoft project schedule

Enter holidays and non working time in to the Exceptions tab. It is useful to give a clear Name for each exception. Click on Start and use the calendar to scroll to the start date do the same for the finish date using the Finish column.
enter holidays and non working time in the exceptions tab
Follow the same process to enter the rest of the holidays
Download a Microsoft Project file with all UK 2017 and 2018 public holidays.
Check that project is handling the exception dates as non-working time in the Gantt Chart view.
holidays added as exceptions show as non working time in the Gantt Chart view

This method of adding holidays and other non-working time will apply to all resources.

What if my project team have different holidays?

These days it is rare to have all of your project team in one location, so what do you do if your project team are in different countries with different public holidays?

Luckily Microsoft Project allows you to create custom calendars and assign them to particular resources.
create a custom calendar or new base calendar in ms project

resource in microsoft project with custom calendar assigned
More on this coming soon....

Read more guides on using Microsoft Project