If you do a quick google on keywords <Primavera calendars change>, you’ll end up with quite a few results that show you how to use Primavera’s Fill-Down feature to change the activity calendar of all the activities in a project.

But I think the fill-down piece is only the first step in changing activity calendars.

What about durations?

Changing an activity’s calendar in Primavera can alter the activity’s duration.

Primavera Calendars change Activity Durations

I wanted to demonstrate how to get around this problem with a Primavera calendar change and changing durations.

In the video tutorial below, I’ll show you an alternative to using fill-down – so you can change your activity calendars AND keep your durations unchanged.

Have your say

How did this tutorial help? What other issues arise when working with Primavera calendars and durations? Leave us a comment and join the conversation.

The new version of Primavera P6, r8.3, has been released recently, and one of the new features is a stand-alone software, called the Primavera P6 Visualizer. This software provides you with a visual, read-only version of the plans you’ve stored in the P6 database.

The Primavera P6 Visualizer is a good choice for those team members who are not supposed to change anything in plans, but need to review them. You won’t need to worry about software capabilities of those team members, because working with Primavera P6 Visualizer is rather easy, and you can also customize it for them, so that they can easily open and explore the plans even without setting up anything themselves.

Good news is that the settings you create in one computer, which are all contained in “layouts”, are stored in the Primavera P6 database, so you can access them in every computer connected to the same database. It’s even possible to only install Primavera P6 Visualizer in a specific computer, without Primavera P6 Professional.

Now let’s take a quick look at P6 Visualizer.

Installing the Primavera P6 Visualizer

If you don’t have a copy of the latest version of Primavera P6, goto edelivery.oracle.com, and download it. The process is simple: you create a free account, read and accept the user agreement, and download a free, full-functional, not-limited version of the software, for your non-commercial use. If you’d like to use it in your real-world projects, you should ask your responsible department to obtain a license and install it.

Once you have the installer, it’s easy and straightforward to install the software. If you’re going to use it on a single computer, you should choose the Stand Alone option in the installation wizard; by this, the P6 Visualizer along with P6 Professional will be installed on your computer, and you can start using it right away.

If you are using it in an enterprise environment, you should choose the Server option. Aterwards, you can choose between the full installation, or a P6 Visualizer only installation.

Opening Primavera P6 Visualizer

The Primavera P6 Visualizer is a stand-alone tool. You can run it like any other software from the Windows Start Menu, a shortcut, etc.

You can also click on Tools | Visualize inside P6 Professional, and it will run the software.

The Primavera P6 Visualizer should connect to your server, and this needs authentication. When you run it from inside the P6 Professional, the same username and password that you’ve entered when you were opening P6 Professional will be sent to P6 Visualizer, and you won’t need to enter it again; the main window of the software will be opened instantly.

If you run it from outside the P6 Professional though, a dialog box will appear, asking you for your username and password.

The main window will be available after you log in with your username and password. That is the same username and password you use in P6 Professional.

The same privileges, user preferences, and admin preferences that are assigned to your account, will govern your P6 Visualizer, the same as P6 Professional.

Opening a Project in Primavera P6 Visualizer

Once you’re logged into the server, you can access all the projects that are available to your user account in P6 Professional. In order to open an existing project, we can click on the plus sign at the top of the Visualizer window.

This will provide us with two options: TSLD and Gantt.

Gantt option will create a normal Gantt view of our project. TSLD stands for Timescaled Logic Diagram, and it’s a similar diagram, that doesn’t show the left-side table of activities (called Grid in P6 Visualizer), and it’s capable of showing sequential activities in a single row. You, as a planner, are probable not to like TSLDs so much, but many managers prefer this kind of presentation.

By choosing either of the two options, the similar dialog box shown in the figure bellow will be opened.

It’s time to choose the project(s). The list on the left side of the dialog box shows the projects in their hierarchy, EPS. Open the EPS and find the project(s) you want to visualize, and then click on the left-to-right arrow to add it to the list on the right side. You can choose one or more projects. However, there’s only one visualized presentation open in any given time, and if you want to open another project or another set of projects, you should close the previous one.

When we’re done choosing the project(s), we can click on the Next button. This will open the next step of the wizard, as is shown in the following figure.

There are lots of settings involved in any visualization; all settings are stored in a layout, and all layouts are saved in the P6 database. There are three kinds of layouts:

• Global: available to all users
• Project: only available to this specific project
• User: only available to the current user

And of course, you need respective privileges to create non user layouts.
There are two previously created layouts in our sample, both of which are of User type; that’s why it shows “User (2 items)” in the previous figure.

We’re going to enter a name for the layout (“test” in our sample), and select Create New option, to create a new layout with default settings. We can click on Draw button, and the visualization will be available.

This is a TSLD of a sample project. The next figure shows the same project in Primavera P6 Professional.

As you can see, some activities are shown in the same row.

There are lots of formatting options available (that will be stored in the layout). E.g. we can change the formatting of bars.

Let’s increase the height of the bar of the critical activities, to create a more common view. To do so, we can click on Options, and choose Bars & Labels tab in the options window.

The list on the left side of the window shows all the bar types. When we click on Critical Remaining Work, the options for this bar type will be available on the right side of the window, and a preview will be shown in the middle.

Let’s scroll down the window and find Height option. This has a value of 5 at present. Other bars have a value of 15, and we’re going to enter the same value for this particular bar, followed by clicking on Draw & Save. The next figure shows the result.

