In this article i will show you simple method to create cash flow from Oracle Primavera without using the cash flow report in primavera. This method is faster and it may be the only choice you have in some primavera versions where the cash flow report is missing.
Step Number One:
Click on resource usage spreadsheet and select the cost resource as per the photo above.
Step Number Two:
Right click on the cost resource and copy. Please note, you need to adjust the right columns to show the units per month/week as you prefer to see it in your cash flow.
Step Number Three:
Paste the values in excel sheet as you can see from the photo above.
Step Number Four:
Delete unnecessary columns, change the Cell A2 with (Monthly or Weekly cost), and format the cells B2 to O2 as numbers.
Step Number Five:
Add cumulative cash row as per the photo above.
Step Number Six:
Now Select the data in cells A1 to O3 and insert chart. Make the Monthly cash as columns and Cumulative cash as line with secondary axis.
I just received a question about Primavera from one of our website courses member and i believe it is interesting. Following is the question and my answer:
“Dear Mr.Hany,
When im importing almost 6000 activities from excel to Primavera it is showing PC is out of memory and close other programs and i close other programs but it takes too much time. is there any solution for this? pls…”
I have faced similar situation and i found that the solution is very simple. Just separate your file into 3 patches, each patch 2000 activity. In another words, divide your excel sheet into three sheets and import one by one. This is the easy solution, the hard solution is to check the following:
1- You have enough memory installed in your PC (around 4GB).
2- You have enough space in your C drive (around 20 GB).
3- You do not have lot of programs working in the background (check this by typing ALt+Ctrl+Delete and check/close programs in the task manager).
4- If the above 3 check list is okay and you still have problems, then i would advice to reinstall the windows and P6.
5- If you still have problem, change the Primavera version.
As a result of planning engineer interview tricky questions and model answer survey we have made in our Planning Engineer website, and after our team review and development, we created a decent document that contains the final results of this efforts. We succeeded to gather so far 87 good questions and their model answers that might face a Planning Engineer during an interview.
Preparing for a primavera Interview is not difficult if you know what you are doing, Just read and search about the company history and current ongoing projects and check Sample Interview Questions and Answers for your job position. for primavera interview check out this Primavera Interview questions and Answers for your reference.
Get your Copy of Planning Engineer Interview Guide
The Time Schedule or Project Programme is a very important document because it contains the contractual dates (baseline), actual dates (history) and forecast dates (future). The most common software for creating time schedule is oracle primavera However this document is produced in coordination with all departments (Tender, Contract Administration, Technical, Construction and Procurement Departments) but some individuals find the time schedule hard to read and understand when it is produced in primavera format, Therefore i prepared this topic to make it easy for non planning engineer to read and fully understand what is inside the Primavera Time Schedule.
How to Use Primavera Scheduling:
A-READ THE COLORS FIRST:
Each color in the Primavera Scheduling Software has different indication in the activity list area and bar chart area as per the following :
Primavera Time Schedule
A-1 The Activity List Area: The colors in the activity list area represent the Work Break Down Structure (WBS) of the project, it is a hierarchy color coding identify different levels, each primavera time schedule has its own WBS and i will explain the above time schedule color coding to give you an idea how it work as per the following:
Items from 1 to 7 in Activity List Area Represent the Work Break down Structure (WBS) of The Schedule, Each Schedule has its own WBS but they are using the same concept and this is the first thing to read to understand primavera time schedule.
Item no. 1 represent the root level which summarize the whole primavera time schedule and cannot be repeated, i.e. if you want to know the primavera time schedule overall duration, completion date, percentage completed you should go to level 1.
Item no. 2 represent a secondary level of the time schedule and can be repeated and it summarize whatever underneath until you reach another level 2, in our sample above level 2 represent Project milestones, Shop drawings submittals Testing and Commissioning. Therefore if you want to know when all the shop drawings submittals will be finished go to level 2 of shop drawings submittals.
Items no. 3,4,5 and 6 are representing further levels and each level (color) summarize down direction until you reach the same level (color) again, i.e. between two red colors or two blue colors as shown above.
Item No. 7 represents the lowest level in the WBS which is the activity level.
A-2 The Bar Chart Area:
A: Actual work done (History)
B: Remaining works (Future)
C: Baseline Schedule (Contract, Revised Schedule)
D: Critical Path (Delays in any activity delay the project completion)
See Next Page:
B-READ THE DATA:
understand Primavera
Primavera Scheduling Tool is providing plenty of data and to know How to understand primavera you need to know what each column tells you.
1- Activity ID: is a numbering system identifying each activity.
2- Activity Name: the description of the activity.
3- Original Duration: the period of time required to execute the activity or a summary of the duration required to execute a group of activities under certain level.
4- Duration % Completed: Activity Percentage completed from the time point of view, i.e. activity no. DUB4001001 “HVAC Ducts” is 40% completed as of the schedule data date which is 20-Oct-2012 and this % completed indicate the forecast completion date which is item no. 8.
5- BL Project start: BL is a shortcut to Base Line which represent the planned start as per the Baseline schedule and these values are fixed.
6- Actual / Forecast Start: This is recording of the project history , When each activity actually started or Forecasting when this activity will start, to know whether the date in this column is actual or forecast look for the letter A after the date, it mean this date is a history and ACTUAL see activities no. A1080, New 16, A1083, FFB4001001 …etc.
7- BL Project finish: BL is a shortcut to Base Line which represent the planned finish as per the Baseline schedule and these values are fixed.
8- Actual / Forecast Finish: This is recording of the project history, when each activity actually finished or forecasting when this activity will Finish.
