---
title: "Gantt Best Practice: Visualize Shift Calendars in Gantt Charts"
description: Learn more about how a to use the calendar feature of our Gantt Chart controls VARCHART XGantt and JGantt to create Shift Calendars
---

[Production Scheduling Tips & Tricks for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central ](https://blog.netronic.com)

# [Gantt Best Practice: Visualize Shift Calendars in Gantt Charts](https://blog.netronic.com/faq-shift-calendar)

 Written by [Martin Karlowitsch](https://blog.netronic.com/author/martin-karlowitsch) | Nov 28, 2011 10:30:00 AM

Gantt charts are often used to visualize shift calendars. In this post we share with you questions that had been asked to our support folks in regard of **visualizing staff planning** with our Gantt controls [VARCHART XGantt](https://www.netronic.com/products/varchart-xgantt/overview.html) and [VARCHART JGantt](https://www.netronic.com/products/varchart-jgantt/overview.html) . 

This is a common customer question: *We have no idea how to use shift calendars. Would you please send us a sample about this question?*

Here is the **NETRONIC answer**:

## Difference between calendar and shift calendar

"Normal" calendars define working times and work free periods by specifiying rules and exceptions on the basis of days, weeks and so on. Shift calendars, on the contrary, define arbitrary **recurring** working times and work free periods. You define one "cycle" and VARCHART XGantt will "unroll" this cycle again and again, beginning at the specified start time. Such calendars are typically used in factories, hospitals and alike, where shift work is done. For example: 8 hours early shift (starting at 6:00 a.m.), then 8 hours late shift, then 8 hours night shift (crossing day boundaries!).

Well. That's pretty much straightforward. Let's look a concrete, but more complex example and let's start with a screenshort first:

 

Imagine a security company that has watchmen, who continously care about some buildings. Lets assume, that a day consists of 2 shifts, 12 hours each, and that the company has 2 teams with 2 watchmen each. These people have a labour contract, that they have to work 36 hours within 6 days.  In order to distribute the service times equally between the people, planning could be as follows.

As you can see in the pictures, two "shift ribbons" are specified at the bottom of the time scale:

Mainly, such calendars are used to display shift times in the time scale, as described.  You can use shift calendars as *working calendars* for tasks, too. However, *exceptions* of the normal working cycle can only be implemented by adding deviating "intervals".

Interested in more Gantt chart tips? Here are

[5 more Gantt Chart Best Practice Tips.](https://blog.netronic.com/5-gantt-chart-best-practices-using-colors-to-define-semantics)

[How to design a stylish tooltip](https://blog.netronic.com/gantt-chart-tips-tricks-how-to-design-a-stylish-tooltip)

[Three Steps to Add a Comfortable Sorting Option to Grouped Gantt Charts](https://blog.netronic.com/xgantt-sorting-activities-in-grouped-gantt-control-by-clicking-table-header)

 

 

[View full post](https://blog.netronic.com/faq-shift-calendar)

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