P6 Filters Most Used in Schedule Reporting (Activity Filtering)-Part2

Prepare Schedule Analysis Filters

Primavera P6 Filters Most Used in Schedule Reporting (Activity Filtering)-Part1 tutorial has been published in the past and we have discussed how to build Lookahead filters. This is the second part that we will discuss on Schedule Analysis Filters.

If you are working on level3 schedule, it involves baseline schedule quality assessment and analysing project status. This can be achieved by using schedule analysis filters also known as schedule review filters. The most common used filers are

(1) Analysing Critical Activity

(2) Combined Filters (existing) to analyse Constraint, Negative Float, In progress and Milestone Critical activities

(3) Analysing Total Floats

(4) Filter for Delayed (Behind Schedule) Activities

(5) Current Milestone Variance against Baseline

(6) No relationship (Broken Logic) Activities

P6 Filters Most Used in Schedule Reporting (Activity Filtering)-Part1

Suppose you are working on a project or maintenance schedule with thousands of activities, then you might want to make the report (layout) for the activities scheduled to start in next 3 weeks, weekly plan(weekly progress status) report, executive summary report, milestone reports, traffic-light report, and schedule analysis reports and so on. You can set the criteria that determine which activities in P6 displays in the layout or project report. With the combination of filters criteria and grouping activity column, you can make customized layouts (reports) for your team. 

The most used filters in schedule reporting and activity filtering are

(1) Lookahead filters

(2) Schedule Analysis Filters

(3) Activity Name & ID Filters

(4) Resource Filters

3 Ways to View Activity Count Tutorial for P6

There are three easy ways to count the number of activities in P6, whether you are curious to know the total activities for the entire project or the total number of activities for individual WBS, Activity Code and filter results.  You should be able to answer the following questions if you know how to count the number of project activities,

(1) Total project activities

(2) Total activity count by WBS or Activity Code ( e.g. total engineering activity, procurement activity and construction activity)

(3) Total activity with constraints

(4) Total activity with the external link

(5) Total major milestones out of overall activities

(6) Total activities with broken logic (e.g. no predecessor, no successor)

How to Show Baseline vs Current Project on P6 Gantt Chart

A tutorial on how to maintain and assign baseline for Primavera P6 has been published on last week. After a baseline is saved, you should be able to see baseline bar against current project bars if your activity layout setting is right.

This tutorial covers how to show primary baseline bar, project baseline bar against the current project status bar as well as progress line. Project team member can view project performance very quickly and easily against the original baseline by reviewing graphical Gantt chart that shows baseline and current project bars.

In case you are facing difficulty in showing baseline bar, then follow the following steps.

Check why baseline bar is not showing, 

First of all, open a project, and then open the default layout named “Classic WBS layout”.

How to fix the problem – Baseline Changes with the Data Date changes

This post is especially meant for beginner P6 users. Some of our readers shared they can’t fix the baseline to stay on the original planned data. The baseline dates move every time whenever the data date is changed.

This is because you has not defined the Project Baseline. 

A quick way to check whether you have defined a baseline for P6 is,

Open your project, then go to “Project” on menu bar, then select “Assign Baselines” tag. See below.

Sample P6 Schedule Layout for Top 3 Float Paths

Once a suitable network has been developed, with duration and resources assigned to all activities, it is necessary to review the longest path through the project before baseline schedule is established. Scheduling Software will simply tell you where the longest path or critical paths are. Normally, a critical path should be extended from the beginning to the end of a project. Review the longest path or critical path(s) using float path layout and validate those activities on critical paths with project team to ensure it makes sense to them.

It is not easy to analyse critical path activities in case you have more than three thousand activities in your project. By having float path layout, the most critical activities or nearly critical activities can be easily reviewed to identify high risk activities when schedule risks are assessed.

When the project is underway, these activities can be thoroughly reviewed with the contractor and prioritized to take corrective action as defined using this float path layout. As this layout is important, especially for the project management team, it may be used as part of the monthly or fortnightly report.

How to Constraint A Schedule Wisely

Many of us use constraints which impost a date on finish or start of an activity/milestone especially on major event (i.e. equipment delivery date, subcontractor’s foundation completion date, contract award date, project completion date, etc. ) in schedule as Primavera P6 schedule date might be changing whenever we schedule. And it is not feasible to readjust those date changes again and again. In some cases, we might use hard constraints (e.g. Mandatory Finish) to monitor the dead line date as soft constraints (e.g. Start on or After, Finish on or After, etc.) don’t hold the dead line date.

But! There might be a problem when hard constraint (inflexible constraint) is used in the schedule.

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

Beginners' Tips for Customizing Activity Layout in P6

The schedule bar chart is a key to your team. Creating a user-friendly schedule layout that is readable and easily understandable for the users is one of the main tasks of planning, scheduling, and project controls professionals. Hundreds of layouts can be made depending on recipients’ requirements by changing the appearance of the schedule bar chart. You may wish to highlight the significant activities for your team or show some activities to stand out among the busiest activities by customizing bar chart appearance.

Changing of bar chart appearance is only made by the bar dialog box and filters. It is the art of changing and customizing bar style, bar color and filter list.

