Importing from Excel to Primavera – Problems and Solutions.

Importing from Excel to Primavera:

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:

1. Click on File tab, then Click Import:
   

   
   

2. Choose to import “Spread Sheet”:
   

   
   

3. We want to import this file:
   

   
   

4. As it is a “.XLSX” sheet format, Primavera will give this message:
   

   
   

5. 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.

1. 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.