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Articles in Category: News

P6-Loader v13 - New Release

Easier Hierarchies and Fragnet Templating

February 9, 2024

Written by Ravi Wallau

Easier Hierarchies and Fragnet Templating

New Features

  • Easier to work with hierarchical fields - WBS, Resources, Roles, Codes, EPS, OBS, and Cost Accounts.

  • Full path extracting and loading for all hierarchical codes makes working with these hierarchies easier in Excel. Several new fields were added including the full code path field and a field showing the level of the hierarchy. This makes building hierarchies in Excel easier and loading them into P6 less error prone. Separator definitions are now also configurable.

  • Allows importing of WBS with their codes (without needing the path) if they are unique across a project

  • WBS template fragnet loader - You can take advantage of WBS templates built in P6 within P6-Loader to copy WBS nodes, activities, resources assignments, logic, steps, and expenses from one or many templates and fill in any placeholders for activity ID and names as you generate new WBSs into your project. You can also assign UDFs and codes to WBS, activities and resource assignments while applying a template. This is like the old P3 Fragnets on steroids.

  • Improving the handling of spread information to allow quarterly and yearly spread extractions are back. Manual spread loading of these spread periods is not supported.

  • Automatically starts activities when loading resource assignment period actuals.

Enhancements

  • Better error handling with the API when loading batches and better controlling of batching.

  • Includes project names and activity names in the relationship sheet when extracting.

  • Fixes a problem that would occur when trying to extract project data with no projects selected.

  • Better use of UI space in the bottom toolbar.

P6-QA v8 - New Release

Your P6-QA metrics are now available in Power BI reports. You can also create custom reports via our P6-Reporter tool into your corporate dashboards. These reports include time based metrics to help you see where in your project these quality issues exist.

January 30, 2024

Written by James Andrade

Your P6-QA metrics are now available in Power BI reports. You can also create custom reports via our P6-Reporter tool into your corporate dashboards. These reports include time based metrics to help you see where in your project these quality issues exist.

New Features

  • New UDFs to show variances and calculated values - P6-QA may report that you have activities that are overdue for updating, but are they over by 2 days or 2 months? And what is your project's critical path length index (CPLI) exactly? Now you can view these metrics right in P6 to know how close they are to your target values.

  • Indicators for resource assignments - P6-QA has reported you have resource assignments that are missing roles, actuals or perhaps are over budget. In this release, we've added indicator UDFs. P6-QA populates them to let you find the affected resource assignment with ease.

  • P6-Reporter Ready - We've added custom tables to our P6-Reporter tool that neatly arrange your P6-QA data, including all of the inspection details, so it's ready to be put into the reporting software of your choice.

  • P6-QA statistics can now be pushed into time-based graphics. Being able to critique different portions of your schedule to get a much better idea of the risks and timing of those risks.

Enhancements

  • Improved inspection control - Are there inspections you are not using? Turn them off to get a more streamlined report and save points. We've made it easier to control which QA inspections you want and which you don't.

Upcoming Live Webinars

Watch one of this month's live webinars.
  • P6-QA - March 26, 11am-12pm MDT
  • P6-Scrubber - April 2, 7-8pm MDT
  • P6-Scrubber - April 3, 9-10am Philippine Standard Time
  • P6-Loader v13 - April 18, 11am-12pm MDT

January 11, 2024

Watch one of this month's live webinars.

  • P6-QA - March 26, 11am-12pm MDT
  • P6-Scrubber - April 2, 7-8pm MDT
  • P6-Scrubber - April 3, 9-10am Philippine Standard Time
  • P6-Loader v13 - April 18, 11am-12pm MDT

P6-Calculator v7 - New Release

Easily Manage Key Resources and Mandatory Activities in P6!

December 1, 2023

Written by Ravi Wallau

Easily Manage Key Resources and Mandatory Activities in P6!

New Features

  • Custom field copy - copy custom fields from the primary resource into the activity that holds it, or assign a value in a UDF or code based on the calendar the activity has selected. The rules are fully customizable, and it is possible to create match rules using regular expressions.