Three things you need to know about the bar chart in order to be mastering in schedule layouts.

(1)    Understand how the existing bars works

(2)    Know how to customize existing bars

(3)    Know how to add the customized new bars

How to Assign Activity Resource and Budgeted Unit in P6

Before new resources are added into P6, the following items are to be considered.

(1)  Define the trade of resource required. For instance, steel erection fitter, 25 tons crane may be required for steel structure erection work. See Steps to Estimate Activity Resource Unit(Budgeted Labor Unit)

 

(2)  Check the contractual working hours per day. For example, according to contract, max working hours per day per man is 10 hours, max working hours per week per man is 54 hours. Update the resource calendar accordingly.

(3)  Current resource availability per trade. For example, 4 Steel erection fitters are available in your project team at the point when schedule is being developed. Hence, Maximum Units/Times = 40 hours/day based on 10 hours per day and 4 men. In other words, 40 hours of work load can be performed by 4 numbers of steel erection fitters in one day.

Schedule Report for Baseline Comparison (Dates and Duration)

The following figure is a simple schedule comparison report for dates and duration that could be used to communicate to your team where your project status is.

How to Use User Defined Date with Customized Bar in P6

User defined date field can play an important part of your schedule reporting and driving your project team. It can be used as early indicator of your project status in order to mitigate potential delay and highlight as early as possible. Suppose you have a project with a fix project completion date that has been agreed with your client. Your team must be working on the particular dates (internal baseline) that have been agreed within your team which is ahead of your client’s completion date.

Your planned dates are earlier as to provide additional floats that can be used to mitigate the residual risks without affecting contract completion date. So you may want to populate user defined dates which are the Target Dates for each task that you have planned based on the client completion date. Once the agreed based line project is developed within your team, populate the user defined dates on each task or some tasks as agreed with project manager. Once the project is progressed, current project performance can be monitored using user defined date by means of schedule bar chart reporting that would bring attention to your project team.

How to Import Activity Resource Data into P6 with Excel

Importing activity resource data with excel spreadsheet is to

(a) To update the Resource Names/ID, Budgeted Units, Max Units/Time and Resource Type which already have in existing project.

(b) To add Resource Names/ID, Budged units, Max Units/Time and Resource type for the new activities do not have resources and budgeted unit.
In order to facilitate the process of importing resources, you need to define necessary resources in Resource dictionary. Activity resources that you are trying to import to P6 should be available in the Resource dictionary. As default, there are 6 activity resource columns in Resource dictionary; Resource ID, Resource Name, Resource Type, Unit of Measure, Primary Role, Default units/time.

Tips and Tricks on Schedule Integrating and Statusing using P6

If you are an owner’s representative planner you may have a difficulty to integrate contractor’s schedules into your integrated schedule. There are two ways of schedule integration; (1) Using Copy and Paste Activities (2) Update to an Existing Project.

Schedule Integration Using Copy and Paste Activities 

Integrating schedule developed by contractors may not be easy if the WBS structures are different from your project. If all the WBS Codes are the same, it can be imported and updated easily. If it doesn't exist, multiple schedules developed and updated by contractors can be integrated into your schedule using copy and paste activities in P6.

Once the project progresses, the new information might be added to contractor’s schedule due to changes of sequences for some reason. It is typical that contractors would issue the revised schedules during project execution. The revised reschedules can also be integrated into your schedule by copying WBS from the contractor’s schedule and pasting into your schedule.

The following diagram shows the process of work flow when multiple schedule are integrated into one. Suppose your schedule containing owner’s activities has been developed (Step-1) and the three contractor schedules required to integrate into your schedule have been issued to you (Step-3).

How to Work with Look-ahead Schedule Using P6

Ideally, you have to report the look-ahead schedules after you've completely satisfied with your estimations and schedules of the project and approved by project manager and/or client, and project started progressing. To be able to communicate the project team what the upcoming activities or next goals are within look ahead period so that the necessary resource planning are done ahead of the planned date, look ahead schedule is deployed in scheduling. It is a tool to help you maintain control of your work and also indicate how importance planning is meeting overall project schedule.

In addition to that, your client may also request to produce the look ahead schedule consist of upcoming activities within the next three weeks, for instance, so that they are aware what and when the necessary actions to be taken (e.g. document review by client, permit approval operation, etc), when would be the interfaces required among the stakeholders, what activities are being done, and what activities/deliverables are expected to be done in next two to three weeks.

Working With Resource Usage Spreadsheet in P6

Resource Usage Spreadsheet View is a quick site for you to see the overview of resource distribution hours or men overtime.

To get there, Go to "Resource Usage Spreadsheet" icon on tool bar or you can find that "View" on menu bar, 

Go to "Show on Bottom", then finally you can see "Resource Usage Spreadsheet".

P6 Spreadsheet view is used for the following application;

1) To analyze the overall resource as well as trade/craft wise allocation periodically and along the schedule frame.

As shown in figure below,

- item (1) represents the resource allocation hours per activity for remaining work.

- Item (2) represents the total resource allocation hours for all activities carried out by each resource (welder in this case) for each period.

