(1) Explain your problem, don't simply post "This isn't working". What were you doing when you faced the problem? What have you tried to resolve - did you look for a solution using "Search" ? Has it happened just once or several times?
(2) It's also good to get feedback when a solution is found, return to the original post to explain how it was resolved so that more people can also use the results.
Need some advise on how to create this report.
Here is the issue in the specifications.
"Using a SS, FF, or FS in unison as a predecessor or successor to an activity is prohibited."
Example: Activity 1000 has activity 1100 as a successor with both a FS and FF relationship type to activity 1000.
I have been working on this by using report writer to come up with a report to show where this is happening in the schedule without any success.
Any suggestions out there?
Thanks,
James B.
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Johannes,
CSV could be a better option. As I recall when I was a P6 user it had no such report for links, if it can be exported and manipulated in Excel that is good, better than nothing, it opens the possibilities to P6 users.
Because of the previously exposed reasons I do not believe SS & FF between two activities shall not be prohibited, same as the use of lag, still they shall be always investigated to make sure their use is justified. Therefore not only type of links are to be filtered but also lag, particularly large values of lag. Another filter of concern might be lag calendar, wrong assignment of lag calendar can be a source of substantial errors, I expect lag calendar to be displayed on this report. All links attributes are of concern.
We generally use 24-7 calendar for curing while predecessor and successor use different calendar. I avoid using activities to represent lag as lag is a better representation of elapsed time that will start to happen as soon as predecessor event occurs, lags do not require updating for actual start, actual duration and actual finish.
What differentiates a CPM from a Gantt is precisely links.
Best Regards,
Rafael
Hi Raphael
Thank you for your post. Yes, P6 has several options for exporting reports. HTML is one of them. I usually use the CSV format and then transfer if to Excel and manipulate to the from I see most appropriate. P6 has a large number of pre-formatted reports and these can easily be modified.
Regards
Johannes
Johanes,
I believe the report you are showing can provide all data needed to filter for activities linked to same successor/predecessor via ss and ff links. Small jobs can be searched manually but can be very time consuming for large jobs. It is possible for James this can be good enough.
I noticed in your video that P6 can output the report to HTML files, these type of files can be opened in Excel and there you can manipulate the data as to create the filter. I would like to explore the HTML file of your example to see what Excel give us and try to apply the filter for activities linked to same successor/predecessor via ss and ff links using Excel. If you can post it to a file server I can try to work out the filter using excel and provide the link for anyone to download the file, explore it and improve on it as it was prepared on the run for this discussion.
Best Regards,
Rafael
Hi James
Good comments from Raphael and Raymund.
I understand that you are trying to create a report in the Primavera Report writer to show the relationships, successors and predecessors. I have created this report and ran a small video tutorial and posted this on the following link. Is this what you are looking for?
Regards Johannes
James,
It is not hard to realize that a day before your last post I provided with an easy way to create a filter, a way that does not depends on the software. All you have to do is export the links table to Excel and create the filter within Excel. I opted to use an approach based on Pivot Tables as other approaches such as using Excel Add-in for Query is not used and understood by everyone, Pivot Tables are integral part of Excel, do not require use of add-in and is known by most Excel users I know.
In my case the export is just at a single click of the mouse when at the links table, P6 does not provides direct access to the table but you should be able to get it if using SDK templates as suggested before by someone else. Because this shall be somewhat straightforward as if using a single click, I concentrated on how to get a filter for when a activity have multiple links to a common predecessor. Multiple links to a common predecessor can be SS/SF/FF/FS with/wthout lag, on any combination, it can be two of the same type, several or one of each type. I do not believe they should be prohibited but investigated which is a very different thing.
To investigate lag as a separate issue if using P6, in lack of a direct access to the links table the following reference might be of help.
http://www.planacademy.com/primavera-relationship-lag/
Sometimes you got to think out of the box, it is impossible/impractical for the software developers to think about all possible filters users might need is for this reason, among others, that they provide export function to Excel. Sometimes you can copy and paste into excel the values from a table if visible but to my knowledge P6 does not provides a direct view to the links table.