9- Variance BL Project Finish: This indicates the variance between BL Project finish (Item no. 7) and Actual / Forecast Finish (Item no. 8), and this highlight whether the schedule is ahead or behind the Base Line and how many days the variance.
Do you need more information about primavera schedule and planning using primavera and excel? Why you do not check our courses and gain more information: Planning Engineer Courses
P6 Claim Digger is very useful tool to find difference between two versions of schedule or Baseline Schedules V.S Revised Schedules using primavera P6 without any additional software required.
First let me explain what is the benefit of using Primavera P6 Built in tool Claim Digger (now known as Schedule Comparison in the new primavera p6 versions). Mainly the The Clam Digger is comparing two schedules and find out what is the difference between two of them, Differences are identified as per the following terms:
1- Total Float
2- Calendar Name
3- Free Float
4- Critical Activities
5- Activity Name
6- WBS Name
7- WBS Code
8- Primary Constraint Type
9- Primary Constraint Date
10- Actual Expense Cost
11- Remaining Expense Cost
12- At Completion Expense Cost
13- Budgeted Expense Cost
14- Planned Finish Date
15- Early Finish Date
16- Early Start Date
17- Actual Start Date
18- Late Finish Date
19- Late Start Date
20- Planned Start Date
21- Actual Finish Date
22- Original Duration
23- Actual Duration
24- Remaining Duration
25- At Completion Duration
26- Actual Cost
27- At Completion Cost
28- Expense Percent Complete
29- Price Per Unit
30- Budgeted Cost
31- Remaining Cost
32- Activity Percent Complete
33- Duration Percent Complete
34- Physical Percent Complete
35- Units Percent Complete
36- Actual Labor Units
37- Budgeted Labor Units
38- At Completion Labor Units
39- Remaining Labor Units
40- Activities Added/Deleted
40.1- The following Activities have been added to the project
40.2- The following Activities have been deleted from the project
41- Activity Code Assignments Added/Deleted
42- Relationship Differences (Predecessor / Successor Relationships added or Deleted)
43- At Completion Units
44- Budgeted Units
45- Remaining Units
46- Remaining Units Per Time
47- Actual Units
48- Budgeted Duration
49- Remaining Duration
50- Resource Assignments Added/Deleted
51- Activity Steps
WoW… Do not you think it is an amazing tool ??!! , It will spot any variance between two versions in the schedule.
When you should use Claim Digger, Applications of using This tool :
1- When you receive a new version of the time schedule from the contractor, Then you should use Claim Digger to check what has been changed on the schedule.
2- When you Receive an update of the time schedule, you should check that nothing changed from the baseline original duration, relationships and constrains.
3- Before submitting your schedule to the client after new revision or update, just run fast check to ensure that noting went wrong.
How to work with Claim Digger Step by Step :
1- open claim digger from primavera p6 tools menu as per the following photo:
Primavera P6 Menu
2- Select the Revised schedule and the Project Schedule Baseline (The two versions of the schedules you want to compare) as per the following photo :
Revised Schedule V.S Baseline Schedule
3- Click on Advanced Options to choose what is the output values you want to see in the report.
Note: you can choose Group Report by Activity in the advanced setting if you want primavera to group all the terms i mentioned above (what ever you choose from the 51 term mentioned above) by activity.
Claim Advanced Options
4- Choose the report format (HTML or CSV)
The HTML format will be opened by any explorer such as Firefox, chrome or Microsoft Internet explorer
Digger options
5- Click compare to run the Software
Compare two schedules
6- Sample of Claim Digger Reports:
A- HTML Report
Compare two projects schedules HTML Report
B: CVS Report
Compare two projects schedules CVS- EXCEL Report
Claim Digger Not Available Under Tools Menu in P6 Professional 8.4 and Later (Standalone):
Oracle Primavera announced that starting from version 8.4 claim digger is not available under tools menu and it has moved to Visualizer application under Schedule Comparison.
You can find the Visualizer from the tools menu as per the following photo:
Then you can find the Schedule Comparison from the menu in the following photo:
Oracle mentioned the following cause of this action:
P6 was installed with the packaged SQLite database. In this Standalone configuration (P6 versions 8.4 to 15.2) using SQLite as the database, this the expected behavior with respect to Claim Digger. Claim Digger is not available in this database option.
P6 Professional Standalone (r8.4-15.2) using a SQLite database supports all of the Project Management Functionality of P6 Professional except for the following:
– Update Baseline
– Claim Digger (Schedule compare)
– Job Services – Jobs cannot be scheduled. However, the user can use the Windows scheduler to invoke the command line interface to import, export, and run batch reports.
– Risk Analysis
– Any existing Java-based integration components developed by the customer using the P6 Remote Integration API (RMI) is not supported with an SQLite database
Assigning Activities to WBS is important while creating a time schedule. Learn how to create WBS activities in easy, fast, and clear steps.
Assigning Activities to WBS :
If you are not familiar with WBS definition you should know that WBS refers to ” Work Breakdown Structure ” that is presented with a hierarchal shape which groups activities into easily manageable components.
The Figure above is for a very simple “WBS” with the minimum number of activities just to explain how can we assign activities to WBS in easy steps.
It is very important for any planning engineer to know how to deal with both Excel & Primavera and any exchanging of data between them.
When Importing from Excel to Primavera we may get a message from primavera saying “The User Preferences used to create this Excel file are not the same as your current preferences. Importing this file could corrupt your data. Please refer to help for more information about importing data from Excel. Are you sure that you want to continue?”
Which will appear when you select the file you want to import, the causes of this message is that:
The file you are trying to import is not recognized by the Primavera, as the Primavera deals with excel files with “.XLS” Format NOT with “.XLSX” Format.
Any Modifications in the “User Data” Sheet in your Excel File.
