Level 4 to Level 3 Schedule - Primavera

Jithin,

You can continue to manage your L4 schedule in Primavera but use additional tool to generate L3 XER file for your Client :) It saves you much time compared to any approach within Primavera. 



Vladimir and Rafael gave you two options (via aggregation or level of access) on how it could be done in Spider Project. You can import the P6 schedule to Spider Project, aggregate it to L3 and Export XER file for the client. 



You can try if the approach works for you with a free demo version. It is fully functional but has a limit of activities. 



Regards,

Alex Lyaschenko

In addition to everyone's suggested solution, you can make a WBS summary activities for all the WBSs you want to show, then you can just hide milestones and task/res dep activities in WBS level 4+

Usually most Contractors in addition to hiding some activities they hide Float to Subcontractors as some will see as available for free consumption.  They show most fields but not all.

Perhaps only Free Float is allowed for their view.

Anyway, it is not a good idea to delete necessary activities but only to hide some; they are part of the schedule logic no matter if you want to hide them to some users.

My advise would be Schedules up to L3 level is for client which are in Primavera and Schedule L4 onwards are in Excel. The L4 Schedules w/o internal documents, are also submitted to Client as part of monthly reports based on progress measurement system guidelines.

The organisations and PM need to firm up strategies for benefit of all.

you still have your level 4 schedule you just copy it and then in that copy delete all of the levl 4 ativities and you are left with level 3 activities

Hi Jithin,

The best way to deal with it is to create a level 3 schedule map with your level 4 schedule.

For example: the production steps in construction can be roll-up to one or two or three activities in level 3.

Level 4:

• Foundation : Layout & Stacking                                – code 1
• Foundation : Excavation                                          – code 1
• Foundation : Form works                                         – code 2
• Foundation : Rebar works                                        – code 2
• Foundation : Concreting                                          – code 2
• Foundation : Curing                                                – code 2
• Foundation : removal of Formworks                         – code 2
• Foundation : Inspection QA/Check                           – code 3

Level 3:

• Foundation : layout and Excavation                         – code 1
• Foundation : Build Structure                                   – code 2
• Foundation : Inspection QA/Check                           – code 3

Note: This is a high-level example and it’s up to you to create your own mapping from level 4 to level 3. You can use Activity code or UDF for mapping, Sort & Grouping and flexibility for your needs.

This will eliminate update error and level 3 can be submitted to the Client for approval & reporting purposes. If you have resource allocated it easier as it will calculate the progress based on the resource’s units or weightings.

If using Spider I find it easier to use access control and hide whatever individual activity you want to prevent some user to see.

• No value born from hidden activity will be shown; it will be hidden on predecessors and successors screens, references will be hidden in any view.  The use of filters  and activity codes can make it easy to select the activities to be hidden.
• Access right will be transferred within the transfer file; the user after receiving the file will still not be able to see the hidden activities.
• Of course there are other options such as creating WBS that do not include these activities within its structure. Still some references might show such as reference to hidden activities within links tables unless you also hide the activities within the access rights for the user.
• 
• Two common WBS misconceptions are that each WBS Branch will have the same number of levels and that activities will always be at the same WBS Level.  Hiding activities by WBS dictionary alone may not make it.

In Spider Project this function is called Aggregate.

It can be done by two mouse clicks.

You just need to select at what level of current WBS the schedule must be aggregated and with what granularity the data must be summarised (starting with hours). You can also select what costs must be shown in the aggregated schedule (in Spider Project it is possible to create and to manage several parallel budgets - contract costs, expenses, etc.).

At level 3 schedule created by aggregating level 4 schedule costs, resource requirements, etc. will be the same as in level 4 schedule at any time period.

There's another question you need to answer before you start creating multiple schedules.

Is the "Level 3" schedule to be submitted just a representation of dates for the more detailed schedule? In which case you don't need to create a seperate schedule as such. If it doesn't have to be logically linked, caluclate critical path etc, then just use the roll up dates form the Level 4 and then use another application to just draw the bars onto a Gantt chart. The key part ofthis process is maintaining the connection between what you're representing at level 3 to the detail within the level 4 schedule.

My recommendation in P6 is to create a new Activity Code called "L4 Summary", build this up to be hierachical so it mimics a WBS to be used for the report. Then in the Level 4 schedule, assign these code values to the relevant activities. Then you can just Group on this Activity code, filter out anyhting that isn't assigned and Group to only show the summaries (or get more fancy and collapse all the bars so you can even show where in each group critical tasks are)

Keeping two seperate schedules will only become a pain in the backside as the schedule changes, and you'll end up defeating the purpose of having a "summary" and your time and effort will go into producing a representation rather than using that to focus on your work!

you can build a level 4 schedule then as Rodel said you can roll it up and submit a level 3 schedule as a pdf. If you are submitting an xer file then you can copy the level 4 schedule and then delete all of the level 4 activities ending up with a level 3 schedule. 

Hi Jithin,

Are you submitting the native file (XER) to the client? or just a pdf copy? If you are submitting native file to the client, you have to have a separate schedule in level 3 which might need to be approved by the client as baseline. If for presentation purposes only then all you need is to create another Level 3 layout. You can use Activity Codes with hierarchy (WBS) or combinations of activity codes. You can collape level to show only summary.