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please how to update P6 using excell !

15 replies [Last post]
mimoune djouallah
User offline. Last seen 5 years 23 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 14 Oct 2006
Posts: 388
hi all

i used to update p3 using excell and it work like a charm, now i am using P6, and it is a real pain in the a..., please for the God sake, all i want is just to update physical % complete, actual labor units and budget labor unit, when i do that all i get is some activities losing their wbs.

now what i am doing is a double work, first i update P3 from excell, then import project to P6, because P6 SQLSERVER database is so neat.( damn this live connection to excell is so practical !!!)

please i need your help on that, so i can make the migration from P3.

mimoune

Replies

mimoune djouallah
User offline. Last seen 5 years 23 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 14 Oct 2006
Posts: 388

hey Michael

 

thanks very much for the video, it is very interesting to read old post, i am happy to see i made a little progress since 2009

 

kind regards

mimoune

Michael Lepage
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Joined: 10 Aug 2011
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A bit late, but I've put together a step-by-step video tutorial on updating P6 from an excel spreadsheet.  If you're interested, pls visit https://www.planacademy.com/excellerate-your-updates-how-to-import-your-subcontractors-primavera-updates-from-excel/

Regards,

 

Michael

mimoune djouallah
User offline. Last seen 5 years 23 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 14 Oct 2006
Posts: 388
please guy, can you help us, poor new wannabe P6 users, by a step by step tutorial on how to import an excell file, with budget quantities, actual quantities and physical % complete.

Dieter Wambach
User offline. Last seen 7 years 35 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 15 Jan 2007
Posts: 1350
Mimoune
I have no information on that restriction.

António

You may send me your (test) project with a screenshot of your export-template. Then I’ll try the same.

Regards

Dieter
António Faria
User offline. Last seen 9 years 34 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 5 Jan 2009
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Hi Dieter

In my case, I was doing like you said. Nevertheless, with the same filters, before start Export, I had 20 activities. After doing Export, confirming that the filters are the same, I got 11 activities in the excel file.

Curious, isn’t it?

@mimoune

Regarding the update only a field at the time, I read the same in P6 Manual. I think this was done to avoid mistakes when you are inserting for example: actual date, remaining duration or finish date. What priority should Primavera gave to calculate other fields. Nevertheless, try it and check the results.

Cheers,
António
mimoune djouallah
User offline. Last seen 5 years 23 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 14 Oct 2006
Posts: 388
arnold

it seems the fault is an outdate file in windows xp,
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/comdlg32.htm,
it works, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks.

Dieter,

you are right, the missing wbs is due to some foreign key not found ( something like that ;)
and for the update, i was wrong from the beginning, i should update TASKRSRC not TASK.

i have read that in P6 we should only update only one field at the time, is it right ? i hope not.

thanks very much for your input, you rock guys
Arnold Puy
User offline. Last seen 9 years 46 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 25 Apr 2007
Posts: 1147
Hi Mimoune,

It happened to me once as well. I don’t have any idea because I don’t know how to use Visual Basic & Macro in Excel. However, when I tried to open again it is working. As far as I can remember I open this file in one of my student’s laptop and it is opening without any problem.

I suggest you can ask and post this problem in www.mrexcel.com

Regards,

Arnold
mimoune djouallah
User offline. Last seen 5 years 23 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 14 Oct 2006
Posts: 388
Arnold,
when i try to use your excell file, it complains about some VB object that it is not found on my computer !!?

any idea ?
Arnold Puy
User offline. Last seen 9 years 46 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 25 Apr 2007
Posts: 1147
Hi Rav,

You are welcome. That’s really great & helpful. I used to create WBS & Activity Codes using Parser & Builder.

Regards,

Arnold

A D
User offline. Last seen 4 years 6 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 20 May 2007
Posts: 1027
Hi Arnold,

thanks for the link, especially the diagnosis tool is fantastic. not gone into much detail, but overall its Excellant
Dieter Wambach
User offline. Last seen 7 years 35 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 15 Jan 2007
Posts: 1350
Mimoune and António

For my experience the only "chance" to loose activities is a filter in the export-template. If you start the export --> xls --> type --> projects --> select template --> select "Modify". Which filter is activated - Antómio, really the same combination? Was this the reason for the missing activities.

Missing wbs: A column of the table "task" is
"wbs_id (FK, int, not null)". So it’s impossible to loose a wbs. Maybe you’ll add the column "WBS" to your export file to check.

Up to now I didn’t experience these problems.

Regards

Dieter

António Faria
User offline. Last seen 9 years 34 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 5 Jan 2009
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I’m using Primavera 6.2 and already tried to update using Excel. I didn’t have that kind of problems (activities losing their WBS). My suggestion is that you update Primavera to the last service pack (P6.1 SP2) or version (P6.2).

Unfortunately, in a similar process, I got a different kind of Primavera error. After doing the export file (xls), the output/result had less activities than the normal layout with the same filters. I was pretending to send the Excel file to my team, for update and after collect all input, update the time schedule instead of using the TimeSheets.
mimoune djouallah
User offline. Last seen 5 years 23 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 14 Oct 2006
Posts: 388
thanks dieter and arnold

but no luck for me whatever i do it simply don’t update, i even created a new project from scratch just to be sure that there is no thing that got wrong in the process of importing p3 to p6, but without help.

as i am very new to PM6, perhaps i am missing some very obvious option, anyway thanks very much, it seems i will be stuck to p3 for a long time ;)


mimoune
Dieter Wambach
User offline. Last seen 7 years 35 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 15 Jan 2007
Posts: 1350
Mimoune
Excel Export/Import works very similiar to P3. In P6 you can update physical % complete for whole activity (percent complete type = Physical per activity!), units % complete per resource assignment.
But I don’t like physical % complete. The "90%-syndrome" doesn’t exist without reason. I learnt not to rely on this value given by those who perform an activity.
A possible solution might be the use of user defined fields. Then you’ll have a chance to control before running a Global Change - user-defined --> Physical %.

Bonne année
Dieter
Arnold Puy
User offline. Last seen 9 years 46 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 25 Apr 2007
Posts: 1147
Hi Mimoune,

You do not need to do it in P3 and export to P6. This is the reason why some of your activities losing their WBS.

You can update actual units & budgeted labor units using excel spreadsheet. However, make sure that your "Recalculate Actual Units & Cost when duration % complete changes" is untick.

The only problem is, you cannot update physical % complete using excel spreadsheet without the help of PATTLNK_632006_536-xerFileParser&Builder. Because physical % complete can be updated only in P6 windows.

Try this link to download:

http://knowledgebase.primavera.com/attachment/PATTLNK_632006_536-xerFile...

Let me know in order to assist you.

HTH.

Arnold