Solution:
Wrong extension of the Excel File:
Click on File tab, then Click Import:
Choose to import “Spread Sheet”:
We want to import this file:
As it is a “.XLSX” sheet format, Primavera will give this message:
The solution for this case is to change the Extension of the Excel file from “.XLSX” to “.XLS“.
This should be enough for solving the error in this case.
“User Data” Modifications:
The Second case if there has been and modification in the “User Data” sheet mostly by mistake.
You need to export a new “.XLS” file from Primavera :
2. Open the new Exported File, right click on the “user data” sheet and then select “Move or Copy“:
3. Select the sheet where you want to copy the “User Data” Sheet from “To Book” tab and make sure that the other sheet is opened,then select “move to end”, mark “Create a Copy”, then Click OK.
4. Now Re-import the old file to Primavera, this should work.
As a result of the planning engineer interview tricky questions and model answer survey we have made in our Planning Engineer website, and after our team review and development, we created a decent document that contains the final results of these efforts. We succeeded to gather so far 90 good questions and their model answers that might face a Planning Engineer during an interview.
Preparing for a primavera Interview is not difficult if you know what you are doing, Just read and search about the company history and current ongoing projects and check Sample Interview Questions and Answers for your job position. for a primavera interview check out these Primavera Interview questions and Answers for your reference.
The Questions Included on the Planning Interview Guire Are:
What is a constraint in primavera?
what is the clause to be refereed in FIDIC when there is entitled to an extension of time?
What is the reasonable range of float you assume while checking the look ahead work activities?
What is the Critical Path? How do you identify it and if any activity has negative slack, how can you adjust the duration?
What is the difference between Planning & Scheduling Engineer?
What is the difference between Retained Logic & Override Logic?
What is the difference between a recovery schedule and a revised schedule?
You are working on a project and somewhere in the middle of the project. The progress variance was -5% and still, you are achieving the contractual completion date. How is it possible?
How can you define the Critical Path in primavera?
As a planning Engineer, “Walk me through a project”
How can you differentiate total float and free float?
What is Resource leveling and What is Resource Allocation?
If we increase 2 days to the duration of any activity on the critical path that will increase the duration of the project by 2 days?
Explain what a good schedule means?
How will you make a manpower loading for your schedule?
What are the involvements of Project Planner and vital Role in Project Management?
Does float belong to the Owner or the Contractor?
What are the methods of calculating EV (earned value)?
What is the difference between a recovery plan and a revised plan?
If the Project Total Float shows negative, does it always follow that the Performance % Complete is less than Schedule % Complete?
How to calculate budget man-hours?
What do you mean by SDK, & what is its usage in Primavera?
How do you start planning without any information on hand?
What is redundant logic?
Quality and Grade are the same things?
Define the main responsibilities of the planning engineer in each phase of the project’s lifecycle. Please state clearly which information/data you would need from the Project Manager/Project management team to fulfill your task as a planner.
What are the monitoring skills?
Could you chase Project Managers for information and not just be a keyboard Junkie?
What is the best software for planning?
What would you submit if your consultant/client asks you to submit a matrix report?
Mention 4 reasons cause -ve float in primavera:
What is the difference between Float and Slack?
What is the difference between negative lag & lead?
How do you explain project delay if the earned value is more than the planned value?
How are early and late dates determined?
What are three methods of measuring project progress?
What is the best way to be a professional planning engineer?
What are SV and CV?
What’s the way to resolve the delay in project time?
If the Budgeted cost of works is more than the actual cost of works, how do you consider the performance of the Project? Optimum, Bad, or Good?
What is Project Management?
What does it mean if “SPI” is greater, lesser, or equal to one?
Could we have more than one critical path?
The scope is known partially, then how to plan for the future?
What is the concurrent delay?
What is a Baseline?
What is the Difference between Bar charts & Network diagrams?
What are Thresholds in Project Management?
What is the difference between crashing and fast-tracking?
What is the normal productivity of welder for Carbon steel material per day?
What is the difference between free float and total float?
For an activity, if the free float is negative whereas the total float is positive. Is this possible to happen and what’s the impact?
Define critical path:
Do primavera loads cash in and cash out in the same schedule?
How to reduce critical path?
What is the normal total float allowed for a new project?
What are the duties of a planner?
What is Baseline Program?
What is SF dependency? Any example. Have you ever used this?
Are all activities with negative total float drive the project completion date?
What is meant by a recovery schedule?
What do you mean by “EPC”, “TIA” & “EOT”?
How do you get information to populate and update your schedule?
What is the standard deviation of the activity?
Suppose you have a conflict with the project consultant/ owner representative about a schedule update you have submitted recently. You believe that you have the right to reflect some time delays in the schedule in favor of your company, but the owner wouldn’t accept that. The conflict escalated and the consultant hold the monthly payment till you agree on the update according to his perspective. He’s also implicitly threatening to kick you out of the project unless you are “cooperative”. What’s should you do?
What does it mean If my free float is positive?
What to look for when a contractor sends their tender program to be awarded?
What is an S–Curve?
How De-watering works could affect your schedule?
Every project plan has two types of dates, the early start early finishes and the late start late finish. Late start always starts after an early start but finishes with the early finish, Why?
What is the major difference between Cost variance and Schedule variance?
Why negative lag/lead is not recommended in a good schedule?
What does variance in the S curve indicate on both axis?
What is an open-end activity?
If you are loading the cost in Primavera, Which cost will you select either at the price in BOQ or your Budget amount, or Both?
What does trend analysis mean?
A project shows actual performance is matching the planned performance. The Project is in delay also. What could be the reason?
What is the difference between flag and milestone activity in primavera?