This setting is saved in our layout, which was named “test”. We can use this layout in future, and the same settings will be applied.

Saving a Layout in Primavera P6 Visualizer

You cannot edit projects in Primavera P6 Visualizer; it’s only used for viewing the projects. The only thing we can save here is the layout, which is a collection of visual settings.

We can click on Save As button, on the upper right corner of the window, and the following dialog box will be opened:

We can enter the name and choose the category. The category actually determines the availability of the layout to other projects and other users; the three options of Global, Project, and User, which were explained in the beginning of this article.

Opening a Project, Using an Existing Layout

There are two ways of opening a project:

• Clicking on the plus sign, on the top of the window: this will open the project and creates a new layout for it (the method described earlier in this article). This new layout can be a duplicate of an existing one, or based on defaults.
• Clicking on the folder sign, on the top of the window: this will open the project using one of the existing layouts, without creating a new one.

So, we’ll be using the folder sign more frequently than the plus sign, because we prefer to create a number of layouts and use them all the time, rather than creating a layout each time. However, you can still edit and save the layouts when you use the folder sign to open the project with an existing layout.

When we click on the icon, a dialog box appears, asks for project(s) to be opened, asks for the layout, and creates the output.

Editing a Layout in Primavera P6 Visualizer

There are lots of options available in Primavera P6 Visualizer, and you can certainly deal with them easily, based on your experience in Primavera P6 Professional. We’re only going to mention the zoom option, which is specific to Primavera P6 Visualizer.
Primavera P6 Visualizer uses a timescale similar to the one in Primavera P6 Professional. However, we can choose a period of time, and visualize it with a different scale right inside the normal timescale. This feature can be handy; e.g. we can display the whole project in months, and display the coming week(s) in days inside the whole timescale.

Let’s click on Options button on the upper right corner of the window, and open Timescale tab of the options window.

There’s a sub-tab inside Timescale tab, called Primary, which shows settings used to display the main timescale. Now we can click on the plus sign next to Primary tab, to create our first zoom area.

We can set the period in General section, and its different scale in the lower section. Our main timescale is based on years/months in this sample, so we’re going to choose months/days for this zoom area. We’ll choose another color for the heading of the timescale, to make the difference more visible and outstanding.

Just be careful with this zoom option; it can easily lead to misunderstandings if the zoom area is not visually differentiated from the normal timescale. A good use of vertical lines, as in the previous figure, is probably the best solution.
Other tabs in Options window provide you with settings for:

• Bar types, including labels
• Lines used to show relationships, connections, data date, and activity groups
• Group and sort
• Filter
• Page setup (of course you can print layouts or make PDFs from them)

Automating Primavera P6 Visualizer

Another interesting feature of Primavera P6 Visualizer is that it accepts command line parameters needed for printing the layouts or creating PDFs. This enables a lot of automation options for us.

You can create a batch file, containing the input parameters. Whenever you run this batch file, the output will be produced without any interactions with the user. You can also use Windows Task Scheduler to run this batch file in specific intervals/times.

These are the parameters you can use (they are case-sensitive):

• username: the username of your account
• password (optional): the password of your account
• alias (optional): the database alias; the last accessed alias will be used if none entered
• actionScript: the path and name of the an XML file, containing the main settings
• logfile (optional): the path and name of a log file, which will contain the result of running the batch file
• language (optional): the language!

for example:
Primavera.Visualizer.exe /username=nader /password=nadpass /actionScript=c:\actions.xml

You should replace all values with your own specific ones. This command is based on the assumption that the batch file and the ActionScript are both stored in the same folder as the P6 Visualizer; you should add their paths before the filenames otherwise.

As long as you need to enter your username and password in an unprotected batch file, it’s a good idea to ask your system administrator to secure the folder that contains this file.

The inputs needed for an automated script is too much for a simple command line; therefore, it’s designed to accept them in an XML file. This file is addressed in ActionScript parameter in command line.

The following code displays a sample ActionScript file:

<actions>
<action>
Parameters for the first action should be here
</action>
<action>
Parameters for the second action should be here
</action>
<action>
Parameters for the third action should be here
</action>
</actions>

You can have one or more action tags in a single ActionScript. Each action opens one or more files in a pre-existing layout, and prints them.

These are the tags required for each action:

<action>
<reportType>TSLDReport</reportType>
<reportCategory>Global</repostCategory>
<reportName>test</reportName>
<projects>
<projectId>sample1</projectId>
<projectId>sample2</projectId>
</projects>
<outputType>ToPrinter</outputType>
<outputName>p1200</outputName>
</action>


Be careful with tag names; they are all case-sensitive.

This ActionScript opens two projects, named sample1 and sample2, with a global layout named test, and sends the output to an imaginary printer named p1200. When you run the batch file for this ActionScript, P6 Visualizer will run in the background, and your printer starts printing the output.

These are the ActionScript tags, and their explanations:

• reportType: it determines the type of report; TSLDReport for TSLD and GanttReport for Gantt charts.
• reportCategory: you should enter the category of the layout you’ve planned to use here; values are Global, Project, and User.
• reportName: and this is the name of the layout.
• projectId: you can enter as many projects as you wish, each inside a projectId tag. Enter the ID of the project here.
• outputType: there are two options available; ToPrinter, which sends the output to a printer installed in your computer (including virtual PDF printers), and ToXPS, to create an image file of type XPS.
• outputName: you should specify the name of the printer, or path and filename for the XPS output in this tag.