  • Required objects feature - check if your project has required objects based on pre-defined rules in the program, and fix the problem if possible or alert the user if that is not possible. For example, WAIT activities with a pre-defined duration and name format.

  • Global change feature - apply changes to project data based on pre-defined rules. For example, change the relationship type from the WAIT activity into its milestone's successors from SF to FF, once the milestone activities have reached a certain status.

  • Resource rate import - allow resource rates to be imported from an external system and applied as new resource rates to the resources, matching on resource codes. Shifts are taken into consideration if they are being used.

  • Dictionary synchronization - in some organizations you may have a project code and an activity code that must have the same values. With this feature, you can define a source code and the code values are synchronized to the target codes. The dictionaries are kept in sync, and if a value is moved in the source hierarchy, it is also moved in the target hierarchy.

  • As part of dictionary synchronization, it is also possible to copy the resource tree as a resource code dictionary.

  • Code assignment copy based on certain rules - for example, you can assign a code in the activity based on a corresponding code value in the primary resource for that activity.

Enhancements

  • Cleanup UDFs - you can configure the P6-Calculator to cleanup some UDFs in the projects regularly. This is useful if you need to re-trigger some calculations on a regular basis for these projects.

Safran Risk v22.2.0 - New Release

Safran Risk has released v22.2.0. Read about all the exciting new features.

October 18, 2023

Written by Ian Nicholson

Safran Risk has released v22.2.0. Read about all the exciting new features.

New Features

  • It’s now possible to login to Safran Risk using Azure Active Directory

  • Advanced impact option that lets risks impact activities and costs in new ways. For example, it’s now possible to spread an absolute risk impact over multiple elements. You can also limit the number of mapped elements that will be impacted each iteration.

  • Column picker that lets you select which columns to show.The ability to add a number of new columns that lets you see the distribution values and more as columns.

  • If you’re using Risk Mapping for inputting activity duration uncertainty, it’s now possible to use all distributions here. You can also use absolute and relative.

Enhancements

  • Activity Duration Uncertainty can now be set to any distribution in the Risk Mapping tab

  • Advanced Impacts lets you spread impact over activities or costs and limit the number of impacted elements

  • Schedule data can now be seen as columns in the Risk Mapping tab

  • On a multi-user database the project is now opened in Update Mode (instead of Exclusive) after an import

  • New columns in the Project Risks tab: Schedule Distribution (Pre andPost), Cost distribution (Pre and Post), Post-Mit Probability, Impact Independently, Notes, and Mappings Count

  • Activity Duration has been added to the Risk Mapping Excel import/export. This will allow setting duration uncertainty in Excel.

  • Resource tab added to Risk Mapping so that resources for each activity can be seen

P6-Auditor v5 - New Release

Our latest version of P6-Auditor has a new look and feel making auditing definitions easier and faster to build.

May 28, 2023

Our latest version of P6-Auditor has a new look and feel making auditing definitions easier and faster to build.

New Features

  • New audits - UDF value, project, activity and code assignments

  • Users can be configured into categories. For example, P6-Internal, Standard, API, or by department, or by whichever criteria is needed. The User Category column is shown in all reports where there is a user column, and it is possible to filter by it.

  • It is possible to configure UDFs and code changes to be reported with the corresponding project, activity or resource record

  • Added the ability to easily limit the range of events retrieved from the server - for example, for the past 5 minutes, 15 minutes, etc.

  • UI changes - the reports are now all shown on the left side of the auditor web application and are grouped by type/subject leaving more space for the reports on the right side of the page

  • The EPS auditing now includes changes made to all records in the PROJWBS table, and it includes a column that shows the type of object that was changed

  • Added the ability to freeze columns. You can freeze 1 to 5 columns and those will always be visible when scrolling.