How do you estimate activities durations?
What does it mean if “CPI” is greater, lesser, or equal to one?
What is needed for a successful project plan?
We hire the team in execution, then who planned for the project?
How often do you update your Project Baseline?
What are BCWS, BCWP, and ACWP?
What is a constraint?
What is activity & What is WBS?
What is a milestone? What are the types of milestones?
What are the steps to review EOT Claim?
What are the differences between critical and longest paths?
What is the use of Activity Codes?
Get your Copy of the Planning Engineer Interview Guide
One the most common problems planning engineer expose to when importing a Primavera file with “XER Format” are “POBS”.
“POBS” could cause errors while importing or slowdown the importing process. In this topic we will figure out a way that can reduce the importing time to the minimum with keeping all our data safe.
Steps to remove “POBS” from your “XER Format File”:
After you export your project to a “XER Format” File, right click on the file and choose to open with “WordPad”.
Press “Ctrl + F” and look for the line which starts with “%T”, where you will see the word “POBS” next to.
Select (Highlight) the text starting from this row till you find the next “%T” in the document.
Delete this content “Press Delete from you Keyboard”, and be careful, DELETE ONLY THESE LINES, any other deleted rows will damage your file and it will not be able to open, you can make a copy as a trial.
When you close the document a message will appear if you want to save changes you did, Click on “Save”.
Here you will see the difference in the file size as it changed from A to B.
Now you can import your file with the minimum time required.
Today we are going to talk about one of Primavera P6 feature, which will help you as a planning or scheduler it is “Reflection”.
Reflection is a unique tool that you can use instead of copy a project and check different scenarios over it with different changes or scenarios.
To easy understand the reflection tool, you can check the following picture.
Reflections offer a much broader range of capabilities than those envisaged by its, Using Reflections for what-if analysis. Briefly, a Reflection allows you to save a linked copy of a project, update it and then merge those changes back into the original project. But that’s not all you can do with it.
Simply it is a copy of your project with a link to the project source , also you can merge all the changes or update you have done in the reflection project to your source project an show all the changes within your reflection and committee our ignore these changes.
Steps to create reflection and merge changes:
Step 1 : Right click over the project and select “Create reflection”
Step 2 : If your project has assigned baseline , he asked to add or not “Click Ok”.
Step 3 : You can check the reflection , source project column before make changes and merge them
Step 4 : Make changes or update on the reflection
Step 5 : Merge the changes to the source project ” right click over reflection and click merge changes”
You a can watch a tutorial video for Primavera P6 Reflection
And more than 50 Primavera Tips and Tricks at our website with the following Link
The Time Schedule or Project Programme is a very important document because it contains the contractual dates (baseline), actual dates (history) and forecast dates (future). The most common software for creating time schedule is oracle primavera However this document is produced in coordination with all departments (Tender, Contract Administration, Technical, Construction and Procurement Departments) but some individuals find the time schedule hard to read and understand when it is produced in primavera format, Therefore i prepared this topic to make it easy for non planning engineer to read and fully understand what is inside the Primavera Time Schedule.
How to Use Construction Scheduling with Primavera:
A-READ THE COLORS FIRST:
Each color in the Primavera Scheduling Software has different indication in the activity list area and bar chart area as per the following :
A-1 The Activity List Area: The colors in the activity list area represent the Work Break Down Structure (WBS) of the project, it is a hierarchy color coding identify different levels, each primavera time schedule has its own WBS and i will explain the above time schedule color coding to give you an idea how it work as per the following:
Items from 1 to 7 in Activity List Area Represent the Work Break down Structure (WBS) of The Schedule, Each Schedule has its own WBS but they are using the same concept and this is the first thing to read to understand primavera time schedule.
Item no. 1 represent the root level which summarize the whole primavera time schedule and cannot be repeated, i.e. if you want to know the primavera time schedule overall duration, completion date, percentage completed you should go to level 1.
Item no. 2 represent a secondary level of the time schedule and can be repeated and it summarize whatever underneath until you reach another level 2, in our sample above level 2 represent Project milestones, Shop drawings submittals Testing and Commissioning. Therefore if you want to know when all the shop drawings submittals will be finished go to level 2 of shop drawings submittals.
Items no. 3,4,5 and 6 are representing further levels and each level (color) summarize down direction until you reach the same level (color) again, i.e. between two red colors or two blue colors as shown above.
Item No. 7 represents the lowest level in the WBS which is the activity level.
A-2 The Bar Chart Area:
A: Actual work done (History)
B: Remaining works (Future)
C: Baseline Schedule (Contract, Revised Schedule)
D: Critical Path (Delays in any activity delay the project completion)
See Next Page:
B-READ THE DATA:
understand Primavera
Primavera Scheduling Tool is providing plenty of data and to know How to understand primavera you need to know what each column tells you.
1- Activity ID: is a numbering system identifying each activity.
2- Activity Name: the description of the activity.
3- Original Duration: the period of time required to execute the activity or a summary of the duration required to execute a group of activities under certain level.
4- Duration % Completed: Activity Percentage completed from the time point of view, i.e. activity no. DUB4001001 “HVAC Ducts” is 40% completed as of the schedule data date which is 20-Oct-2012 and this % completed indicate the forecast completion date which is item no. 8.
5- BL Project start: BL is a shortcut to Base Line which represent the planned start as per the Baseline schedule and these values are fixed.
6- Actual / Forecast Start: This is recording of the project history , When each activity actually started or Forecasting when this activity will start, to know whether the date in this column is actual or forecast look for the letter A after the date, it mean this date is a history and ACTUAL see activities no. A1080, New 16, A1083, FFB4001001 …etc.
