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.

Who this is for: Teams running Primavera P6 software with project data generated by P6-Reporter and stored in a self-hosted Oracle database, who want to light up Power BI—and now also Microsoft Fabric—without re-platforming their core systems.

Emerald’s P6-Migrator - SQLite and Oracle allows you to export files from your Primavera P6 database, including SQLite databases, and then import those files into a P6 online or local database, cutting out the struggle of manually exporting and cleaning up each file before manually importing them into your database.

At Emerald Associates, we are always looking to improve our tools and increase their functionality. We have recently released P6-Scrubber v7, which includes several new and overhauled features.

A Cost Breakdown Structure (CBS) in Oracle Primavera Cloud (OPC) is comprised of cost codes classified into three types: expense, capital, or none. The codes are organized based on segment definitions to form a flat or hierarchical structure. A CBS is used alongside the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). The WBS breaks down project work, and the CBS represents the associated costs.

Familiarity with the workspace hierarchy and reporting requirements helps ensure that the CBS is set up to allow required rollup functionality.

Are you looking for a resource display in Oracle Primavera Cloud (OPC) that clearly indicates the under/overallocation of resources (and roles)?

Let’s have a quick look at a couple of functionality pieces now available in Oracle Primavera Cloud (OPC) that you may not have used yet. They were added in OPC v25.7.

When using task cards, you can now display the crew size on the task cards. When the task card is displayed, the icon with the crew size number can be included with the display.

With the new release of the Emerald BI-GanttView visual for Power BI, we wanted to take the chance to look at some of the features that this visual offers.

You can add as many global changes as you need for your project in Oracle Primavera Cloud (OPC).

Below a list of some of the new features in Oracle Primavera Cloud (OPC) v25.6 that I thought you might find interesting.

The OPC-Integrator can extract information from, and load information to, multiple files within Oracle Primavera Cloud (OPC) in the same load. This means that there’s no need to run separate extracts from each file when you need the same (or similar) data pulled from each file. With the OPC-Integrator, you can just select the definition or select the modules you need, configure them, and then select all the files you want to download the module information from. Then, simply click the download button!

Are you an Application Administrator in Oracle Primavera Cloud (OPC) and looking to add users?

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.