If you’re not comfortable with batch files and XMLs, just ask your IT department to do it for you. They don’t need to know how P6 works; the short explanation in this part of the article is enough for them.

Summary

Primavera P6 Visualizer, the new stand-alone software from Oracle Primavera P6 collection, is a useful tool for two purposes:

• Being an easy way of viewing and exploring schedules for non-planners
• Being a new way of presenting and printing schedules, when you’re going to hand them in to managers

You can set up your desired layouts, make them global, and use them in as many computers as you wish. These computers only need a connection to your Primavera P6 database, and a working Primavera P6 Visualizer; there’s even no need to install Primavera P6 Professional. Primavera P6 Visualizer provides users with a simple, read-only presentation of the schedules, and there’s nothing they can mess up.

Finally, you can automate the reporting process by using Windows Task Scheduler, a batch file, and an ActionScript.

Have your say

What are your thoughts on Primavera P6 Visualizer? Is this a worthy enhancement to Primavera P6? Will you use it? Will you not? Leave us your thoughts in the comments.

In the third part of our Primavera P6 databases and data cleansing series, we will show how to use the parser to clean an xer file.  But if you haven’t read them go back and read:

• Part 1: 6 Ways to Clean Up Your Primavera Database Nightmare
• Part 2: Understanding Primavera XER Files

Cleaning an XER File for Import

NOTICE: the Primavera XER File Parser is not an officially supported utility. It may:

1. Be prone to errors
2. Break your XER files.
3. Cause other problem you or we didn’t even think about

Use it at your own risk. Make lots of backups.

Altering or Removing An XER’s Activity codes

Important notes about Activity codes in P6 :

• The EPS activity codes need to exist in the database before you can import them, and they need to be defined in parent node where you are going to import your project, otherwise they will not be imported.
• There is no way to import EPS activity codes with a project unless you use the parser, or other tools like XER Manager.
• Using P6, Global activity codes can be changed to project activity codes by copying the code and re-assigning them to activities – (a lot of work!) – OR you can do that in the parser by changing one line – handy!

We create a test project with three tasks; every task was assigned Global code, Project code and EPS codes.

In the XER file, three tables are related to activity codes.
ACTVTYPE : Activity codes
ACTVCODE: Activity code values
TASKACTV: Activity codes assigned to activities

1) Click on Project

2) Note here the Project_id is 3734. Click on ACTVTYPE.

What can you change?

Now you can change the activity code type.As an example, we will change

Test1 from global to project

3) Assign the Project ID 3734 under Proj_id, and change the AS_Global to AS_Project.

Test2 from EPS to Project

4) Assign the project ID and remove wbs_id, and change from AS_EPS to AS_Project.

You can also remove all Activity Codes by deleting the rows in the table ACTVTYPE.

Altering An XER’s Calendars

• P6 has three different types of calendar; Global, Project and Resource.
• Resources in P6 can be assigned either a Global or a Resource calendar. (Not a Project Calendar).
• If your Project Calendar inherits from the Global Calendar it will be exported too.

In the sample XER we used all the types of calendar to showcase what changes you can do.

Notice here that Project_Calendar_1 inherits holidays from a Global Calendar – Standard 5 Day Workweek.

And here, Project_Calendar_2 does not inherit from a Global Calendar.

A Resource can use either a Global or Resource-specific Calendar.

In the XER file, calendars are recorded in three tables:
Calendar: this is the Calendar Dictionary

TASK : here you can find Calendars assigned to Activities.

RSRC : here you can find Calendars assigned to Resources.

What can you change?

For the calendar is not a simple change of CA_base to CA_Project.

Calendars are complicated data for example:
If a global calendar is assigned to a resource and a task, and you want to change it to project, you have to create another copy of the global calendar as a resource calendar and assign it to the resource.
Project calendars inherit only from the global calendars, so you can not simple chane the global to project.
So I think it is just better to add a prefix to all the calendars to make sure they will not clash with the existing calendars in P6 database and latter manually cleaning them in P6 client.

Or when you import the XER file make sure to change the template to insert new.

Why is this important?

P6 by default keeps the existing calendar, but P6 checks only the calendar name when importing.  In the case where you import a file that has the same name calendar but has different working period or holidays, P6 will assume it is the same and keep the existing, and then you end up with a different schedule.

Obviously don’t uses “Update existing” as it will update existing calendar and affect the existing schedule.

Altering an XER’s Resources

Resource dictionaries are stored in RSRC Table. Notice the resource rates are stored in a separate table RSRCRATE.

What can you change?

It is up to you can add a prefix to the resources and use the default keep existing or use the import option “Insert new”. (But do not use “Update Exiting”.)

Why it is important?

When you import a schedule, P6 will check only against the “rsrc_short_name”, so if the imported schedule use the same short name “ R-2”, but different price per unit, or even the new resource is non labor and the existing is labor P6 will keep the same.

The implication is quite simple: the new imported schedule will have a different total cost.

Altering an XER’s User Defined Fields

If you have to give only one reason to use the Parser, probably it is for the UDF, Planners tend to use a lot of UDF for temporary reason, they can be used as a calculated field in the Global change, and some reason, planners use a lot of different names for the same item, for example for a bill item: Billitem, Pay Item, id, Item_Number.

