Primavera P6 Advanced Training

Thursday, September 14th, 2023

Thursday, September 28th, 2023

Thursday, October 12th, 2023

Thursday, October 26th, 2023

 New User Setup 

This lesson dives into the administrative side of the program to set up the database for multiple users to utilize. Here, we will cover creating new users and assigning security profiles and permissions to allow for project collaboration.

Organizational Breakdown Structure

This lesson focuses on the last step of P6 implementation: creating the Organizational Breakdown Structure, or the OBS. The OBS is a global hierarchy of the managers responsible for the projects in your enterprise. You can use the OBS to adjust security access for different types of data within the database. Here, we’ll cover creating new OBS levels, associating users with them, and assigning them to EPS layers, WBS layers, Issues, and Thresholds.

Security Profiles

This lesson will focus on creating and assigning security profiles to allow different users to perform different functions within the program. In the lesson, we look at Global and Project security profiles, which allow you to adjust exactly what users are able to do within each project and the application as a whole.

Resource Calculation Settings

This lesson focuses on how the resource calculation settings from User Preferences affect assigning additional resources to activities. Here, we look at the differences between preserving and recalculating the units, durations, and units/time for multiple resource assignments. Additionally, we look at the Duration Type for activities and how different types adjust the effect of assigning additional resources to activities.

Unit & Cost Histograms

This lesson covers analyzing unit and cost data to ensure that the project is within budget and the resources are allocated appropriately. In the lesson, we look at the Activity Usage Spreadsheet, Activity Usage Profile, and Resource Usage Profile, each of which displays unit, cost, and resource usage over the project’s timeline. Also, we specifically look at how to adjust the histogram settings for the profiles. This lets us create filters by resource type and adjust the bars and curves that display.

Resource Leveling

This lesson focuses on the Resource Leveling tool. This tool can be used to automatically adjust the project schedule to fix resource overallocation. If you have a resource assigned to work more hours than they are able, the Leveler will move assigned activities to another date when they have more availability. Here, we cover setting leveling priorities and adjusting leveling settings to level the project exactly as needed.

Resource Curves

This lesson covers using resource curves to account for uneven distributions of work. In the lesson, we go over how to use the Resource Assignments page to view daily resource usage. Also, we will cover how to adjust this usage by applying default resource curves. Then, we cover creating a unique Resource Curve that can be used to distribute units and costs among the assigned activities in any manner needed.

Future Bucket Planning

This lesson focuses on another method for accounting for uneven work distributions: manually entering them in with future bucket planning. Here, we go over how to use the Resource Assignments page to manually enter resource usage per day. This allows us to be more accurate when accounting for resource usage over time.

User Defined Fields

This lesson covers creating user defined fields, or UDFs. UDF’s allow you to add custom fields and values to data in the database. We explore creating and using each type of UDFs available, including text, start date, finish date, cost, number, integer, and indicator types. Once created, we also look at adding columns for custom UDFs and assigning different values to activities accordingly.

Reflections

When working with a schedule, there are times that you may need to experiment with schedule changes that you may not want to make permanent. This lesson focuses on using the Reflections tool, which allows you to create what-if copies of the project schedule. Once created, we also look at how to merge the reflection with the current project schedule to make the project changes permanent.

Global Change

This lesson teaches how to use the Global Change tool. The Gloabl Change tool allows you to make changes to multiple activities, resources, and expenses simultaneously. Here, we look at using the default global change definitions, such as Increase Durations, and their effect on the overall project. Additionally, we cover creating and using unique definitions, allowing you to make any change to any kind of data within the program. For example, increasing the units of only specific assigned resources.

Codes

Codes are categorical attributes that can be created and assigned to capture additional information that can be used to group, filter, sort, and report on. In this lesson, we look at creating project codes, activity codes, resource codes and role codes. Once created, we look at assigning code values to specific types of project data and use them to categorize and classify data types.

Activity Steps

Activity steps allow the scheduler to break down a project’s activity into smaller units of work. In this lesson, we cover how to set up the activity setting to work with steps, how to add individual activity steps, and how these steps can contribute to the activity’s overall percent complete. In addition, we cover creating Activity Step Templates, which allow you to save steps as a template to be used on future, similar activities.

Suspend & Resume Activities

This lesson goes over using the Suspend and Resume fields in the Status tab to identify an activity that needs to pause work and resume it at some point in the project schedule. Additionally, we look at how to account for these suspensions on the Gantt Chart by creating “necked” activity bars for non-work periods.

Risks

Risks are uncertain events or conditions that have the potential to negatively or positively impact the project. In this lesson, we focus on using P6’s Risk Management tool to add potential risks, manage their details, and view quantitative risk analysis scores. After, we look at how to account for risk responses and view the effect of the response on the project as a whole.

Thresholds

This lesson focuses on creating and using thresholds. Thresholds are user-defined triggers that identify when the status of an activity has exceeded or is close to moving beyond an acceptable range. In this lesson, we cover how to create a threshold by setting threshold values and choosing a threshold parameter. After, we cover using the Monitor Thresholds tool to view any activities that have exceeded the created threshold.

Issues

Issues are problems encountered within a project plan that require attention or corrective action by project team members. In this lesson, we focus on using the Issues page to add potential issues or opportunities, manage their details, and track their effects on the project. Also, we also go over the Issue Navigator, which quickly links you to issues and data related to the issues within the project.

Schedule Comparison in P6 Visualizer

This lesson focuses on the successor to the Claim Digger tool that was featured in older versions of P6: the Schedule Comparison tool. Here, we cover how to open and use the P6 Visualizer’s Schedule Comparison to create a comparison report for two projects, or a single project and its baselines. Additionally, after creation, we cover how to Save this customized report to run it on future projects.

Multiple Float Paths

In Primavera P6, the critical path is the sequence of activities that represent the longest path through the project and determines the shortest possible duration. In this lesson, we look at how to create multiple float paths This allows you to account for the second and third longest paths, along with the critical path.

Calculating Percent Complete

This lesson focuses on the use and effects of the three percent complete types: Physical Percent Complete, Duration Percent Complete, and Units Percent Complete. Here, we look at how each of these individual percent complete types work, what types of activities they should be used with, and how status updates should be performed for each.

Earned Value Analysis

Earned Value management is a technique to measure performance and progress for your project. This lesson teaches how to perform basic earned value analysis with Primavera P6. Here, we cover the preliminary settings that must be used to allow for earned value, and how to use related analysis columns For example,  you will learn how to use the Schedule Performance Index and the Cost Performance Index.