Primavera P6 Bars Tricks and Traps

Welcome to the Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd Primavera P6 Version 7

TRICKS AND TRAPS PRESENTATION Copyright of Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd

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Purpose of the Presentation ƒ To demonstrate the P6 Version 7 bars functions, and ƒ To suggest some solutions for bar formatting issues. issues

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T i Topics TRICKY P6 FUNCTIONS ƒ

Float on a Completed Activities

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Relationships on a Baseline Bar

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How to Create a Summary Bar

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Negative Float on a Complete Activity

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Why is Negative Float showing when it should not

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Summary Duration Calculations

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Baseline Bar showing when no baseline is set

TECHNIQUES ƒ

B Bars without ith t Successors S are critical iti l

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Multiple Project Float Calculation

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Start or End Float

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Activity Durations with Resources

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FLOAT ON A COMPLETED ACTIVITY ƒ By default a Total Float bar is displayed on a completed task, but the Float value is set to “Null”, this is not logical:

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FLOAT ON A COMPLETED ACTIVITY ƒ To remove this set the filter on the Float Bar in the in the Bars form to be Not Started or In Progress:

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FLOAT ON A COMPLETED ACTIVITY

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RELATIONSHIPS ON A BASELINE BAR ƒ To remove relationships on the Baseline bar, move in to the Baseline bars to the bottom of the Bars form:

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HOW DO YOU CREATE A SUMMARY BAR ƒ To create a new summary bar you will see that you can not select Summary from the filter drop down box:

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HOW DO YOU CREATE A SUMMARY BAR ƒ Open to the Bars form, Bar Settings tab and select Show bar for grouping bands:

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NEGATIVE FLOAT IS SHOWING WHEN IT SOULD NOT ƒ Why do I have one day Negative Float:

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NEGATIVE FLOAT SHOULD NOT BE SHOWING ƒ Al Always show h th the time ti when h scheduling h d li as P6 does d nott have a default start or finish time and often selects 00:00 as the time when setting actuals or constraints:

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A GAP BETWEEN THE DATA DATE AND ACTIVITY BAR ƒ

When an activity is complete the Early Start and Early Finish are set to the Data Date, 12 Oct at g , NOT to the Actual Start as in many y other midnight, products,

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When an activity is in progress the Early Start is set to the Activity calendar Start Date and Time NOT to the Actual Start as in many other products.

ƒ To p prevent this stet the Data Date to the Activity y Calendar Start Date:

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HOW DO SUMMARY DURATIONS CALCULATE ƒ What Bars are these?

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Database Default Calendar Calendar, WBS and Project Durations – Version 6.2 & Earlier ƒ Th The d durations ti off all ll bands b d such h as P Project, j t WBS, WBS and d Resources are calculated from: ƒ The Database Default Calendar and ƒ The Hours/Day setting in the Edit, User Preferences…, Time Units tab.

ƒ The following picture show the duration of the workshop used in this publication set at firstly 5 days per week, pe ee , 8 hours ou s per pe day and a d a duration du at o of o 35 days with an Hours/Day setting of 8 hours.

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Database Default Calendar Calendar, WBS and Project Durations – Version 6.2 & Earlier ƒ N Now with ith the th Default D f lt Calendar C l d changed h d tto a 7 day/week 24 hour per day the duration of 139 days is clearly misleading,

ƒ The duration of the Project Summary WBS Nodes are also clearly misleading, the Research Node is not 31 days long.

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Database Default Calendar Calendar, WBS and Project Durations – Version 6.2 & Earlier ƒ There are some issues that need to be carefully considered when planning and controlling multiple projects with different calendars in one database when the correct durations in days are important, important ƒ Primavera performs best when the all calendars in all the p projects j are set with the same hours p per day, y, ƒ If this is not possible you may consider: ƒ Showing g durations in hours only, y, ƒ Creating a separate database for projects that require a different hours per day, ƒ Not displaying the durations against Project nodes, WBS nodes and any other summary nodes by not checking the Show Group Totals in the Group and Sort form, ƒ Create a global change to put the correct duration in a text field. Page 16

Calculation C l l ti off Activity A ti it Duration D ti in i Days – Version 7 ƒ In earlier version of P6 the calculation of the durations in hours for all calendars was set either by the Administrator in Admin,, Admin Preferences…,, Time Periods tab or by the User in the Edit, User Preferences…, Time Units tab. ƒ Primavera Version 7 has h removed d these h two options above and has created of a new calendar function for each titled Hours per Time Period:

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Calculation C l l ti off Activity A ti it Duration D ti in i Days – Version 7 ƒ The picture below has the Project Default calendar set as the 8hr/d & 5d/w and the picture shows that when the calendars are different then the Project j Default calendar is used to calculate the summary duration for WBS Nodes, Projects etc:

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A BASELINE BAR IS DISPLAYED WHEN NO BASELINE SET ƒ This issue is due to the planned dates

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Pl Planned d Dates D t ƒ The Planned Dates are very complex and their calculation l l ti method th d iis outlined tli d in i the th book, b k iin summary: ƒ When an activity is Complete or In-progress In progress they match the status of the schedule before the last update, p ƒ When an activity has Not Started they match the Early Start and Early Finish.