Enhancements

  • All reports now run faster, and event reports run much faster than before

  • Filters have been improved - when possible, multiple options are shown for the user to select from

  • Reworked the OData implementation on the server, allowing much better control over the columns shown in the client, as well as other improvements

  • Layouts now work properly with audit reports

  • Column order that makes sense across all event reports

  • Profile improvement - the teams of a profile are shown in the profile list and a button that lets you save a profile directly is visible when a profile has changes

Safran Risk v22.1.0 - New Release

Safran Risk has released v22.1.0. Read about all the exciting new features.

May 3, 2023

Written by Ian Nicholson

Safran Risk has released v22.1.0. Read about all the exciting new features.

New Features

  • Automatic Report Package Generator - Functionality to generate a report package that contains a number of output chart images, a Word report, and an Excel report. The report package can be run and customized from the analyze tab.

  • The UI of the sensitivity analysis tab has been updated. It now also allows you to run sensitivity against a schedule summary and against the schedule types duration and start date.

  • Cost Module - It's now possible to have more than one top node and to set the type for each top node.

  • The import of external files now allows three options when updating an existing project: overwrite, update, and append.

  • Distribution Graph - It's now possible to set the target to the value of a user field. This allows you to set up target dates for all the activities in the schedule.

Enhancements

  • Hammock to Hammock links are now allowed by the Safran Risk scheduler.

  • Mode added to distribution graph information.

  • Recent projects are now opened with the same access level as they were opened last time.

  • Added option to grouping in the cost tab to see the whole path in the summary ID field.

  • Added Total Float, Free Float, and Calendar to the Activity Information tab in Risk Mappings.

  • Risk Mean Start and Risk Mean Finish columns added to the schedule.

  • Added option for image size for all the output charts. This allows for consistent size of the generated images regardless of the state of the Safran Risk window.

P6-Scrubber v6 - New Release

In version 6, we added notebook type scrubbing and also made improvements to the P6-Scrubber user interface, reports and functionality in general.

February 27, 2023

Notebook type scrubbing, improved UI

Written by Ravi Wallau

In version 6, we added notebook type scrubbing and also made improvements to the P6-Scrubber user interface, reports and functionality in general.

New Features

  • Notebook scrubbing - remove unwanted notebook types and/or rename them

Enhancements

  • Option to hide users starting with "zz" from the user list, as well as users with no global access to P6

  • Additional safeguards around editing configuration profiles to prevent accidental overwrites

  • Scrub report improvements

  • Up to 10 times faster XER/XML import operations, and up to 5 times faster scrubbing operations

P6-Calculator v6.4 - New Release

Easily Manage Key Resources and Mandatory Activities in P6!

January 31, 2023

Written by Dan MacMillan

Easily Manage Key Resources and Mandatory Activities in P6!

New Features

  • Groups related projects together.

  • Analyzes the order in which key resources move between projects and groups in P6.

  • Automatically builds and maintains a project code hierarchy that shows the groups and projects in the order in which key resources visit them.

  • Automatically builds and maintains logic between projects and between groups that models the movement of these key resources.

  • Automatically adds or removes optional activities on the first or last project in a group to represent resource setup or teardown time.

  • Flags projects with an alert indicator UDF if required activities are missing.

Enhancements

  • A key resource could be a rig, a crane, or any other major equipment or resource that you want to optimize the utilization of.

  • Multiple key resources can be managed.

  • You control what defines a group of projects.

  • Different rules for building logic can be defined for resource moves within a group and resource moves between groups.

  • You control how projects are sorted to determine the order in which each key resource moves between them.

  • The project code dictionary, logic, and optional activities automatically adapt to changes in project order.

  • You control which projects are checked for mandatory activities.

Upcoming Online Training

Join one of our upcoming, live online training courses for Primavera P6 or Safran Risk.
  • Primavera P6 Basic - Jan 8-12
  • Primavera P6 Advanced - Jan 17-19
  • Managing Risk in Safran Risk - Feb 5-8

January 3, 2023

Join one of our upcoming, live online training courses for Primavera P6 or Safran Risk.