In the sample XER, there are four UDF, three at the activity level (#Before Start, #Before Finish, Bill Quantity)

And one at the project level (Notes).

In the XER file, UDF are recorded in two tables

UDFTYPE : UDF dictionary

UDFVALUE: UDF assignment

What can you change?

You have many options:

• You can delete UDF that you don’t need ( make sure to delete all the reference in all the tables otherwise you end with orphan records, and the xer will not be imported),
• Add a prefix to those UDF, so they can easily clean them later in the database.
• Map to the existing UDF, ( change the name of the UDF to the existing one in the database)

Altering an XER’s Currencies

P6 export all the currencies in the database even if they are not used by the resources, it make sense to delete those unused currencies. The data is recorded into two tables:

CURRTYPE: currency dictionary

RSRC : Currency used by the resources

The Algerian dinar can be deleted as it is unused

Other Things You Can Alter

For the remaining data type (Expense, Project Codes, Issues, Notebook, etc) have a look at the P6 Database schema documentation , all tables, and tables interdependencies are detailed there.

Wrap Up

What else can be easier than opening a file? We do it every day instinctively, with dozen of documents (word, Excel, pictures …).

P6, as any database application, is different. When you open an XER file; in reality you are importing a huge number of data into your database. If you are a standalone user, that may be not that harmful, but if it is installation shared by other planners, that’s becoming quite dangerous and inconvenient.

The fundamental issue here is that the import of an XER file brings in all sorts of Global data associated with the project you’re importing. What can be worst and a pure waste of time than if someone unintentionally alters that shared calendar or resource price/unit after importing an XER file – and you’re left trying to figure out why your data has changed?

P6 is a power database application, and to maintain your database integrity, and avoid a huge waste of time and money, simple rules apply.

• Implement a draconian security policy and ensure the privilege to import XER is governed by a clear procedure.
• Limited access rights for the users – make different security profiles based on skills, planner, senior planner, etc.

The XER FileParser is a handy tool, but it is manual and complicated as you need to understand how P6 record the data. If you import project occasionally, it is a perfect little utility.  But if you deal with a lot of external schedules, you may have a look at some commercial software that does this process in an automated way. I use XER Manager myself.

Download

Download the XER File Parser Excel utility here:

• P6xerFileParserBuilder.xls - MS Excel 2003 and prior
• xerFileParserBuilder_2007 - MS Excel 2007 and later

In this second part of Primavera P6 databases and data cleansing series, we will discuss the data structure of an XER file, and how the XER File Parser & Builder works. As the XER File Parser is a manual process (it does not honour P6 business rules), it is handy for the user to have a working knowledge of the P6 database. That’s why in this P6 tutorial we will show a general overview of P6′s data structure, and basic concepts in P6′s database management ( tables, fields , primary key).

1) A Quick Understanding of Primavera’s P6 Data Structure

1.1) How is Data stored in the P6 PMDB Database? 

Primavera P6 stores data in a more then 170 tables, every tables contains fields, and every field stores Records.

The tables are referenced to each other by relations between Primary key and foreign Key,

For a description of all the tables check this Primavera documentation , unzip the file, then read the file called PMSchema.html.

Fortunately, you don’t need to understand the relations between all 170 tables (whew!), as in reality there are only around 20 most used tables that you need really to be familiar with.

Calculated Fields are not stored in Primavera’s Database as they are calculated on the fly based on other stored fields. For example, resource spread data are not stored in the database at all (that’s the reason you need the SDK for this).

For illustration only, here an example of a P6 database diagrams (showing only some tables) that illustrates the many interconnections.

NB:  Generated by PL/SQL Developer   (using a demo version)

1.2) An Example – Where Data is Written in the P6 DB

We will a simple example to show how Data you input into P6 client are stored in the database.

Let’s take project codes as an example.

Let’s say you define a new Project Code in P6.  You then define values for your new Project Code.

Now let’s see how P6 stores the data in the database with the help of Excel.

The Project Code definitions are stored in a Table called PCATTYPE. Here’s what that Table looks like.

The Project Code values are stored in a Table called PCATVAL. Here’s what the PCATVAL Table looks like.

The Foreign Key 93 references these values to the same Primary key in the Table  PCATTYPE – which essentially links the Project Code values to their Project Code across tables.

Now if in the XER File Parser you delete the Primary key 93 and you leave it in the table PCATVAL, you will create an orphaned record, and your XER file will be corrupted and cannot be imported. But more on that later.

2) How Primavera P6  Exchanges Data

XER is the most used format to exchange data with other P6 databases, as XML had some limitations ( limited to one project, less data is exported comparing to XER). In version 8.3, those limitation are removed and there are option to change global data attributes including

• Move global codes and calendars to project level.
• Map codes, UDFs, resources and calendars to existing value.

2.1) What is an XER file?

The XER file is one of the formats used by Primavera to exchange schedule data.  It is a CVS type file with TAB as a delimiter. In simple English, it is just a text file with tabular data that you can open and modify in any text editor or program that read a CVS file.

2.2) How to view an XER file using Excel

You can view the content of an XER file using the notepad editor, or better using Excel as it you give a better overview of the data structure.

• Open a new sheet, go to data then get external data from Text, select your xer file then accept all default.

The first row stores the revision of P6 in which the XER was created (7), the date of the export, and the name of the user.