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Pl Planned d Dates D t Issues I ƒ The Planned Dates are dates that most schedulers would not want displayed, ƒ These dates are displayed as the Project Baseline bars and Primary User Baseline bars when no baseline has been assigned, ƒ You must be sure that all users set their Primary User Baseline baselines before they display the bars. bars

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BARS WITHOUT SUCCESSORS ARE CRITICAL ƒ This is useful if you have not complete a schedule and need to present it but do not want to show all the l long float fl t b bars when h th the schedule h d l h has nott had h d all ll the th successors added:

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Scheduling S h d li O Options ti – Make M k Open O Ends Critical

Bar Refaeli

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Make Open-ended Activities Critical ƒ Activities without a successor as displayed as critical when they have float float, this option makes the Late Dates equal the Early Dates when an activity has no successor. ƒ Open-ends Not Critical:

ƒ Open-ends Critical:

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Calculate C l l t float fl t based b d on finish fi i h date of New to Primavera Version 6.2: ƒ Each project ƒ Opened projects

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Compute Total Float as There are three options for this calculation: ƒ Start Float = Late Start – Early Start

ƒ Finish Float = Late Finish – Early Finish

ƒ Smallest of Start Float and Finish Float ƒ Note: It can be seen from the p pictures above that the Total Float bar only displays the Finish Float. Page 26

Drive activity dates by default ƒ When this option p is switched OFF it is p possible for a resource to calculate outside the activity duration, ƒ When it is switched ON the resource durations are li k d tto the linked th activity ti it duration: d ti

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Activity Durations ƒ An Activity Duration is adopted from the longest R Resource D Duration, ti ƒ When more than one Resource has been assigned to an activity with different Units and/or Units/Time, Units/Time the Resources many have different durations, ƒ In the following example the Activity Duration is 10 days, which is calculated from David William’s Resource Original Duration of 10 days:

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Resource Lag ƒ A Resource may be assigned a Lag, the duration from the start of the activity to the point at which the Resource commences work, ƒ In the following example the Activity Duration is 12 days, which is calculated from Angela Lowe’s Resource Original Lag of 7 days and Resource O i i l Duration Original D ti off 5 days: d

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COST MANAGEMENT USING WBS ACTIVITIES AND EXPENSES ƒ P6 was developed without the ability to catch and collect costs at WBS Node, ƒ Many software packages do collect costs at WBS Node which includes SAP, ƒ This section will outline how one can use WBS Activities and Expenses to manage costs collected by another system and imported into P6.

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Set Up the User Definable Fields In order to import cost at WBS Node I suggest: ƒ Create a WBS Activity in WBS Node to manage costs. ƒ Assign Costs to Expenses, Expenses then you will not run into issues such as the Cost zeroing out when the Remaining Duration equals Zero as may happen with resources. ƒ P6 Expenses only have Budget, Actual, Remaining and At Completion cost fields. fields ƒ Costs have a number of elements, including Budget, Committed, Received, Q Quality y Checked, Invoices, Outstanding Commitment against contracts and orders, Unallocated WBS funds (Remaining Contingency). Page 31

Set Up the User Definable Fields – continued…. To manage these cost fields: ƒ Set up Expense User Definable Fields to import the costs into. into ƒ Costs in the Expense User Definable Fields may then be Global Changed g into the appropriate pp p Expense p field for reporting and comparing to the Baseline. ƒ Set up Activity User Definable Fields to import the costs into i to display di l the h costs in i columns l as Expense E User Definable Fields may not be displayed in Gant chart columns. ƒ Both the Expense User Definable Fields and the Activity User Definable Fields are identical and the costs end up in three places places, Expense Costs Costs, Expense User Definable Fields and Page 32

Set Up the User Definable Fields – continued…. All the following fields contain the same costs: ƒ Expense User Definable Fields which hold all the different types of costs and are used to import costs into. ƒ Expense p Costs fields which are p populated p by ya Global Change from the Expense User Definable Fields ƒ A Activity i i User U Definable D fi bl Fields Fi ld allowing ll i costs to be b show in Gantt Chart Columns.

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Set Up the User Definable Fields – continued…. ƒ Set S t up User U Definable D fi bl Fields Fi ld as per below, b l ƒ The Activity and Expense are identical, ƒ Th The “PO” prefix fi k keeps th the order d iin th the database d t b and d keeps the fields together.

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Set Up the User Definable Fields – continued…. All the following fields contain the same costs: ƒ Expense User Definable Fields which hold all the different types of costs and are used to import costs into. ƒ Expense p Costs fields which are p populated p by ya Global Change from the Expense User Definable Fields ƒ A Activity i i User U Definable D fi bl Fields Fi ld allowing ll i costs to be b show in Gantt Chart Columns.

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Assign Expenses ƒ Assign Expenses against the WBS Activities with their Budget and At Completion Costs, ƒ Baseline the project, ƒ Update the Activities.

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E Export the h UDS Fields Fi ld to Excel E l ƒ Export the Activity and Expense UDF Fields to Excel to be populated and import, create a template as per below, ƒ Filter just on WBS Activities:

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Update the Spread Sheet & Import ƒ The Activity and Expenses Spread Sheet will both have exactly the same fields, ƒ Populate one TASK sheet and Copy & Paste to the PROJCOST sheet, ƒ Import the data:

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R i Review Data D t ƒ Review the data, the costs should be assigned against th Activity the A ti it UDFs UDF and d the th Expense E UDFs: UDF

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Global Gl b l Ch Change UDF into i t Expense E Columns ƒ Depending on what cost you want put where run a Global Change like the one below:

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Review Data ƒ The UDF Values for Activities and Expenses should be the same:

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Presented by Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd S Suppliers li off Primavera P i and d Microsoft Project j books and training material www primavera com au www.primavera.com.au www.eh.com.au Copyright of Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd

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