7- BL Project finish: BL is a shortcut to Base Line which represent the planned finish as per the Baseline schedule and these values are fixed.
8- Actual / Forecast Finish: This is recording of the project history, when each activity actually finished or forecasting when this activity will Finish.
9- Variance BL Project Finish: This indicates the variance between BL Project finish (Item no. 7) and Actual / Forecast Finish (Item no. 8), and this highlight whether the schedule is ahead or behind the Base Line and how many days the variance.
Do you need more information about primavera schedule and planning using primavera and excel? Why you do not check our courses and gain more information: Planning Engineer Courses
P6 Claim Digger is very useful tool to find difference between two versions of schedule or Baseline Schedules V.S Revised Schedules using primavera P6 without any additional software required.
First let me explain what is the benefit of using Primavera P6 Built in tool Claim Digger (now known as Schedule Comparison in the new primavera p6 versions). Mainly the The Clam Digger is comparing two schedules and find out what is the difference between two of them, Differences are identified as per the following terms:
1- Total Float
2- Calendar Name
3- Free Float
4- Critical Activities
5- Activity Name
6- WBS Name
7- WBS Code
8- Primary Constraint Type
9- Primary Constraint Date
10- Actual Expense Cost
11- Remaining Expense Cost
12- At Completion Expense Cost
13- Budgeted Expense Cost
14- Planned Finish Date
15- Early Finish Date
16- Early Start Date
17- Actual Start Date
18- Late Finish Date
19- Late Start Date
20- Planned Start Date
21- Actual Finish Date
22- Original Duration
23- Actual Duration
24- Remaining Duration
25- At Completion Duration
26- Actual Cost
27- At Completion Cost
28- Expense Percent Complete
29- Price Per Unit
30- Budgeted Cost
31- Remaining Cost
32- Activity Percent Complete
33- Duration Percent Complete
34- Physical Percent Complete
35- Units Percent Complete
36- Actual Labor Units
37- Budgeted Labor Units
38- At Completion Labor Units
39- Remaining Labor Units
40- Activities Added/Deleted
40.1- The following Activities have been added to the project
40.2- The following Activities have been deleted from the project
41- Activity Code Assignments Added/Deleted
42- Relationship Differences (Predecessor / Successor Relationships added or Deleted)
43- At Completion Units
44- Budgeted Units
45- Remaining Units
46- Remaining Units Per Time
47- Actual Units
48- Budgeted Duration
49- Remaining Duration
50- Resource Assignments Added/Deleted
51- Activity Steps
WoW… Do not you think it is an amazing tool ??!! , It will spot any variance between two versions in the schedule.
When you should use Claim Digger, Applications of using This tool :
1- When you receive a new version of the time schedule from the contractor, Then you should use Claim Digger to check what has been changed on the schedule.
2- When you Receive an update of the time schedule, you should check that nothing changed from the baseline original duration, relationships and constrains.
3- Before submitting your schedule to the client after new revision or update, just run fast check to ensure that noting went wrong.
How to work with Claim Digger Step by Step :
1- open claim digger from primavera p6 tools menu as per the following photo:
Primavera P6 Menu
2- Select the Revised schedule and the Project Schedule Baseline (The two versions of the schedules you want to compare) as per the following photo :
Revised Schedule V.S Baseline Schedule
3- Click on Advanced Options to choose what is the output values you want to see in the report.
Note: you can choose Group Report by Activity in the advanced setting if you want primavera to group all the terms i mentioned above (what ever you choose from the 51 term mentioned above) by activity.
Claim Advanced Options
4- Choose the report format (HTML or CSV)
The HTML format will be opened by any explorer such as Firefox, chrome or Microsoft Internet explorer
Digger options
5- Click compare to run the Software
Compare two schedules
6- Sample of Claim Digger Reports:
A- HTML Report
Compare two projects schedules HTML Report
B: CVS Report
Compare two projects schedules CVS- EXCEL Report
Claim Digger Not Available Under Tools Menu in P6 Professional 8.4 and Later (Standalone):
Oracle Primavera announced that starting from version 8.4 claim digger is not available under tools menu and it has moved to Visualizer application under Schedule Comparison.
You can find the Visualizer from the tools menu as per the following photo:
Then you can find the Schedule Comparison from the menu in the following photo:
Oracle mentioned the following cause of this action:
P6 was installed with the packaged SQLite database. In this Standalone configuration (P6 versions 8.4 to 15.2) using SQLite as the database, this the expected behavior with respect to Claim Digger. Claim Digger is not available in this database option.
P6 Professional Standalone (r8.4-15.2) using a SQLite database supports all of the Project Management Functionality of P6 Professional except for the following:
– Update Baseline
– Claim Digger (Schedule compare)
– Job Services – Jobs cannot be scheduled. However, the user can use the Windows scheduler to invoke the command line interface to import, export, and run batch reports.
– Risk Analysis
– Any existing Java-based integration components developed by the customer using the P6 Remote Integration API (RMI) is not supported with an SQLite database
Assigning Activities to WBS is important while creating a time schedule. Learn how to create WBS activities in easy, fast, and clear steps.
Assigning Activities to WBS :
If you are not familiar with WBS definition you should know that WBS refers to ” Work Breakdown Structure ” that is presented with a hierarchal shape which groups activities into easily manageable components.
The Figure above is for a very simple “WBS” with the minimum number of activities just to explain how can we assign activities to WBS in easy steps.
It is very important for any planning engineer to know how to deal with both Excel & Primavera and any exchanging of data between them.
When Importing from Excel to Primavera we may get a message from primavera saying “The User Preferences used to create this Excel file are not the same as your current preferences. Importing this file could corrupt your data. Please refer to help for more information about importing data from Excel. Are you sure that you want to continue?”