You will notice that the column A has 4 different attributes:

• %T :  Table
• %F :  Field
• %R : Record.
• %E: last row in the XER file.

Now when you filter only %T you will have the list of tables:

2.3) What Data is exported in an XER file? 

When you export a project in a XER file, the data is mapped up to 66 Tables, usually not all the features are used in a P6 a schedule – generally speaking an “average”  XER file has less than 20 Tables. Only the data present in the “Modify Import Configuration” can be exported.

3) The XER File Parser Utility

3.1) What is the XER File Parser? 

The first part of this tutorial was to show that an XER file can be opened and modified by any editor, but it is not the best solution, as the data is combined in one sheet, and it is very easy to make a mistake thus corrupting your xer. Instead Primavera has created a versatile utility (though not well known).

The XER File Parser can be used for many purposes

• To correct a corrupted file, the best known example is an xer file with orphan records, as it can be imported to P6
• Clean an XER file
• Other uses that probably was not intended by the developer (like importing a WBS from Excel)

3.2- How does it work?  

The XER Parser is a VBA macro for Excel that reads an XER file and, based on the values of the first column (%T,%R,%F,%E), will either;

• Generate a summary sheet with all the tables.
• Write every table to a different sheet.  Then eventual after you made any modification, you can build a new xer file.  Notice that the parser will not overwrite the original file.

The other functionally is diagnostic; it performs three tests and generates a report with the result

• Check for null. ( the Primary Key should not be Null)
• Check for duplicates. ( the Primary Key should be unique)
• Cross check for FK ( check the reference PK exist)

Wrap Up

In this part we had a general view of how P6 data store data and how the XER parser & Builder works, in the next series we will show you how to use the parser to clean your xer files (global code to project codes, and how to map UDF etc).

Thing for you to try

Just read P6 database schema and you will see that the data in an xer files in not that complicated to comprehend, you don’t need to be a database administrator but you should at least understand the terminology.

This is the first part in our series on Primavera P6 databases and data cleansing.

Many of you work in Primavera P6 databases that are a complete nightmare – hundreds of global calendars, duplicate resources all over the place, redundant codes and more copies of projects than anyone should ever need in their lifetime. You may act like these don’t bother you, but somehow logging in to P6 in the morning feels sort of like using the restroom at a crowded arena. You do your work, but you want to get out of there as quickly as you can.

Thankfully, I’ve got a few ways you can use immediately to start taking back control to get your database looking spiffy and new again.  Here goes.

Clean it up!

Duh! You saw that one coming.

Seriously, take 30 minutes with a co-worker and go through your P6 database to identify: old data to keep, data no longer in use, redundant data, unknown or mystery data.

I guarantee those 30 minutes will be the most productive you’ve had all week!

Then make a decision: export it,  delete it, or archive it.

I guarantee those 30 minutes will be the most productive you’ve had all week! Because cleaning things up simplifies them and calms the mind. The next time you log in, you’ll be able to get around much faster and easier. Just do it!

Stop Making Everything Global!

Say it with me …. “I will stop making everything Global. I will stop making everything Global. I will….”

You get the point.

Use P6′s ability to store data inside a project. Items to focus on: Global Calendars, Activity Codes, Global Layouts.

These 3 data objects hardly ever get created as “Project” objects when in a lot of cases they could. Look at your current project or the last project you completed. Could those Calendars you created have been Project Calendars? You can easily keep your db’s Global objects list lean by creating objects as local to a project.

Kill Your Primavera Super-Users

Yes, kill them.

Open Admin -> Users and terminate them…..their access, that is. Oh no guys! Come on… I’m just being dramatic!

If you have more than 2 Super-Users, then I know why your db is nightmare…

But seriously, severely demote their access, <but don’t tell them>. When they come knocking, blame it on IT and a recent Sarbanes-Oxley security audit.

If you have more than 2 Super-Users, then I know why your db is nightmare….ready? ….because Super-Users create anything they want, whenever they want it.

Identify one Administrator and one backup Administrator. Make these folks your gatekeepers and your data integrity managers.

Why would you make everyone in your company a Windows Domain Adminstrator? Same thing goes for P6.

Have Somewhere To Play

Saunter up to your friendliest neighbourhood Database Administrator, and have them make a copy of your Production database

(pssst….they usually like chocolate or cola.

FYI if you want this done in less than 3 weeks).

Christen it your SANDBOX – a place to create any projects you like, copy projects to your hearts content and generally make a mess….

…so you don’t make a mess of your Production database.

A Sandbox database is the best planning playground you could ever imagine!

Use it for training new users, doing scenarios and previewing XERs from other companies.

Get Implementation Help

Curious Question: If you were in charge of getting a new accounting system set up for your company, would you install it, login as the administrator and start logging expense transactions (all of this in the span of say, 15 minutes)?

No, you wouldn’t.

You’d take some time to plan your set up before you started booking expenses. You’d ask: What accounts should be setup? What invoice templates? What workflow would be best? Who should have access to what parts of the software?

So why do this with Primavera when it’s clearly an Enterprise project planning tool. (keyword: Enterprise)

You wouldn’t set up an Enterprise accounting system in 20 minutes and start logging expenses… so why do the same thing with your Enterprise project management system?

