How to Make a Work Schedule in Excel (3 Handy Examples)

A work schedule depicts the timetable of a project or task, beginning with the arrival time and ending with the departure time. When there are numerous moving components in a complex project or assignment, a work schedule is a vital tool for maintaining office order in a timely way. In this article, we will learn how to make a work schedule in Excel.

Watch Video – Make a Work Schedule in Excel

What Is a Work Schedule?

A work schedule is the set of days and hours that an individual is assigned for employment. Depending on the business and the role, a staff’s work schedule may be

a standard, Monday-through-Friday timetable, or
a weekly, or monthly level.

There are several approaches to arranging staff schedules, ranging from handwriting the schedule to adopting an automated scheduling system. Here are some of the primary benefits of using Excel to create work schedules:

Time savings
Cost reduction
Keeping track of previous schedules and so on.

How to Make a Work Schedule in Excel: 3 Examples

In this section, we will show 3 suitable work schedule examples for your work purpose: Daily, Weekly, and Monthly work schedules.

1. Create a Daily Schedule in Excel

We occasionally need to create a daily timetable in Microsoft Excel so that we may generate as well as keep a plan for our daily life. A daily schedule generated in Excel is usually useful for users. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to make a daily work schedule in Excel.

📌 Steps:

Let us begin by constructing the dataset. Simply create a heading and enter “Date” below it to store the date in the cell.

We need “ID”, “Employee Name”, and “Total Working Hour” to complete the dataset because we are building a daily schedule.

Now we’ll draw boundaries around certain columns to hold the time hour by hour. Because the workstation’s start time is “8:00 AM” we write “8:00” in cell E6. As a result, let’s modify the text rotation by selecting Rotate Text Up from the Home ribbon.

Pull the Fill Handle by row to fill with the leading time with a 1-hour gap. To summarize, we shall obtain the hours in cells (E6:S6).

At the conclusion of each day, we calculated the time period that “Daniel” performed. As a result, we noted that he worked on the workstation for a total of “8 Hours” from 8 to 16 o’clock. Similarly, after gathering data, we obtained a result that represented employees’ efforts on a daily basis.

In this late stage, we will add comments to certain cells in order to conveniently designate them. Pick a cell (C12) and then click New Note from the Review menu.

Please write your remark in the cell to make your work easier. And finally, we were able to create a daily schedule in Excel in a short period of time.

2. Create a Weekly Work Schedule in Excel

A schedule not only aids in productive time-management habits but also minimizes strain. A weekly planner in Excel may achieve the same thing and is best used using a template. Let’s explore how to create a weekly work schedule in Excel to handle all your office activities.

📌 Steps:

To begin, choose the Alignment ribbon group’s Merge & Center option for cells B2 to I2, and then type the heading “Weekly Schedule”.

Then navigate to Cell Styles. Choose Heading 2 from the drop-down menu.

Next, in column B4, record the Starting and Ending Times for your work schedule. The beginning time is 8:00 AM, and the ending time is 5:00 PM. You can incorporate it as needed.

You must now input the time. It is required for accurate visualization of our given job in terms of time and day.
Enter your beginning time, then drag the Fill Handle tool down to the conclusion of your work. To obtain a general concept, look at the image below.

After that, type the first working day and then drag the Autofill option down for the remaining weekdays.

We will now create an Excel table using our data. The table will provide a good overview of our timetable. First, select all of the data, then click on the Insert tab and select Table.

A dialog window titled Create Table will open. Check that My table has headers. Then click OK.

After you’ve created the table, make a list of the Activities you’d like to include in your schedule. After that, create a table like previously and choose My table has headings. Select OK.

In this phase, we’ll show you something intriguing. You probably have a lot of activities, and it will be convenient if you can select the appropriate activity from the Weekly Schedule rather than inputting it every time. In such circumstances, we must employ Excel’s Data Validation tool.
Begin by selecting the weekdays and then moving to the Data tab >> Data Validation.

The Data Validation dialog box will appear. Navigate to Settings >> Allow box >> List. Select the table titled Activities that was created earlier in the Source box.

Lastly, a drop-down icon will appear in each cell, allowing you to input your work schedule.

3. Make a Monthly Work Schedule in Excel

Lastly, we will show how to create a monthly work schedule in Excel with monthly data input.

📌 Steps:

To begin, enter a title, such as Creating Monthly Schedule Manually, and then the Year to build a monthly work schedule in Excel.

Place 1 in Cell C8. Insert 2 into Cell D8 next. Then, choose Cell C8 and Cell D8. Next, slide the Fill Handle tool to the right to add dates up to 30 days in advance.

Insert Sat into Cell C7 now. Insert Sun into Cell D7 next. Then, choose Cell C7 and Cell D7. Then, slide the Fill Handle tool to the right to AutoFill the weeks’ days.

Enter your selected title now. Work Distribution will be typed here. Then, hit ENTER. Then, on the Home tab, pick 14 as the Font Size and click the Bold option to make the text bold.

Then, as titles, we’ll put September and Work Type. First, create a column for each field you wish to include in the timetable. Meeting, Field Visit, Conference, Report Submission and Presentation will be included as Work kinds in Cell range B9:B13.

Now we will place a checkmark next to a certain Work Type on a specific date. To do so, navigate to Insert >> Symbol.

Following that, a Symbol pop-up will appear. Now, Symbols>>Font:Wingdings>>Character code:252>>Insert

Finally, we may change the checkmark’s Fill Color and Font Color to our preference and obtain the final monthly schedule.

Download Practice Workbook

You can download the practice workbook from the following download button.

How to Make a Work Schedule in Excel.xlsx

Conclusion

Follow the above methods and hopefully, you’ll get a proper guideline on how to make a work schedule in Excel. You are welcome to download the workbook and use it for your own practice. If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, please leave them in the comments section.

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