  • Primavera P6 Basic - Jan 8-12
  • Primavera P6 Advanced - Jan 17-19
  • Managing Risk in Safran Risk - Feb 5-8

P6-Scrubber v5 - New Release

Work online or offline to define and scrub your XER files and now, in the new release, XML files. Version 5 makes scrubbing files even easier for schedulers.

December 5, 2022

Written by Ravi Wallau

Work online or offline to define and scrub your XER files and now, in the new release, XML files. Version 5 makes scrubbing files even easier for schedulers.

New Features

  • XML support! Now the P6-Scrubber can scrub XER or XML files.

  • Simple prefix - lets you add a prefix to global objects such as resources, code types, UDFs, calendars, etc. to identify where it came from.

  • XML sanitation - when scrubbing an XML file, its contents are saved accordingly to the XML schema file. If the file cannot be imported into P6 EPPM because of schema errors, processing the file with the P6-Scrubber may fix it.

  • Version control - setting the version you are uploading back into P6 is now in the GUI for easier control for both XER and XML importing.

  • Parent role & resource - to land all the resources and roles in the scrubber file under a specific role or resource in the P6 database.

  • OBS definition - it is possible to choose an OBS that will be associated to the project when it is imported when scrubbing XER files.

  • SSO/ SAML support - if you are using SSO/ SAML for your P6 Cloud environment, you can perform SSO/ SAML login with the P6-Scrubber.

Enhancements

  • UI improvements - the last imported project (or projects) is shown in the UI, and it is possible to access the scrubbed files directly from the main page of the application.

P6-Loader v12 - New Release

Our latest version of the P6-Loader brings the ability to automate the backups out of P6 even from the Oracle P6 Cloud.

July 14, 2022

Written by Ravi Wallau

Our latest version of the P6-Loader brings the ability to automate the backups out of P6 even from the Oracle P6 Cloud.

New Features

  • Automation! The P6-Loader can now export files to the P6-Loader Excel and P6 XML (or both) formats on a daily and/or weekly and/or monthly frequency.

  • Global data automation - if automation is turned on for a given database, a full export of the database's global data is performed every day - it includes EPS, OBS, resources, roles, users, code dictionaries, UDF types, risk definitions, etc.

  • The list of tasks is not cleared when the P6-Loader is restarted.

  • P6 XML support - the P6-Loader can now export files to the P6 XML format.

  • Restore and administer your data more easily - with the ability to download the project and global files for a database as it was at a given point in time, recovering lost data and administering the database becomes much easier.

  • Resource assignment duplicate handling! It is now possible to load resource assignments even if you have duplicates in your P6 database. You can use the internal ID of the resource assignment or pick one or more UDFs to help the P6-Loader match the right one.

Enhancements

  • EPS caching of the list of projects shown during an extraction operation.

  • Fixes to some UI issues with the scrollbar disappearing.

PCM-Archiver v6.3 - New Release

PCM-Archiver version 6.3 adds support for Primavera Expedition.

July 11, 2022

Written by Dan MacMillan

PCM-Archiver version 6.3 adds support for Primavera Expedition.

New Features

  • Support for Primavera Expedition down to version 8.0 - may also work with earlier versions.

  • PDF generation is not supported on Primavera Expedition at this time.

  • If you need to archive Primavera Expedition and the generated PDFs are important to you, we still may be able to help - please contact us.

  • Archival of Primavera Expedition attachments of all types, including PDFs, is fully functional in this version.

Blog: P6-Reporter Self-Serve Dashboards for Turnarounds

Learn how P6-Reporter dashboards can help in Turnarounds in this blog article

Blog: P6-Scrubber - Demoting Versions in XERs

Have you ever had the need to demote an XER from a higher version of Primavera P6 to a lower version so you can import the file into your database? Learn how P6-Scrubber can help!

March 15, 2022

Written by Sue Hopkins

Have you ever had the need to demote an XER from a higher version of Primavera P6 to a lower version so you can import the file into your database? Learn how P6-Scrubber can help!