Many organizations install P6 and start planning right away, hoping to take advantage of the powerful features of the software, but with no thought into a proper setup of:

• P6 security and permissions
• all Global data (Calendars, Activity Codes, EPS, OBS, Project Codes, Cost Accounts, Roles, etc.)
• project archive
• reports
• workflow

A proper implementation of P6, like the ones I do with small to medium-sized companies everyday, would cover the design of these and other important data objects.

AND it would layout a strategy to keep your database organized.

Want implementation help? Contact me.

Don’t Import Directly To Production

The problem with importing XER files from other companies is that their Global data comes along for the ride. Any Calendars, Resources, Codes, etc. used in a project go with the project when it is exported and end up in your database. So global data from other companies’ pollute your P6 database everytime you import an XER file they send you.

This is the biggest reason P6 databases become a data-entangled nightmarish mess!

Remember that Sandbox database you were going to setup? This is where it becomes invaluable.

Import your XERs to your Sandbox database, cleanse the imported project’s associated global data, then re-export and import to your Production db.

It sounds like a lot of work but you can automate this process with tools like XER Manager or even using Global Changes.

What Next?

Try at least one of the suggestions above and I’m sure you’ll be taking proper steps in the right direction.

Stay tuned this series on Primavera P6 databases and a data cleansing as we’ve got more great tutorials to share on this topic.

This week we’re starting a new Discussion feature on PlannerTuts.  Each week we’ll be kicking off a discussion that is insightful or particularly helpful in the day-to-day world of project controls. Share your opinion, add your thoughts to these debates.

We all have smartphones and there are hundreds of thousands of apps out there. But are we ready to update our project schedules through an app or not?

Primavera released an iPhone app about a year ago with little or no fanfare. P6 TeamMember (iOS only) is freely available in iTunes. But it’s not exactly plug-and-play as there’s a lot of background infrastructure that needs to be in place at your company before you can use it – including an install of Primavera P6 EPPM (yes, the web-version of Primavera). We don’t have a sense for how many folks are using it.

We all probably dream of being able to whip out our phones in a meeting, and update our project schedules on the fly with progress. How about doing the same thing while walking a site in the field? The convenience factor is high.

But would a Primavera mobile app help or hinder the project update process? Any mobile app developed will not deliver the full functionality of P6 – Gantt Chart, Resource Usage charts, access to all project activity information and features like scheduling will likely not be available in a smartphone app. So does an App with limited functionality buy you any time-savings at all? Or are you better off in front of P6 to do your updates?

Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments.

Tutorial Files

• Excel Spreadsheet (Excel 2007+): PTuts_Project_Dashboard.xlsm – 1.5Mb

One of our previous site manager told us (the project control team), that if we bring to him another report that have more than 1 page, he will just throw it away (sic), actually managers care only about the big picture, and don’t bother reviewing every small details. The purpose of this tutorial is to create a relatively good looking Excel Project dashboard with the most relevant graphs and indicators on it.

What can P6 Professional do?

Let’s see what P6 offers in this regards (here P6 refer to professional, EPPM has a whole stacks for reporting and dashboarding). P6 has a very rudimentary graphics reports, and the bundled report writer is a limited piece of software, but that’s fine, P6 is scheduling software not a reporting engine.

In that case, we do expect that P6 offer an easy way to query the data from the database, so we can generate all those fancies graph and reports, and that’s the real issue here:

• P6 does not store the period actual progress by default, you have to use store period performance, unfortunately financial periods is defined at the database level, it is not project specific ; for example if you have two different projects with different cut off days, you are out of luck. (Unless you create a different database)
• Even if you want to use the store period performance, when the project progress and the initial quantities changes, and those engineer on site start changing the previous recorded progress, because that supervisor were exaggerating the figures, then maintaining the progress in P6 will be a time and hard consuming task.
• The spread data are not stored in P6 database, they are calculated on the fly by the client software (summaries project work only at the WBS level not the activity level),

So if you are using P6 professional and you need to query the spread data at the activity level, your only solution is to use the SDK, which is a clunky piece of software.  And if you are not an expert on the P6 database schema you may end up corrupting your data. (For the record the API was removed from P6 Professional, it is only available now in P6 EPPM)

What you should Use?

• If you are working with a big contractor, probably you are using a proprietary in-house database to manage progress or EPPM, and you do have access to a all kind of live dashboard reports.  So this tutorial is not only not useful but highly not recommended. I would not imagine the frustration of Project controls manager when their team starts using offline systems
• If you are very comfortable using the P6 SDK, and the limitation of financial period doesn’t particularly bother you then fine, query the data from P6 Professional and use your favourite reporting software to generate your Dashboard ( Crystal reports, Excel, Tableau ….. ).
• If you are not an expert in the P6 database schema, and your project has a lot of quantities revisions, then Excel (if properly used) can be a very good and convenient tool.  Many professional hate it because many planners tend to create very complicated spreadsheets that no one understands except for them.

How the excel Project Dashboard workbook is organized

1. This workbook is not P6 specific, as the actual values per period are store in Excel, you can use any scheduling software you want.
2. The VBA macros are used only to fill down formula.
3. We use ID as a reference here, it can be the schedule Activity ID, or Bill Item ID.
4. We’ve already shown you how to move from Activity ID to Pay Item.

The workbook is organized on 5 sections.

1. Dictionaries: data that you input only once when you start your project (WBS, Non working days, reporting Period, Commodities definition).
2. The project baseline.
3. Progress data: the percent complete of activities and the spent hours by reporting period.
4. Data: it pulls data from the sheets and presents in a database friendly format (values are listed in column, with the first row as header).
5. Output: the Dashboard.