Which will appear when you select the file you want to import, the causes of this message is that:
The file you are trying to import is not recognized by the Primavera, as the Primavera deals with excel files with “.XLS” Format NOT with “.XLSX” Format.
Any Modifications in the “User Data” Sheet in your Excel File.
Solution:
Wrong extension of the Excel File:
Click on File tab, then Click Import:
Choose to import “Spread Sheet”:
We want to import this file:
As it is a “.XLSX” sheet format, Primavera will give this message:
The solution for this case is to change the Extension of the Excel file from “.XLSX” to “.XLS“.
This should be enough for solving the error in this case.
“User Data” Modifications:
The Second case if there has been and modification in the “User Data” sheet mostly by mistake.
You need to export a new “.XLS” file from Primavera :
2. Open the new Exported File, right click on the “user data” sheet and then select “Move or Copy“:
3. Select the sheet where you want to copy the “User Data” Sheet from “To Book” tab and make sure that the other sheet is opened,then select “move to end”, mark “Create a Copy”, then Click OK.
4. Now Re-import the old file to Primavera, this should work.
As a result of the planning engineer interview tricky questions and model answer survey we have made in our Planning Engineer website, and after our team review and development, we created a decent document that contains the final results of these efforts. We succeeded to gather so far 90 good questions and their model answers that might face a Planning Engineer during an interview.
Preparing for a primavera Interview is not difficult if you know what you are doing, Just read and search about the company history and current ongoing projects and check Sample Interview Questions and Answers for your job position. for a primavera interview check out these Primavera Interview questions and Answers for your reference.
The Questions Included on the Planning Interview Guire Are:
What is a constraint in primavera?
what is the clause to be refereed in FIDIC when there is entitled to an extension of time?
What is the reasonable range of float you assume while checking the look ahead work activities?
What is the Critical Path? How do you identify it and if any activity has negative slack, how can you adjust the duration?
What is the difference between Planning & Scheduling Engineer?
What is the difference between Retained Logic & Override Logic?
What is the difference between a recovery schedule and a revised schedule?
You are working on a project and somewhere in the middle of the project. The progress variance was -5% and still, you are achieving the contractual completion date. How is it possible?
How can you define the Critical Path in primavera?
As a planning Engineer, “Walk me through a project”
How can you differentiate total float and free float?
What is Resource leveling and What is Resource Allocation?
If we increase 2 days to the duration of any activity on the critical path that will increase the duration of the project by 2 days?
Explain what a good schedule means?
How will you make a manpower loading for your schedule?
What are the involvements of Project Planner and vital Role in Project Management?
Does float belong to the Owner or the Contractor?
What are the methods of calculating EV (earned value)?
What is the difference between a recovery plan and a revised plan?
If the Project Total Float shows negative, does it always follow that the Performance % Complete is less than Schedule % Complete?
How to calculate budget man-hours?
What do you mean by SDK, & what is its usage in Primavera?
How do you start planning without any information on hand?
What is redundant logic?
Quality and Grade are the same things?
Define the main responsibilities of the planning engineer in each phase of the project’s lifecycle. Please state clearly which information/data you would need from the Project Manager/Project management team to fulfill your task as a planner.
What are the monitoring skills?
Could you chase Project Managers for information and not just be a keyboard Junkie?
What is the best software for planning?
What would you submit if your consultant/client asks you to submit a matrix report?
Mention 4 reasons cause -ve float in primavera:
What is the difference between Float and Slack?
What is the difference between negative lag & lead?
How do you explain project delay if the earned value is more than the planned value?
How are early and late dates determined?
What are three methods of measuring project progress?
What is the best way to be a professional planning engineer?
What are SV and CV?
What’s the way to resolve the delay in project time?
If the Budgeted cost of works is more than the actual cost of works, how do you consider the performance of the Project? Optimum, Bad, or Good?
What is Project Management?
What does it mean if “SPI” is greater, lesser, or equal to one?
Could we have more than one critical path?
The scope is known partially, then how to plan for the future?
What is the concurrent delay?
What is a Baseline?
What is the Difference between Bar charts & Network diagrams?
What are Thresholds in Project Management?
What is the difference between crashing and fast-tracking?
What is the normal productivity of welder for Carbon steel material per day?
What is the difference between free float and total float?
For an activity, if the free float is negative whereas the total float is positive. Is this possible to happen and what’s the impact?
Define critical path:
Do primavera loads cash in and cash out in the same schedule?
How to reduce critical path?
What is the normal total float allowed for a new project?
What are the duties of a planner?
What is Baseline Program?
What is SF dependency? Any example. Have you ever used this?
Are all activities with negative total float drive the project completion date?
What is meant by a recovery schedule?
What do you mean by “EPC”, “TIA” & “EOT”?
How do you get information to populate and update your schedule?
What is the standard deviation of the activity?
Suppose you have a conflict with the project consultant/ owner representative about a schedule update you have submitted recently. You believe that you have the right to reflect some time delays in the schedule in favor of your company, but the owner wouldn’t accept that. The conflict escalated and the consultant hold the monthly payment till you agree on the update according to his perspective. He’s also implicitly threatening to kick you out of the project unless you are “cooperative”. What’s should you do?
What does it mean If my free float is positive?
What to look for when a contractor sends their tender program to be awarded?
What is an S–Curve?
How De-watering works could affect your schedule?
Every project plan has two types of dates, the early start early finishes and the late start late finish. Late start always starts after an early start but finishes with the early finish, Why?
What is the major difference between Cost variance and Schedule variance?
Why negative lag/lead is not recommended in a good schedule?
What does variance in the S curve indicate on both axis?