Another way I can think for looking and filter for link types in P6 is if using Logic League by Ron Winter. It is possible that if using Logic League you might still need to export the table to Excel or another application for such a complex filter.
http://scheduleanalyzer.com/ll_brochure.htm
BTW I edited my prior posting and its reference to the Excel Filter as revised on 12/2/2015.
Cordially,
Rafael
Mr. Davila and Mr. da Laza:
The question asked was if anyone had a suggestion on how to create a report. If you want to discuss your issues with a contractual specification, please create another forum to discuss.
Thanks,
James B.
Using the export to Excel functions within your software you shall be able to export the links table to Excel and create the filter using a Pivot Table as illustrated on the following figures. It is easy, the trick is on creating a duplicate of the Link Type column. Priot to export you might filter from within your software the records with SS and FF Link Type as to reduce the number of rows.
http://www.mediafire.com/view/kmvubkhj4p8344w/Filter_for_activities_with...
as revised on 12/2/2015
Once you identified the records go to the unfiltered pivot table to see the details.
Good Luck
Thanks.
Less Talk Less Mistake. More Talk More Mistakes.
If you have 100 columns per floor on a 20 story building you can create 2,000 independent column activities for rebar on each column, 2,000 independent column activities for electrical, 2,000 independent column activities for plumbing, 2,000 independent column activities for forms, just 8,000 such activities, that is the easy part, not much fun, linking these to thousands elevated slab segments is where the fun starts, even more fun at time of resource loading.
The person who wrote this spec is a moron who will insist on teaching you the moron way of doing things. If he have to lace his right shoe he will put lhis left shoe on a bench while leaving his right foot on the floor and bend down to lace his right shoe on the floor, then he will insist this is how you got to do it.
These ridiculous requirement are not uncommon, but zombies do exists and they literally follow such specs.
The construction of Suspended Slab related to its supporting Columns is that The Columns' rebars and forms will start just after the preceeding Floor Slab and that the Formworks of the suspended slab will start while during construction of the Columns. But, Formworks, Rebars and Casting of Concrete of Suspended slab can not be completed unless the supporting columns is 100% complete.
The above will use a SS and FF link in the same activity.
When dealing with activities linked by SS and FF links you shall be aware of the possibility of Lag Drag; when an increase in activity duration might reduce phase/project duration.
It is easy to identify by looking to Start FLEX a measure float/flexibility that software such as Spider Project disclose in addition to several other float types. You can deal with lag drag by taking several options, increasing activity duration or splitting the activity if need be. I only reccur to any of the options on crital activites only and not always splitting the activity is best choice, reducing resources and pace of work is frequently a good choice, we call it pacing. In general we leave activity splitting for when it makes sense for resource leveling.
Ask the Contractor to replace all lags with activities and then this stupid requirement will disappear and everyone will be forever happy.
This workaround is suggested by a few Risk Analysis software that cannot model independent lag calendar as well as probability distributions for lag duration.
Experienced schedulers use SS in combination with FF as a pragmatic way to deal with some limitations of the CPM model.
http://www.projectrisk.com/white_papers/The_Problem_with_Dangling_Activi...
Splitting the activities as to use only FS relationships may require hundreds of infinitesimal activities as to make sure you get close to reality but it is not good enough as it will break the contiguous model that under resource leveling can break the contiguous execution of the activities. Therefore acknowledging the CPM model limitations not only it is accepted but recommended to “close off” the danglers with S-S and F-F relationships.
Imagine the classical example of pipe excavation, bedding, pipe installation and backfilling for a 60in sanitary trunk line. On some days you will install 8 pipe segments, others 9 pipe segments and others 10 pipe segments. Every day the sequence might be stopped different to as planned. And this case is not that difficult as we are talking about small discrete pipe quantities. But in ohter cases such as the sequence of cement plaster activities such as place bonding agent, scratch coat, finish coat ... that can be stopped at any fraction makes it more difficult/imposible to schedule if using only FS links.
Good Luck
James,
Advised you to use the Excel Export feature through SDK.
Hope this will help.
Email: PPadmin@planningplanet.com
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