What is inside every tab of the Project Dashboard spreadsheet

WBS

Copy your WBS dictionary here.

WBS_Split

This sheet will use the WBS dictionary to split the WBS by level; it is used for the Actual sheet, as we need to organize the activities by

WBS level

In a previous tutorial, I showed an “ugly” solution how to split the WBS level, but for this tutorial, I am using a much more elegant solution (if you want to see an example of beautiful solution check this one)

Commodities

Here we group the activities by major commodities, if you group Activities they have to share the same Unit of measurement.

Holidays (Optional)

You list all the non working period of your project (weekend, holidays  …); it is used only if you want to create the spread in Excel

Period

Your reporting period, in our case we used Friday as a cut off.

Baseline

We use the planned dates from P6 and the non-working period to generate the planned values spread. It is really useful if your schedule is not resource loaded, or if you want a quick way to have a first look at how the overall curve will look like.
Obviously you can later overwrite those values and use your P6 spread, you need only to normalise your data. (0- 100%).

Spent_Hours

here you input the spent hours (the actual burnt hours by direct labour), notice we record the spent hours at the project level, then we prorate the data based on the progressed activities on the reporting period, it is not very accurate as the best way would be to record at the activity level or at least the commodity level, but getting this kind of information is always “problematic with the field People”

Actual

All the progress figures are input in this sheet.

Suppose you want to update progress for the period 20 Jan 2012,

1. Select 20 Jan 2012 in the drop list menu.
2. Copy and paste the values from the previous period (the actual is cumulative).
3. Update the % complete for every activity that has progress in this period, the % complete is always between 0 and 100 %.
   • The % field is “installed quantities/ Quantities at completion”.
   • The quantities at completion are your best available estimation at the time of your update. In most cases the initial quantities in the BOQ are just estimation and have to be updated once the work has started.
   • It make sense once the activity is 100 %, the quantity at completion is frozen.
4. Select if the earned value is based on the current quantities or the Baseline Quantities, notice the planned values are always based on the baseline.
   • Although the Overall percent completed based on the current is more accurate, many clients prefer to use the original baseline quantities unless they release a new revision.
   • Note: the overall percent complete is a subjective figure as it depends on the budget quantities, but the installed quantities are a fact and they are independent from the budget.
5. Click on calculate.

Data

All the data from other sheets are grouped here, when you group your data into columns, you can easily and quickly create your reports and charts.

To reduce the size of the excel file, when you close the workbook there is a VBA macro that deletes all the records except the first two rows. (They are generated every time you click on calculate in the “Actual” sheet)

Dashboard

• Overall Progress planned vs. actual.
• Main commodities planned vs. actual.
• Productivity curve.
• Tabular report Progress Planned vs. Actual by WBS.
• Tabular report Quantities Planned vs. Actual by major commodities.

In order to group many reports in one Page, a good trick is to create your reports in a separate tab then copy and paste it on the dashboard using “Paste Picture Link”.

Wrap Up

Although P6 Professional is hugely used planning software, some very important features used daily by planners are missing, the reporting capabilities are very limited, and it is very difficult for the average users to mine P6 database (Especially spread field) to extract useful data.

Recently Oracle has added the extended schema to P6 database but unfortunately it is available only to EPPM users.
the limited functionalities of store period performance, the non ability to define financial period per project  and the complicated use of  SDK ( specially for a production system), all that have an unfortunate result : a very powerful Database with a excellent business rules but limited capability to generates good and useful reports.

I really hope that Oracle continue improving P6 Professional and not concentrating only on EPPM, because there will be always a huge market for standalone users.

Things for you to try

Excel is by far the most used software to manage data, it can save you a lot of hours if automate your workflow, and if you want your complexes spreadsheet to be used and understood by others, you can use very simple steps.

• Separate data from reports.
• Always write your datasets as a database, first row as header and the rest values.
• Add a help section where you document how your formulas work.

Here are some must-know functions to learn if you want to create awesome reports in Excel

• Countif: check if the item is unique (the bill item should be unique).
• VLookup: (even better index/match) to look up values.
• Sumifs: for calculating sum with conditions.
• Offset ( just Google it , it is awesome)
• Named range
• How to record a VBA macro

Today is an exciting day here at PlannerTuts, home of the best Primavera P6 tutorials in town, as we have a really incredible announcement to make.  For many months we’ve been working night and day on developing a service that will help anyone who uses Primavera P6.  And its finally ready to be unveiled.  We hope you can see the possibilities it will open up for become more efficient at planning with Primavera P6 and the time it will save folks looking for answers. It’s called PlannerTuts Premium!

I was so pumped to share this with you, I put together this short video to tell about all about it.

For years I’ve found that truly good resources for project controls and P6 users were simply lacking. That is primarily why I started plannertuts.com. Nowadays there are better resources available and things are changing. But the trouble is that those gems of knowledge are spread out everywhere.  We wanted to pull it all together to give you a single place you could call your Primavera reference library – a place you could rely on for answers and detailed procedures and best practices.  It’s time to stop wasting your precious time.

We’ve been up in a beta launch for a week or two and the feedback from our beta group has been overwhelmingly positive. And we’re committed to our students – we really want to help people.  That’s why you can ask for help in our Forums, request specific tutorials, and track and bookmark your favourite posts. Not only that, we add new fresh content every week! It’s not just for beginners either – just like plannertuts.com, our experts cover topics from beginner to advanced.