What is an open-end activity?
If you are loading the cost in Primavera, Which cost will you select either at the price in BOQ or your Budget amount, or Both?
What does trend analysis mean?
A project shows actual performance is matching the planned performance. The Project is in delay also. What could be the reason?
What is the difference between flag and milestone activity in primavera?
How do you estimate activities durations?
What does it mean if “CPI” is greater, lesser, or equal to one?
What is needed for a successful project plan?
We hire the team in execution, then who planned for the project?
How often do you update your Project Baseline?
What are BCWS, BCWP, and ACWP?
What is a constraint?
What is activity & What is WBS?
What is a milestone? What are the types of milestones?
What are the steps to review EOT Claim?
What are the differences between critical and longest paths?
What is the use of Activity Codes?
Get your Copy of the Planning Engineer Interview Guide
One the most common problems planning engineer expose to when importing a Primavera file with “XER Format” are “POBS”.
“POBS” could cause errors while importing or slowdown the importing process. In this topic we will figure out a way that can reduce the importing time to the minimum with keeping all our data safe.
Steps to remove “POBS” from your “XER Format File”:
After you export your project to a “XER Format” File, right click on the file and choose to open with “WordPad”.
Press “Ctrl + F” and look for the line which starts with “%T”, where you will see the word “POBS” next to.
Select (Highlight) the text starting from this row till you find the next “%T” in the document.
Delete this content “Press Delete from you Keyboard”, and be careful, DELETE ONLY THESE LINES, any other deleted rows will damage your file and it will not be able to open, you can make a copy as a trial.
When you close the document a message will appear if you want to save changes you did, Click on “Save”.
Here you will see the difference in the file size as it changed from A to B.
Now you can import your file with the minimum time required.
Today we are going to talk about one of Primavera P6 feature, which will help you as a planning or scheduler it is “Reflection”.
Reflection is a unique tool that you can use instead of copy a project and check different scenarios over it with different changes or scenarios.
To easy understand the reflection tool, you can check the following picture.
Reflections offer a much broader range of capabilities than those envisaged by its, Using Reflections for what-if analysis. Briefly, a Reflection allows you to save a linked copy of a project, update it and then merge those changes back into the original project. But that’s not all you can do with it.
Simply it is a copy of your project with a link to the project source , also you can merge all the changes or update you have done in the reflection project to your source project an show all the changes within your reflection and committee our ignore these changes.
Steps to create reflection and merge changes:
Step 1 : Right click over the project and select “Create reflection”
Step 2 : If your project has assigned baseline , he asked to add or not “Click Ok”.
Step 3 : You can check the reflection , source project column before make changes and merge them
Step 4 : Make changes or update on the reflection
Step 5 : Merge the changes to the source project ” right click over reflection and click merge changes”
You a can watch a tutorial video for Primavera P6 Reflection
And more than 50 Primavera Tips and Tricks at our website with the following Link
The Time Schedule or Project Programme is a very important document because it contains the contractual dates (baseline), actual dates (history) and forecast dates (future). The most common software for creating time schedule is oracle primavera However this document is produced in coordination with all departments (Tender, Contract Administration, Technical, Construction and Procurement Departments) but some individuals find the time schedule hard to read and understand when it is produced in primavera format, Therefore i prepared this topic to make it easy for non planning engineer to read and fully understand what is inside the Primavera Time Schedule.
How to Use Construction Scheduling with Primavera:
A-READ THE COLORS FIRST:
Each color in the Primavera Scheduling Software has different indication in the activity list area and bar chart area as per the following :
A-1 The Activity List Area: The colors in the activity list area represent the Work Break Down Structure (WBS) of the project, it is a hierarchy color coding identify different levels, each primavera time schedule has its own WBS and i will explain the above time schedule color coding to give you an idea how it work as per the following:
Items from 1 to 7 in Activity List Area Represent the Work Break down Structure (WBS) of The Schedule, Each Schedule has its own WBS but they are using the same concept and this is the first thing to read to understand primavera time schedule.
Item no. 1 represent the root level which summarize the whole primavera time schedule and cannot be repeated, i.e. if you want to know the primavera time schedule overall duration, completion date, percentage completed you should go to level 1.
Item no. 2 represent a secondary level of the time schedule and can be repeated and it summarize whatever underneath until you reach another level 2, in our sample above level 2 represent Project milestones, Shop drawings submittals Testing and Commissioning. Therefore if you want to know when all the shop drawings submittals will be finished go to level 2 of shop drawings submittals.
Items no. 3,4,5 and 6 are representing further levels and each level (color) summarize down direction until you reach the same level (color) again, i.e. between two red colors or two blue colors as shown above.
Item No. 7 represents the lowest level in the WBS which is the activity level.
A-2 The Bar Chart Area:
A: Actual work done (History)
B: Remaining works (Future)
C: Baseline Schedule (Contract, Revised Schedule)
D: Critical Path (Delays in any activity delay the project completion)
See Next Page:
B-READ THE DATA:
understand Primavera
Primavera Scheduling Tool is providing plenty of data and to know How to understand primavera you need to know what each column tells you.
1- Activity ID: is a numbering system identifying each activity.
2- Activity Name: the description of the activity.
3- Original Duration: the period of time required to execute the activity or a summary of the duration required to execute a group of activities under certain level.
4- Duration % Completed: Activity Percentage completed from the time point of view, i.e. activity no. DUB4001001 “HVAC Ducts” is 40% completed as of the schedule data date which is 20-Oct-2012 and this % completed indicate the forecast completion date which is item no. 8.
5- BL Project start: BL is a shortcut to Base Line which represent the planned start as per the Baseline schedule and these values are fixed.
