How to Modify Activity ID and Name Using Global Change

Global change feature in Primavera P6 helps you to make changes the selected activities or all the activities. Suppose you might want to change its Activity ID and Name (activity description) using Global change as and when required.

In order to demonstrate this tutorial, assume that the following are the existing Activity ID and Name (description).

Activity ID	Activity Name
A1000	New Activity 1 (engineering)
A1010	New Activity 2 (procurement)
A1020	New Activity 3 (construction)
A1030	New Activity 4 (construction)
A1040	New Activity 5 (construction)

To create a Global Change, go to Tools, then select Global Change.

Select New in Global Change Window to get Modify Global Change view
When you are at Modify Global Change window, follow the following steps as indicated in Fig-1.

· Set the Select Subject Area to Activities .

· Name the unit Global Change name.

· Set the filter criteria. This is one of the drivers of the global change. Changes will be made if the criteria are met on the selected activities. See Fig-1, item (3).

 How to Add Activity ID’s Prefix (add characters in front of the Activity ID) in Addition to the Existing ID

=> Click anywhere in this box and add the desired parameter that you want to make changes. Select Activity ID. See Fig-1, item (4).



=> Choose the Custom from the Parameter/Value drop down box if you intend to add the same character to all activities.

=> Choose & (An ampersand) operator to join the (5) and (7). See Fig-1

By choosing "&" operator in the Global Change, P6 would work like Excel. it would concatenate or combine the contents of two cells (Parameter/value in P6).  

To illustrate, let say you want to add “ENG” in front of the existing Activity ID. 

In this case, use the formula below;

Activity ID = ENG & Activity ID (this is for an existing activity) 

Activity ID would be a new activity ID - the combination of 1st and 2nd segment of two value.

ENG  would be the first Parameter/Value - the first segment of Activity ID). This is a prefix that you would put in front of the existing one.  See Fig-2 

=> Choose the User Defined Field that contains the desired characters that you want to add. Suppose you have User Defined Field called “Prefix Code”. In this case, the formula is;

          Activity ID= Prefix Code & Activity ID

See Fig.3

How to Modify Activity ID’s Prefix (change characters of the existing Activity ID)

Suppose you want to replace the first characters of the existing Activity ID with “ENG” to all activities and maintain the four characters of the right side of string.

That means Activity ID A1000 is replaced with ENG1000 without deleting existing activity or adding new activity.

· In this case, choose the Custom in the first Parameter/Value the parameter and replace with “ENG”.

· Then, select {RightString (Parameter, #)} in the second Parameter/Value. That means extracts # (number of characters) from the right side of string.

Type the Activity ID to replace Parameter and the number of character you want to extract. In this tutorial, choose the number of characters to be extracted = 4

See Fig.4



The formula is; Activity ID = ENG & RightString (Activity ID, 4)

See Fig.5




Choose the User Defined Field that contains Prefix Code that you want to replace. The formula is;

Activity ID = Prefix Code & RightString (Activity ID, 4)

See Fig-6




How to Modify Activity ID’s Suffix (change characters of the existing Activity ID)

Suppose you want to replace the last characters of the existing Activity ID with “ENG” to all activities and maintain the four characters of the left side of string. That means Activity ID A1000 is replaced with A100ENG.

· Choose the parameter {LeftString (Parameter, #)} to modify the suffix characters of Activity ID.

· In this case, the formula is Activity ID = LeftString (Activity ID, 4) & ENG

 See Fig-7

· Use the formula Activity ID = LeftString (Activity ID, 4) & UDF (If user defined field is used)

Modify Activity ID (Renumbering with Prefix and Suffix Characters Changes)

Suppose you want to replace the middle characters of the existing Activity ID with “ENG” as Prefix to all activities and maintain the two middle characters beginning from position 3. That means Activity ID A1000 is replaced with ENG00, A1010 is placed with ENG01.

· Choose the parameter {SubString (Parameter, #, #)}
· The following Fig-8 refer to formula ; Activity ID = ENG & SubString (Activity ID, 3,2)

Use the formula Activity ID = SubString (Activity ID, 3, 2) & ENG to replace with “ENG” as suffix.

All of the above methods can also be applied to Activity Name as well. Replace the Activity Name as parameter instead of Activity ID.
After all the parameters setting completed,

· Click “Ok” to exit the Modify Global Change window.

· Select the Global change name, and then click “Apply Change” in Global Change window.

· P6 allows you to preview the changes and ask you to “Commit Changes”, "Cancel Changes” when you click “Apply Change”

· Select the “Commit Changes” to complete the changes.