Durations that ignore the holiday
Dates counted on a wall calendar skip weekends by habit and forget the holiday, so a finish date lands a day early and every successor inherits the error.
Working calendar
A construction schedule calendar with holidays and shutdown days
A 20-working-day activity runs longer than four weeks if the Fourth of July lands inside it. The working calendar tells the schedule which days count: which weekdays crews work, which dates are off, and which time zone the dates are in. This page shows how to set it up in Fidrel, including the federal holidays it suggests, and where you still have to add days yourself.
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Where calendars quietly go wrong
A shutdown nobody entered
The owner closes the site for a week in summer, or a school job halts for the term break. Unless those dates are in the calendar, the plan has crews working straight through them.
One calendar for every job
A hospital job works Saturdays and an office fit-out does not. A five-day week assumed on a six-day job pushes dates out for no reason, and the reverse pulls them in too far.
Weekdays, time zone and dates
The calendar has three parts: the Working weekdays, the Non-working dates and the Time zone. A plan with Saturday ticked schedules Saturdays like any other working day, and a date in the list is skipped even if it falls on a ticked weekday. A duration is the number of working days between the start and the end of the bar, so moving an activity across a holiday changes the number of days it shows. Lag on a dependency counts working days of the same calendar.
Scheduling
The federal holidays Fidrel suggests
For the United States the list covers New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, the October holiday on the second Monday, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. A fixed-date holiday that falls on a Saturday is suggested on the Friday, and one on a Sunday on the Monday. The Day after Thanksgiving is marked as usually a day off and starts unticked, while the federal holidays start ticked, so untick the October holiday or Veterans Day if your crews work them.
How to set the working calendar
Step 1
Open the Working calendar
In the schedule, open Working calendar. Set the Time zone, which Fidrel suggests from the project’s country, and tick the Working weekdays; Monday to Friday is the starting value.
Step 2
Add the holidays
Under Non-working dates open Suggest public holidays. For the United States it lists the federal holidays of the plan’s years, leaving out days already added or on a day off. Untick the ones your crews work and choose Add selected.
Step 3
Add your own days and read the result
Pick shutdown days, owner closures or a trade’s days off with Add date, then save. Durations, lags and the working days remaining now skip every date in the list.
Shutdowns and local days
State and local holidays, owner shutdowns, contract days off and any other day your crews do not work have to be added by hand with Add date. Fidrel itself tells you to check agreements, state and local holidays before you save. Because the list holds dates you decide in advance, a rainout is not a record of a weather delay.
The calendar after an import
A plan imported from Microsoft Project XML keeps its tasks, links and lags, but not its calendar: Fidrel keeps its own working calendar, so set it after the import and read the durations again. The holiday list is filled in by hand or from the suggestions.
What the calendar does not do
Fidrel suggests the federal holidays only, with no list of state or local holidays. There is no weather-day tracking: a lost day is a date you add to the calendar yourself. The calendar is a scheduling aid and does not decide which days count under a contract, so check the contract for its own definition of a working day.
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Working calendar
Frequently asked questions
Anything else on your mind? We are happy to help.
Talk to usYes. Suggest public holidays lists them for the years of your plan, with the Friday or Monday observed rule, and you tick the ones to add. State and local holidays are not included.
Tick Saturday under Working weekdays in the working calendar. Durations, lags and the working days remaining then count Saturdays as working days.
Yes. Use Add date for each day, pick the dates in the calendar and save. Every date in the Non-working dates list is skipped by durations and lags.
No. There is no weather-day record. If rain stops work, add the date to Non-working dates yourself so the schedule counts it as a day off.
The calendar has its own Time zone setting. Fidrel suggests one from the project’s country, and you save it to use it.