- For both items (1) and item (2) are used to analyze the resource availability over periods against the resource assignment for each activity.

How to Import and Export Excel data Activities To/From P6

The import export feature using spreadsheet (XLS) tool can be utilized for the following purposes but are not limited to;

• Assign/change the activity resources to activities
• Assign new activity names and modify the existing ones
• Update physical progress via user define fields to activities
• Assign/modify user define fields to activities
• Import activity codes to activities

Assign activity code via excel using Import/Export Wizard 

To modify or add to the exported sheet containing activity names, WBS code, activity codes and user define fields, and import the data into P6, 

1) Go to File > Export > Select Spreadsheet-(XLS) > Next > Select Activities > Next > mark on export check box > Next > Add > Modify Template

2) Customize the desired columns. For example: To assign activity code “Discipline” into activities, select “Discipline” column into selected options box. Name the template so that you can find it back when you need. See figure below. 

Developing Resource Curve/Progress Curve from P6 Data Using Report Wizard

if you want to get the detailed S curve report and histogram , you have to export it into excel. It is  done with a few clicks using Report Wizard. Report Wizard helps you save your time by creating resource allocation reports for each type of histogram/s curve.

Step to create time based histogram and S-curve

1. Open the selected project.
2. Go to Tools > Report, when you at there, you will see All Reports layout showing all the reports.
3. Look for Report Group: Resource Usage to organize to the newly added report to group in resource usage group so that you can find this report easily when you need.
4. Right click > Add > New Report > Next > Select the “Resources” in the Subject Area box > Select Time Distributed Data check box to see the project data over time frame and click Next .
5. To configure selected subject areas for the required data, select the Resource Name in the columns box, Add filter for current project’s resource as shown in figure below.

How to Get Resource Loading Histogram/S Curve in Primavera P6

The resource histogram allows us to use projected and historical actualized data to trend resource quantities, resource hours and cost in future. It also allows us to determine the potential risks of excessive supply of resources or lack of resource requirement.

This tutorial demonstrates how resources allocation chart (histogram/S curve) is produced in Primavera P6.  Assume that you have done “Assigned activities and Sequenced activities to see resource loading histogram/S curve bar chart in Primavera P6. After assigning and sequencing of activities,

(1) Allocate overall resource and their rated cost
(2) Assign resources in activity detail section and
(3) View resource loading histogram/S curve.

Creating discipline wise manpower histogram using Primavera P6 export data

Procedure for creating discipline/trade wise manpower histogram using P6 export data is similar to the post How to generate S curve/histogram from Primavera, P6 - Part 1 to 3. You should have resource loaded plan to export manpower data from P6 to prepare resource loaded histogram chart. The following steps are a guide to produce manpower histogram;

1. Open the selected project that you need to export data.

2. Select the Assignments tag on the Directory or go to Project on the menu bar , and go to Resource Assignments. You will see then Activity resource columns such as Activity ID, Activity Name, Resource ID Name, Start and Finish by default. There is Remaining Units column in Resource Usage spreadsheet field column by default.

3. As resource name (discipline wise) needs to be shown in Activity resource columns, you need to customize default view. To do so, go to View on the menu bar>>Columns>>Customize.

4. Look for Resource Name in General tag in Available Options box. Select Resource Name into Selected Options box.

5. Select Budgeted Units and Actual Units in the spreadsheet field columns if you want to see budget and actual data. You will get remaining early and late manpower data if select Remaining Earl Units and Late Unit. In this tutorial for instance, I just selected the budgeted units. 

6.To see budgeted units, go to Resource Usage Spreadsheet area and right click>>select Spreadsheet fields>> Select Budgeted Units.

7. To set resource usage hour per period, go to Resource Usage Spreadsheet area and right click>>select Timescale>>select month/week (to show weekly data) from date interval drop down list.

 
8. Go to View>> Group and sort by>> Customize and Select Show Grand Totals  and Show Summaries only tip boxes to see summary data.

9. Go to View>> filters and add the Resource ID names that you want to export data.



10. Make sure the data is organized as you like to display in excel sheet in order to reduce rework after exporting to excel. To do that, stay at the Resource Assignment view, go to View on the menu bar > Group & Sort by > mark on Show Grand Totals and Show Summaries Only boxes just to display overall level and discipline level summary resource data overtime.

11. Finally you will get resource loading data ready to export to excel as shown in figure below. Manpower field names such as Coded welder, Hot Work Sentry, Trade Assistant, Pipe fitter/Boilermaker and Rigger are displayed in the Resource Name column. Man hour distribution data is shown in the resource usage spreadsheet field.

12. To export, go to activity resource assignment area >> select all>>copy and paste to excel. The man hour distribution will vary according to time scale. Suppose if the time scale is set up by (month/week), the data is weekly man hour data. If you want to convert the weekly man-hour to weekly manpower , that feature is available in P6. The periodic average manpower can be calculated using the spreadsheet option box by selecting "Calculate Average" and entering working hours per week.

13. Finally you can create Histogram Chart using that excel data.

If you faced a problem of doing this, then leave the comments.

Get the excel template data to learn more.