Converting WBS into OBS(Activity Codes)

Hi MUHAMMAD IQBAL,



WBS and Activity Coding work different ways.

- Use WBS when you want to decompose (breakdown) your project into smaller units (scope definition).



- Use Activity Coding if you want to categorize activities so that you may be able to organize them from different perspectives.



With these in mind, you can come up with varying levels of detail using WBS. For example, subscope 1 can have 5 levels, while the next subscope could only have 2 levels.



If you use WBS, then your structure (how activities are grouped) is fixed -- simply because a WBS is supposed to be fixed.



On the other hand, if you want to slice and dice project information from different perspectives, (by responsibility, by contractor, by phase, etc. or a combination of these), then what you would do is use activity coding. However, some activities would have blank activity code values simply because some levels of detail may not be applicable to some activities.



This would leave you with blank title bands. With activity coding, you can easily organize activities and view the project from different perspectives, but you would have to contend with a consistent number of level of details.



You may be inquiring how to convert a WBS to activity codes because your structure is basically similar and would like to do the conversion faster. Global change may take longer because you will have to keep on modifying a definition before you’re able to convert all the values.



I’d advise that you either:

1. Use Excel - organize by wbs and copy and act code values; or

2. Use P3 - organize by wbs and "fill cell" the proper act code values per WBS.



Best regards,



Jorge

hi neeraj [Englisk only, please. - The Moderator.]

which script?

Is it possible to make Excel macro talk to P3? I think you have to do export / import manually.

As everybody says send it to excel, if you use ’text to columns ’ feature of excel from data menu you will see it will be very practical to convert it to activity codes.



Regards



Emre

I think this should be possible.

Create activity code structure matching WBS (with length field same as WBS for your project). Do not assign it to any activity. Export to Excel (include activity codes and wbs in export fields).

Once in Excel, you can use functions to separate WBS into the Activity code columns.

Import it back into P3.

try this.

Neeraj

First define your coding structure, then try global change to assign code for each activity.



I haven’t tried it before. Good luck.



If this does not work. try export to Excel, assign code there, then import back to P3

WBS and activity codes is to organize your project .... i didnot get what u wanted to convert......





i u want to see your project in activity codes ...

just go to organize activity codes highliht it and organise accordingly





sunil

First, organize your layout by WBS (Format/Organize). In your tabulated part of the layout, show WBS in one column and beside it show an empty dummy column for your OBS. Fill-in the dummy column with your required OBS using COPY and FILL CELL function.



Goodluck.