6- Actual / Forecast Start: This is recording of the project history , When each activity actually started or Forecasting when this activity will start, to know whether the date in this column is actual or forecast look for the letter A after the date, it mean this date is a history and ACTUAL see activities no. A1080, New 16, A1083, FFB4001001 …etc.
7- BL Project finish: BL is a shortcut to Base Line which represent the planned finish as per the Baseline schedule and these values are fixed.
8- Actual / Forecast Finish: This is recording of the project history, when each activity actually finished or forecasting when this activity will Finish.
9- Variance BL Project Finish: This indicates the variance between BL Project finish (Item no. 7) and Actual / Forecast Finish (Item no. 8), and this highlight whether the schedule is ahead or behind the Base Line and how many days the variance.
Do you need more information about primavera schedule and planning using primavera and excel? Why you do not check our courses and gain more information: Planning Engineer Courses
P6 Claim Digger is very useful tool to find difference between two versions of schedule or Baseline Schedules V.S Revised Schedules using primavera P6 without any additional software required.
First let me explain what is the benefit of using Primavera P6 Built in tool Claim Digger (now known as Schedule Comparison in the new primavera p6 versions). Mainly the The Clam Digger is comparing two schedules and find out what is the difference between two of them, Differences are identified as per the following terms:
1- Total Float
2- Calendar Name
3- Free Float
4- Critical Activities
5- Activity Name
6- WBS Name
7- WBS Code
8- Primary Constraint Type
9- Primary Constraint Date
10- Actual Expense Cost
11- Remaining Expense Cost
12- At Completion Expense Cost
13- Budgeted Expense Cost
14- Planned Finish Date
15- Early Finish Date
16- Early Start Date
17- Actual Start Date
18- Late Finish Date
19- Late Start Date
20- Planned Start Date
21- Actual Finish Date
22- Original Duration
23- Actual Duration
24- Remaining Duration
25- At Completion Duration
26- Actual Cost
27- At Completion Cost
28- Expense Percent Complete
29- Price Per Unit
30- Budgeted Cost
31- Remaining Cost
32- Activity Percent Complete
33- Duration Percent Complete
34- Physical Percent Complete
35- Units Percent Complete
36- Actual Labor Units
37- Budgeted Labor Units
38- At Completion Labor Units
39- Remaining Labor Units
40- Activities Added/Deleted
40.1- The following Activities have been added to the project
40.2- The following Activities have been deleted from the project
41- Activity Code Assignments Added/Deleted
42- Relationship Differences (Predecessor / Successor Relationships added or Deleted)
43- At Completion Units
44- Budgeted Units
45- Remaining Units
46- Remaining Units Per Time
47- Actual Units
48- Budgeted Duration
49- Remaining Duration
50- Resource Assignments Added/Deleted
51- Activity Steps
WoW… Do not you think it is an amazing tool ??!! , It will spot any variance between two versions in the schedule.
When you should use Claim Digger, Applications of using This tool :
1- When you receive a new version of the time schedule from the contractor, Then you should use Claim Digger to check what has been changed on the schedule.
2- When you Receive an update of the time schedule, you should check that nothing changed from the baseline original duration, relationships and constrains.
3- Before submitting your schedule to the client after new revision or update, just run fast check to ensure that noting went wrong.
How to work with Claim Digger Step by Step :
1- open claim digger from primavera p6 tools menu as per the following photo:
Primavera P6 Menu
2- Select the Revised schedule and the Project Schedule Baseline (The two versions of the schedules you want to compare) as per the following photo :
Revised Schedule V.S Baseline Schedule
3- Click on Advanced Options to choose what is the output values you want to see in the report.
Note: you can choose Group Report by Activity in the advanced setting if you want primavera to group all the terms i mentioned above (what ever you choose from the 51 term mentioned above) by activity.
Claim Advanced Options
4- Choose the report format (HTML or CSV)
The HTML format will be opened by any explorer such as Firefox, chrome or Microsoft Internet explorer
Digger options
5- Click compare to run the Software
Compare two schedules
6- Sample of Claim Digger Reports:
A- HTML Report
Compare two projects schedules HTML Report
B: CVS Report
Compare two projects schedules CVS- EXCEL Report
Claim Digger Not Available Under Tools Menu in P6 Professional 8.4 and Later (Standalone):
Oracle Primavera announced that starting from version 8.4 claim digger is not available under tools menu and it has moved to Visualizer application under Schedule Comparison.
You can find the Visualizer from the tools menu as per the following photo:
Then you can find the Schedule Comparison from the menu in the following photo:
Oracle mentioned the following cause of this action:
P6 was installed with the packaged SQLite database. In this Standalone configuration (P6 versions 8.4 to 15.2) using SQLite as the database, this the expected behavior with respect to Claim Digger. Claim Digger is not available in this database option.
P6 Professional Standalone (r8.4-15.2) using a SQLite database supports all of the Project Management Functionality of P6 Professional except for the following:
– Update Baseline
– Claim Digger (Schedule compare)
– Job Services – Jobs cannot be scheduled. However, the user can use the Windows scheduler to invoke the command line interface to import, export, and run batch reports.
– Risk Analysis
– Any existing Java-based integration components developed by the customer using the P6 Remote Integration API (RMI) is not supported with an SQLite database
Assigning Activities to WBS is important while creating a time schedule. Learn how to create WBS activities in easy, fast, and clear steps.
Assigning Activities to WBS :
If you are not familiar with WBS definition you should know that WBS refers to ” Work Breakdown Structure ” that is presented with a hierarchal shape which groups activities into easily manageable components.
The Figure above is for a very simple “WBS” with the minimum number of activities just to explain how can we assign activities to WBS in easy steps.
