During schedule execution, there are common issues that can occur on a regular basis, whether or not the schedule is specifically a turnaround execution schedule. The items below are not an all-inclusive list of potential pitfalls, but are some of the issues that appear regularly.

Primavera P6 uses the Critical Path Method (CPM) of scheduling.

CPM Scheduling uses the Activity Durations and the Logic between the activities to calculate three pieces of data:

• Assigns dates to project activities (Early and Late Dates)
• Calculates your project’s Finish Date (Calculated during the Forward Pass)
• Calculates your project’s Critical Path (Identifies the longest sequence of dependent activities in a project)

The Critical Path Method does two passes through the schedule.

The Forward Pass starts with the first activity in the logic chain and moves forward through the schedule calculating the Early Dates of the activities - these are the earliest dates the activity can start and end based on the activities’ duration and logic ties. The calculation starts with the first activity in the logic chain (if it is not at the data date [DD] and does not have a hard constraint assigned it is moved to the project DD for the start date) and then moves forward through the schedule using the following calculation: Early Start (ES) + Duration - 1 = Early Finish (EF)

Ideally in projects, the natural flow of time through the project using durations and logic should be respected. However, sometimes there are date restrictions that cannot be built into network logic. Constraints provide additional control over start and finish dates when specific deadlines or project conditions exist. A Constraint allows a scheduler to accurately reflect real-world aspects of a project.

Recently, when working with a client who was combining several Primavera P6 databases into one, we discovered some interesting things with respect to layouts and filters.

In the latest version of Primavera P6 v24, there have been major changes to updating baselines, including a visual overhaul and some new functionality. However, some of our clients have recently noticed that their baselines weren’t updating correctly. While the Job Services logs showed that everything was updating properly, in reality users weren’t seeing any changes when they actually went into their projects to check if their baseline changes were reflected.

If you’re a longtime user of Primavera P6, you may have noticed that there’s been a change to the ability to update your baselines.

It might not seem like a big deal to give meaningful or unique names to your filters and layouts in Primavera P6, especially when they are your own user filters and layouts. After all, you made the filter and likely know what it’s for. However, having an abundance of unnamed filters can quickly become an issue.

EPS level activity codes can be created in Primavera P6 to be available to projects under a designated EPS. While this can help with the amount of activity codes at the Global level, you may want to carefully consider whether you want to add activity codes at the EPS level, as they can pose problems for you down the line.

Range Copy/Range Paste, Project Count, CPP Format Export, Import from Excel

There are several new pieces of functionality in P6 Professional v23.10. We will start with a high level look at a few of the elements. One of the new pieces of functionality added allows users to paste multiple data entries from Excel directly into P6 Professional using range copy/range paste. Copy/Paste of a range is available in both directions: Excel to P6 or P6 to Excel. From P6 to Excel select the range, right click and select Range Copy (or use Shift+Ctrl+C), and then paste the range into Excel.

From P6 to Excel select the range, right click and select Range Copy (or use Shift+Ctrl+C), and then paste the range into Excel.

Have you seen these new features? They were added in Primavera EPPM version 23.10.

Additions to Viewing Current & Recent User Sessions

By selecting the User Sessions page from the User Menu, users can view information about their recent sessions.

Let’s take a quick look at the Check Schedule Toolbar functionality in P6 v23.12.1. (This toolbar was put into P6 in v22.4.)



Enabling the Check Schedule toolbar displays the toolbar icons below.



Working across the Check Schedule toolbar, the functions behind the icons are shown.

Primavera P6 utilizes CPM or Critical Path Method Scheduling. Using the activity information in a P6 schedule file, the early and late dates are calculated when the project is scheduled. P6 uses the activity durations and the relationships between the activities to calculate schedule dates. The schedule calculations are completed in two passes: the forward pass in the scheduling process calculates the early dates of each of the activities and the backward pass calculates the late dates. If the activity information (durations or logic) in your P6 schedule is incomplete or incorrect, scheduling results will be affected.

Do you monitor the ‘What’s New’ information for new versions of Primavera P6? Here are a few things to keep in mind when working in the P6 Client. For those using P6 v20.4 (or higher), there are a couple of new pieces of functionality (introduced in v20.4 of P6 Professional) that can prove helpful. This functionality allows the addition of comments about relationships as well as the functionality allowing role prices to vary over time.

Regarding the functionality to add comments about relationships, I am not suggesting that every relationship line in your P6 schedule requires comments added; however, in some circumstances it can be a handy functionality. The comments column can be added in the relationship details tab (predecessors/successors or relationships) and then the comments required can be added. Perhaps you have a lag on the relationship, or, like below, you want to confirm a relationship. Relationship comments are plain text and can be up to 250 characters long.

Accidental deletion of important data is something that happens. Everyone has done it at some point.

In Primavera P6 EPPM, some of the most common cases of accidental data deletion are:

• Deletion of the wrong resource
• Deletion of the wrong project
• Deletion of the wrong WBS node or nodes