Primavera P6 Professional allows for the creation of reports. Reports are tabular documents that populate with user-defined subjects of data that can be used to inform stakeholders of schedule progress. Although P6 allows you to print the activity table and Gantt chart as it appears in the program, reports allow stakeholders to review data more efficiently.

This article will outline the process of creating and running a report in Primavera P6 Professional. The following examples are taken using Primavera P6 Professional 18.

To create a report, first open the Reports screen by selecting Tools > Report > Reports.

The Reports screen will display a list of Global reports that can be run on the open project. To create a new report, select Edit > Add.

The New Report Wizard will open. This will take you step by step through the report creation process. The first screen will ask if you want to create a new report, a report based on the previous screen, or modify an existing report. The only option available is New Report, as the other options are only active after selecting an already made report.

Select Next to continue.

The next screen will prompt you to select a Subject Area for the report. The Time Distributed Data check box can be checked to filter out all options that can’t be displayed over time. 

In this example, I will be creating a report that displays which activities have not yet completed – this will help the stakeholder see how the schedule is progressing. I’ll select Activities as the Subject Area. 

Select Next to continue.

The next screen allows you to add additional subjects to report on that are related to the first subject. In this same step, you can configure how information will appear on the report using the Columns, Group and Sort, and Filter buttons. To configure the columns that will appear on the report, select Columns.

For my report, I want columns to display Activity ID, Activity Name, Activity Type, Original Duration, and Successor Details. The Available Options section will list all available columns, and the Selected Options section will list the columns that will display on the report. Use the left and right arrows to move columns from Available to Selected options, then select OK.

Group and Sort lets you configure the arrangement of subjects in the report. To set a grouping arrangement, select the Group By cell. For my report, I will select WBS to have my activities grouped by their Work Breakdown Structure layer. 

Select OK to continue.

Filter lets you create a filter for your selected subjects. The Filters Window uses Boolean Logic to set parameters for the report. Filters use a specific syntax of ‘where (parameter) – is – (value)’. 

I want to filter out any Activity Status that is not Complete. Under Parameter, I’ll select Activity Status, under is I’ll select not equal to and under Value I’ll select Completed. The report will only show activities where the Activity Status is not equal to Completed – or in other words, the activity is still in progress. 

Select Okay, then Next to continue.

The next screen lets you choose a timescale, time distributed data fields to view, and options for viewing data over time. I’ll leave these options as they are and select Next.

The following few screens allow you to title the report, Run Report, and Save Report.

Although the report can be run directly from this window, I will finish the report first by selecting Save Report, then Finish.

With the Report Wizard complete, the report can now be run from the Reports screen. To run a report, right click on it and select Run > Reports. There are various options of where to send the report to, but I’ll keep Print Preview selected and press OK.

The Activities report will open in the Print Preview window. The report is lean, tabular, includes the columns, groups, and filters I had selected. Scrolling down the report, I can easily see which activities have not yet completed. Using this report, the stakeholder would now have a better sense of how much longer the project has until completion.

If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, please use the comment section on the bottom of this page, and 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 Basics course. To see her next open enrollment course, please visit our calendar. To schedule an onsite or custom course, please contact us!