Primavera Online Basic Course -English

Follow the steps in this guide: Basic Planning Course – download steps (Word).

1. Accurate cost estimation from the start.
2. Realistic budget including contingency for unexpected costs.
3. Effective planning – a realistic WBS and logical relationships.
4. Budget control over time – track every cost to see what drives overruns.
5. Change management – act before the cost of a problem exceeds the cost of the change.
6. Risk management – identify risks early and prepare responses.
7. Subcontractor and supplier management – monitor them closely; they are one of the biggest budget factors.
8. Lessons learned – review similar projects and keep your own lessons-learned log.

Site allocation is planning how to use the site area effectively to get the highest productivity. It includes:

• Selecting the locations of storage areas and what is stored where.
• Planning equipment and traffic movement to avoid interruptions.
• Any arrangement that makes the best use of the site to increase productivity and reduce losses.

It should be considered at the start of every new project.

1. Open Print Preview, then Page Setup.
2. Go to the Options tab and tick Grid Lines.
3. The gridlines now appear in the printed / PDF layout.

Activity codes let you organise the same activities in a different hierarchy from your WBS. For example you can:

• Group activities by BOQ division (e.g. all concrete works).
• Filter by type of work: internal finishes, external finishes, MEP.
• Group by building, zone or subcontractor.

This gives you organised, targeted views and reports, such as progress in a specific location or the performance of a specific team. In the example below the activities are grouped by building type, so the schedule and performance % of each type can be tracked easily.

The project is created, but P6 is still showing the Projects window. Click the Activities tab to open and work on the project.

This usually happens when the cost is entered on the wrong sheet of the Excel import file. The cost must be entered on the TASKRSRC (resource assignments) sheet, not on the first sheet (TASK).

1. Export the activities and resource assignments from P6 to Excel.
2. Enter the cost against each activity on the TASKRSRC sheet.
3. Import the file back into P6 and check the Budgeted Total Cost column.

A trainee who had this issue confirmed that moving the cost to the TASKRSRC sheet solved it.

Yes. Follow this step-by-step article: Create Cost Loading Using Power Query.

You can still build a reliable picture of the scope:

1. Ask the project team – request the drawings, or at least a summary of the building, from the project manager or architect. Site visits and project meetings also clarify many details.
2. Review the contract documents – they often include a description of the works.
3. Check the project specifications – they describe design criteria, materials and construction methods.
4. Analyse the BOQ in detail – quantities and item descriptions often refer to specific floors or zones and give a good indication of the building size.

Distribute the activity quantity in proportion to what drives it, usually the floor area.

• Two identical floors: 50% each.
• Floor A = 500 m² and Floor B = 350 m²: Floor A = 500 / (500 + 350) = 58.8%, Floor B = 350 / (500 + 350) = 41.2%.

Both work. Budgeted Units and Budgeted Cost will both import the total cost. It only depends on which column you included when you exported the Excel sheet from P6, so enter the cost in the column that exists in your exported file.

This error appears when sub-units are enabled for durations or units in your user preferences. Excel export does not accept them.

1. Go to Edit > User Preferences.
2. Open the Time Units tab.
3. Untick Sub-unit under both Units Format and Durations Format.
4. Export to Excel again.

You can use Start-to-Finish for pre-construction activities, but it is not recommended because its logic is more complicated than the other relationship types and harder to review and update.

A better approach is to keep standard relationships and use lags to place the submittal and approval activities right before the related construction activity, which reduces their total float. If a calculated submittal date falls before the project start, the procurement / approval durations need to be reviewed against the construction start.

Procurement is planned per material, not per location. For example, if the same tiles go on every floor, add one procurement activity for that item. Long-lead materials are often kept apart from the others in the WBS.

The same way as above: one procurement activity per material, not one per floor or area.

The procurement in the main schedule is kept at a high level. The detail goes in a separate document, the procurement tracking schedule. More reading:

• Materials Procurement Scheduling in a Baseline Programme
• Typical Activities Under the Procurement WBS

A tender programme is built with very limited information, so accurate manpower is hard to get. Two practical approaches:

1. Ask the estimation team for the manhours they used in the cost estimate and distribute them to the programme activities.
2. Make a rough estimate from similar previous projects using the built-up area. Example: Project A, 1,000 m² built-up area = 20,000 manhours. A similar tender project of 500 m² ≈ 10,000 manhours.

1. Activities delayed by a predecessor or successor – this is normal; adjust the relationships or durations in the baseline to meet the expected dates.
2. Activities delayed by resource levelling – P6 automatic levelling can cause this. Level manually by moving activities and checking the impact on the schedule. (Covered in depth in the intermediate planning course.)
3. Activities that cannot be levelled – consider increasing the duration, working more hours, or splitting the activity.
4. Total / free float limits – excessive total float gives a misleading picture when updating. Add reasonable logic links to reduce it.
5. Negative lag not allowed by the client – replace Finish-to-Start with negative lag by Start-to-Start or Finish-to-Finish with a positive lag.

1. Create a labour resource in Primavera.

   

2. Assign it to the relevant activities (Add Resource) and enter the calculated manhours as Budgeted Units.

   

3. Open Resource Assignments and show the columns Activity ID, Activity Name, Resource ID Name and Budgeted Units.

   

4. Right-click the timescale and change the Date Interval (e.g. weeks or months).

   

5. Copy the rows to Excel and, for each period, calculate: Manhours / (working days per period × working hours per day). Example: 2,500 manhours in December, 25 days × 8 hours = 2,500 / 200 = 12.5 average daily workers.

   

6. Plot the average daily manpower as a histogram.

Check these points:

1. Cost / resource loading – the roll-up of performance % complete is weighted by cost or units, so activities must be loaded.
2. Data date – schedule (F9) the project at the data date you want the progress calculated for.
3. Baseline – Schedule % complete is calculated against the project baseline, so make sure a baseline is assigned.

If it still shows 0%, send your XER file to the course support group so the team can review it.

By default, no. When you change the %, the previous value is overwritten. Options:

1. Record the % complete, earned value and actual cost of each period in an Excel sheet.
2. Keep a copy of the project (XER) for every update and start each new update on a copy.
3. Use Financial Periods in P6 to store the actuals of each period, so they can be recalled later.

Yes, and for large schedules it is much faster than updating activities one by one. Update Actual Start, Actual Finish and Actual % in an Excel template, then import it into P6.

Full tutorial with the template: Import progress updates with actual dates from Excel to Primavera P6.