In Primavera P6, baselines are saved copies of the project plan at a certain point in time. It’s important to regularly create and save baselines to track project data. For reference, we covered how to create and maintain baselines in a previous blog post here. With baselines saved, you can use them to run comparisons on the activity table and Gantt Chart. These comparisons will quickly show you how far ahead or behind you are from your original project plan.

Displaying baseline data within P6 is a two part process. First, you need to assign your baselines to determine which baseline data shows. Then, you need to adjust your layout to display baseline data. You can do this by adding columns to the table and bars to the Gantt Chart. Adding columns is the easy part – all you need to know is how to adjust the displaying columns in the table. Displaying baseline bars can be a little trickier, as you may need to create new bars during this process.

In this article, we will outline the process of displaying baseline bars on the Gantt Chart in Primavera P6. First, we will go over assigning baselines. Then, we’ll look at how to create new baseline bars and display them in the Gantt Chart. The following examples are all from Primavera P6 Professional 20. However, the following tools are available in all versions of Primavera P6.

Assigning Baselines

In order to display baseline data in P6 – whether through columns or bars – you need to first assign baselines. Assigning baselines lets you choose which baseline data to compare with the current schedule. This is important, as you can have hundreds of baselines saved for any one single project.

To assign baselines, select Project > Assign Baselines.

In the Assign Baselines window, you’ll find sections for Project, Project Baseline, Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary. 

The Project section lets you choose which project’s data will display in the table. If you have multiple projects open, you will want to choose the project that you’ll be using for the comparison. The selected project’s current dates will appear in the Start and Finish columns and the default activity bars. In this case, I just have one project open – so I’ll keep the default selection.

The remaining fields all allow you to choose one of your saved baselines. When we look at adjusting the layout next, you’ll find columns and bars called Project Baseline, BL1, BL2, and BL3. Those columns and bars will show data for whichever baseline you assign to the associated section. For example, if I choose a baseline under the Project Baseline field, its data will show in the Project Baseline columns. In the same way, Primary relates to the BL1 fields, Secondary to the BL2 fields, and Tertiary to the BL3 fields. You could even choose a different baseline for each field, allowing you to compare your current schedule with up to 4 baselines at once. It doesn’t matter which baseline field you choose – all of them will allow you to view baseline data on the screen.

In this example, I am going to compare my current schedule with my first official baseline. This will show me how far ahead or behind our actual dates are from the original planned dates. I’ll assign this baseline to the Primary Baseline spot by selecting it from the dropdown menu.

With your baselines assigned, select OK to exit out of the window.

Adding the Baseline Bars to the Gantt Chart

With the baseline assigned, you can now add baseline bars to the Gantt Chart. To adjust the displaying bars, right click within the Gantt Chart and select Bars.

In the Bars window, all the available bars will appear in a list. If needed, you can even create additional bars by selecting the Add button. However, P6 provides default Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary baseline bars by default. To display these bars, simply check the Display box next to the desired bar. In this example, I’ll display the Primary Baseline bar to match my assigned baseline. With the bar selected, you can even adjust its appearance using the Bar Style section below.

Once you’ve set the bar to display, select OK to exit out of the window and save the bar settings.

The baseline bars will display underneath the current activity bars. Now, you can quickly compare the start, finish, and duration of the actual activities with their planned baseline versions. If the baseline bar is running to the left of the activity bar, the activity is running behind schedule. If the baseline bar is running to the right of the activity bar, the activity is running ahead of schedule.

Summary

In Primavera P6, it’s important to regularly save and maintain baselines. Baselines are copies of the project from a certain point in time. When maintained correctly, baselines will provide you with a copy of the original project plan. As your project progresses, it’s useful to compare your planned dates with your actual dates. In P6, you can display baseline data on the table and the Gantt Chart by assigning baselines and adjusting your layout. After assigning baselines, you can add associated columns to the table and bars on the Gantt to display this data visually. Now, with just a glance at the Gantt Chart, you can see whether your project is running ahead or behind schedule.

If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, please use the comment section on the bottom of this page. Don’t forget to subscribe to our blog to get more Primavera P6 tips & tricks directly in your inbox!

Lauren Hecker is the instructor for the Primavera P6 Professionals training courses. To see her next open enrollment course, please visit our calendar. To schedule an onsite or custom course, please contact us!