Hi,

I have write lots of Tip and Tricks at my blog.

Kindly visit my blog at https://doduykhuong.wordpress.com/

lets not confuse tips and trick with simple keyboard short cuts 

Ctrl+w for closing all opened projects.

When you are creating a schedule similar to the one you have already, take a copy to to the methodology management module and get it back to the PM module with customization/tailoring options.

It saves a lot of time. It is very true in case of someone who is into tender planning/central planning dept; which is responsible for preparing the programmes/schedules for many projects.

Hi Trevor. Brilliant tip. Thanks.

Hi Mate,

Not working at Woodside (I’m with a engineering company that supplies mining equipment) but I do know a couple of people there...

Haha... I should have looked a bit more closely...

Anyhow... In no particular order, here’s a few simple ones, that I believe are fundamental to creating a good schedule, most people would already know these, but they may be handy for beginners…

Tip # 13
Assign Activity ID #’s to a UDF field in the Resource Assignments View, so that you can filter by it. (Don’t know why... but Primavera doesn’t include activity ID # as a parameter in the filter dialog box for the Resource Assignments view)

Tip # 14
Set and use the Project Phase WBS codes in the Admin Categories (Going forward hopefully Primavera makes these hierarchical like all other codes)

Tip # 15
Set-up your report Headers & Footers in the Admin Preferences to standardise your layouts & reports (I believe that you should always include a time stamp where possible)

Tip # 16
If required, store period performance to get the correct spread of time distributed actual data.

Tip # 17
Use notebook topics for all changes to the forecast plan. If it ever gets legal, at least you will then have a change log. (I can’t stress how important I believe this one is)

Tip # 18
If you want to know something 1st select the “Hint Help” in the view window then hover over the field to get a explanation from the Primavera Application.

Tip # 19
Find & Replace rocks

Tip # 20
Always create an activity Name that defines an action to achieve an outcome & is unique, i.e. Do Something to Something! If the Activity Name is unique when you code your schedule & then group & sort by code, the descriptions will still have some meaning to you

Tip # 21
Get buy in… Make sure that the people that are responsible for executing the work help to create & more importantly manage the schedule.

Tip # 22
If you are using roles as place holders, ensure that the Rate Source is correctly set in the Resource Assignments View so that the correct price/unit is used to calculate the costs for the assignment when both a resource and role are assigned to an activity.

For anyone who doesn’t know, the fill down short cut key is: ctrl + e

HI ALI,

Could you please explain more about the "claim digger"
and provide me by an example.
tHIS IS MY EMAIL:ROGER_ASSI@HOTMAIL.COM

Tip 11

To import an XER file to a different version of Primavera Project Manager than it was exported from Open the XER file using Word Pad and simply change the version number on the top line to the version you are importing the file to and save and close the file. To find out what version you are running open Primavera and Select HELP > ABOUT PRIMAVERA and view the SYSTEM tab. Include and services packs (SP) if applicable.

This works extremely well for going backwards in release versions (i.e. - From P6 to P5).

Tip No 10

To assign same resources to many activiies, select first activity, select resource from resouce assignment window and assign. then select other activities (contr+select) and click assign from reoure window

Keep Planning Keep Sharing

AK

Hai,

This is Rajesh, my email id is rajesh_anand70@yahoo.com.
Can anybody help me in giving the tips and tricks in primavera 6. your effors are highly appreciated.
thanks in advance

regards,
Rajesh

Dear Mr.Wambach

Thanks for your valuable advice. It is real helpful tip for the young budding planners like me.

But my question is if i select the 7day/8hours calendar as default, will it effect my previous project dates whose default calendar is 6day/8hours calendar. If so, how to maintain different projects with different calendars and getting exact summary durations? please help me out.
Only the present project, the client insisted on 7day work calendar and all remaining projects i’m working with 6 day work calendar. Do help me in this regard
As far as basis of design for the software,which you correctly pointed out, can i have a clue from you where i can find it out...please give details to find it, so that i can follow it for better use of p6 software.
Ofcourse, development of plan is much faster in p6 when using WBS developed in p6 than in P3.
Thank you once again for helping the young buddy

regards
sitaram

Hai Izam

Thank you for your valuable adivce and it’s right.....one has to find solution for every problem we face in life it may be either related to job or life.

Recently i tested the time frame for a sample project whose actually duration i took as 49 days comprising 7 activities, each activity having 7 day duration. I considered 7 day calendar whose working hours as 8h/day.
I gave the time units in admin preferences as 8h/day, 56h/week, 243h/month and 2920h/year. I allowed the user to change the time period. In the user preferernces also, i used the same time units which i mentioned above.
Upto now, i hope everything is clear.
Here comes the high drama.
when i made a program and scheduled it, it is showing the correct end date ( which i prepared through network diagram...ofcourse all activities are FS relationship, i took for testing ....) but the summary duration is showing as 42 days instead of 49days i.e.,it is considering 6day/week calendar instead of 7day/week calendar.
Please find the solution ...and please correct me where i’m doing wrong.

waiting for reply from our planners

regards
sitaram

Hai Ali

Thank you for your reply. But my need is to work on two different projects in two different windows just i used to do in P3.

regards
sitaram

Sitaram,
use claim digger to compare two schedules..or simply baseline one schedule against the other and compare by adding the BL1 values...even you can open two projects together and group them separately compare them manually. you dont need to open two sessions in P6

Sitaram,

Back to your topic, in P6 we can’t do that. It’s diffrent with P3 which we can press shift and F5 then cascade view will display.

Maybe some of planners here do not understand about what are you trying to explain.

Press shift and F9 for levelling resources heheheheh

If you want to compare then why not use it as a baseline ? You don’t have to have two systems. You can have two sessions of Primavera (I mean two login sessions) on the same PC & open two different projects on these two sessions.

Regards
Naveen

Hi Sitaram,

If you have a concurrent license, you can open two sessions of P3 & open different projects on these two sessions. We are using it.

Regards
Naveen

You need to have concurrent license to do that.

Tip 9:

A Project may only be opened as Exclusive by using the Open window. In all other methods, it will opened in the shared mode.

Tip 10: (Courtsey: Arnold Puy :-)

If u get P3 file in prx format, then change extension to exe and then extract and then convert to get it imported into P6

Tip 6
When entering percent complete, make sure you selected the appropriate percent complete type for each activity. Unlike P3, P6 has three percent complete types that do not match unless an activity is complete

Please can anyone tell how to open multiple projects at the same time in P6. Consider both the option that 1. Projects in same EPS node and 2.Projects in different EPS node.
Is their any option that to be changed to open multiple projects at the same time.
I’m trying to open 2 projects at a time but when i’m opening the second project, the first project automatically getting closed.
Please provide me the solution to sitaram_75@yahoo.com.

Tip No. 05: Updating basaelines for Large Projects

For large projects, you may need to increase the Java VM memory size to successfully update the project’s baselines.

To increase the Java VM memory size on a Windows operating system, click Start, Run.

Type regedit, then click OK.

Navigate to the following location: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Primavera/Shared/Update Baseline.

Double-click PARAMETERS. At the beginning of the Value Data field, enter -Xmx512m.

Be sure to leave a space AFTER the last ’m’. Click OK.

Make sure you had maintained your Baseline before you assign it.

Tip No. 02: Resource Scheduling

Activity will be scheduled as per the resource Calendar, only if Activity Type is set to Resource Dependent, OR otherwise it will be scheduled according to the project/Global calendar.

Cheers,

Rav