Tutorial-How to generate S curve/histogram from Primavera, P6 - Part I

The following steps should be done before S curve is generated.

1. Establish WBS
2. Adding activities, Activity codes, Activity sequencing
3. Define resource dictionary
4. Assign activity resource and budgeted man hour
5. Save as a baseline schedule
6. Record the actual status when the actual works are done and schedule it based on report date

Plan data can be produced if the steps 1 to 5 are done. The Actual data can also be exported if all the steps are done. Suppose you have already done all these steps as we are learning how to generate S-curve/ Histogram chart from P6 in this post.

There is more than one method to generate the time-based S curve and histogram chart from P6. The related posts you might be interested are How to Get Resource Loading Histogram/S Curve in Primavera P6 and Creating discipline wise manpower histogram using Primavera P6 export data.

This post demonstrates how these curves are produced by using Excel export data from Primavera, P6. Use the following procedures;

• Open the Assignment window
• Bring out the columns that you want to export to excel
• Group/Organize the column data
• Set the Timescale format
• Export to Excel

Open the "Assignment" window

You must be at resource assignment window when you are preparing to export S curve/histogram data to excel. To view "Assignment" window

1. Open the selected project
2. On the menu bar, go to View >> Toolbars >> Directory to see “Assignments” tag

3. Click on Assignments tap, then you will see “Resource Assignments” window

Bring out the Columns that you want to export to excel

The first thing you need to find out yourself is which columns are required to be reported and how do you want to analyze the data after exported. Suppose you want to view Overall Budgeted Units and Actual Units that can be used to analyze overall progress. 

And you might need to look at spreadsheet information such as Cum Budged Units and Actual Units in order to analyze periodic data (i.e weekly budgeted unit, weekly actual units, weekly manpower, etc). That means Cum Budgeted Units and Actual Units from the Spreadsheet Fields are also displayed to calculate weekly or monthly progress S curve/histogram data.

To View Overall Budgeted Units and Actual Units Columns

1. Go to View on the menu bar >> Columns >> Customize.

2. And then you will see the Columns window. In the selected options box, Activity ID, Activity Name, Resource ID Name, Start and Finish columns are shown by default.

3. Select Actual Units and Budgeted Units from units group in the available options box, then click the forward arrow diagram to show actual units and budgeted units as shown in figure below.

4. After Actual and Budgeted Units are selected, hide Start and Finish by clicking backward arrow if you don't want to see it. And Click OK  Then resource assignments window can be viewed as shown in figure below.

Continue Reading Tutorial-How to generate S curve/histogram from Primavera, P6 - Part II