As part of our official launch, we’re offering special discounts on pricing until March 15th. Drop by and check out our tutorial listings, find out what a master class is, and browse our ebooks.

Thanks Everyone! We’re hoping you love what you learn here at PlannerTuts and now, PlannerTuts Premium!

Reviewing a recently updated schedule can be a pain for owners or clients who use Primavera P6 and get schedule updates from a 3rd party. On receiving an update, common questions include:

• What actuals data was changed since the last update?
• Were any activities added or deleted and how do I find them?
• Where there any other important changes like calendars, float or even previous actuals?

These are important questions but hard ones to answer easily using Primavera P6 alone.

Let’s look at more realistic scenario.

Let’s assume you work for an owner or for a construction manager. You receive the monthly schedule update as an XER file from the contractor and your job is to review the schedule update and provide comments.

Using Primavera, you could review the critical path but this does not give you the full picture. You don’t know if any new activities were added or deleted. How about schedule review comments from last month, are they included in this update? You can run Claim Digger but Claim Digger produces a lengthy report that is difficult to use without clean-up and reformatting.

The schedule review and documentation of changes requires a streamlined approach. For example duration changes and description changes should be summarized in one report because both a description and original duration change may indicate an activity scope change. It is important to see the added activities with their duration and float values on one report.

A schedule comparison report, comparing the current update to the previous update improves the schedule review process and reduces the review time. It also highlights the problem areas, like the activities that were supposed to start in the update period but didn’t.

Let’s look at some software that makes this process much easier.

Change Inspector is a software package that was designed with these problems in mind. It can compare 2 schedules (MS Project .mpp or Primavera P6 .xer) and provide you with professional-looking reports that easily highlight the important differences.

Change Inspector provides the schedule comparison results in a series of comprehensive and organized reports. With Change Inspector, in few easy steps, a detailed schedule comparison report can be created.

Let’s have a closer look.

Load and Compare two Primavera P6 XER files

Loading up 2 Primavera P6 XER files in Change Inspector is pretty straightforward. This is the first step in generating reports from the tool. Simply browse and select your base and revised XER files, then click the “Import Schedules” button.  And voila, your reports are now only clicks away.

Creating Reports – Added and Deleted Activities Example

Creating comparison reports is easy as well.  Choose the report you want to see from the list on the left of the screen, then click the Create Reports button.

Here are examples of 2 essential reports – Added Activities and Deleted Activities.  The reports for Added Activities and Deleted Activities are essential for identifying newly added activities to a schedule. These can be very handy in understanding if there is a need to re-baseline a schedule as well. With P6 alone, it would be a very manual effort to browse for activities that didn’t exist in the baseline.  P6’s Claim Digger can help, but the output is not very easy to understand.  However, Change Inspector’s output is simple.  You can even set filters on each column to help your analysis.

What reports can I create with Change Inspector?

With Change Inspector you can, at the click of a mouse, create the following reports comparing XER files.

What is a Summary Report?

It’s a time saver. The summary report is an at-a-glance report that tallies up changes from the other reports.  It is probably the first report you want to run where can you see how many activities have been added or deleted or how many had Early Finish Date changes, etc.  I would start with a Summary Report, find out what parts of the schedules have differences, then focus on each part by running a specific report.

But I need nice looking reports that I can show my boss!

Then use the “Export to Excel” or “Print to HTML” features.  Change Inspector allows you to quickly get your data in Excel for more massaging or formatting.  It also generates a very nice HTML report of your data, complete with a table of contents.  Here’s a sample:

Change Inspector reduces the time for reviewing schedule updates saving you time and money. You can always download the 30 day trial version and test it on your project by downloading a copy at www.changeinspector.com

2012 is proving to have set a notch for Primavera books from Packt Publishing. They have released 2 books on Oracle Primavera software in 2012. We have already let you know about the first one – now let’s have a look the second; the first Primavera Contract Manager book ever written (to my knowledge) – Oracle Primavera Contract Management 14, Business Intelligence Publisher Edition v14 by Stephen D. Kelly. Yep, that title is a mouthful!

Synopsis

Well it’s clear from the first dozen pages that Stephen Kelly knows his stuff and has been using Primavera Contract Manager for some time. I quite enjoyed the walk down memory lane that he takes the reader on in the Preface. Included are a smattering of old logos for Primavera Contract Management and an extensive version history.  I appreciated this.

I also appreciated his explanation on the basics of contracts and the need for contract management. His explanation of contract management is simplistic, but not dumbed-down and the pictures are great!

Mr Kelly explains that his book is not an instruction manual, nor step-by-step guide. But rather it a complete high-level overview of Primavera Contract Manager with a focus on how the software can help overcome traditional contract issues. The first part of his book discusses high-level process for good contract management such as:

• How to manage contract information overload
• Spreadsheets and the fallacy that they are good tools for managing contract details
• Overcoming Silos and sharing data
• Proper Data Organization leads to proper understanding

The latter part of Mr. Kelly’s book covers a detailed overview of many PCM modules, including Change Management, Cost Management, Payments, Documents, etc.

Highlights

A few items that stand-out for me on reading Oracle Primavera Contract Management 14, Business Intelligence Publisher Edition v14