Include / Exclude Weekends in Project Scheduling

When mapping out a project plan, the schedule item's duration is significant to the schedule as a whole. However, in some cases you might wish to include weekend days (Saturday and Sunday) in this timeframe, and in some cases you may not. 

The Include Weekends toggle provides the option to either include or exclude weekend days for a schedule item's duration and by default, will be set to "exclude weekends".  

In this article, we will show you how to apply the feature as well as the way it presents in your schedule.

Setting the toggle to include weekends

• Navigate to the Schedule section of the Project Workspace and click on Edit in Gantt View.

• Find the toggle at the top of the Gantt view and click on the "x" to shift it to ON.

• A pop-up will appear prompting whether you are sure you want to proceed. Click on Include Weekends, and the feature will be activated. 

Setting the toggle to exclude weekends

• Should you wish to exclude weekends, simply click on the "tick" on Include Weekends toggle. This will turn the feature off. 

• When the prompt appears, select Exclude Weekends. 

The Include Weekends feature may be turned on at any time (For example, when a resource has to work on a Saturday and/or Sunday) and this will only have an effect on the Task Duration.

NOTE: For PRE-EXISTING PROJECTS, turning the "Include Weekends" feature on, will NOT affect the set start and end dates of the existing schedule. It will only change the Task Duration count. ANY NEW tasks created thereafter, will now be adjusted to include weekends when the "Include Weekends" feature is ON.

Include Weekends 

When Include Weekends is turned on; the task effort will include weekend days as they are considered working days. 

• When in Edit Gantt View, select Day view and view the weekend days (Saturday and Sunday), are highlighted in grey, making it easier to see the week's structure.

Exclude Weekends

Exclude weekends is the default setting on project schedules, to allow for more accurate project effort planning and reporting. As mentioned above, you can toggle between weekends being included and excluded in your schedule view.

When Exclude Weekends is turned on; the task effort will factor out weekend days as they are considered non-working days.

For more detail around how exclude weekends can effect project schedules - see the following  articles:

• Project Schedule: Creating and Updating Schedule Items with Exclude Weekends
• Project Schedule: How to replan linked dependencies with Include/Exclude weekends
• Project Schedule: How to update your MS Project plan with Include/Exclude Weekends