Project issues can be very disruptive and expensive. In executing projects, issues can (and most often do) arise at various points. Having a good set of project control procedures and monitoring what processes are in place enables your team to identify issues and act quickly. Meanwhile, creating mitigation plans based on current, correct information is a must. Making decisions based on old data will not set your project and team up for success, and having your team endure long wait times to retrieve, assemble, and analyze current project information when you’re waiting for decisions to be made is not an effective approach either.
If your team’s struggling with time-consuming manual updates, there are tools that can help you automate the process. Emerald’s
P6-Loader allows you to use Excel-based update sheets to load updates into your progress file. Another one of our tools,
TAPS, facilitates updating P6 using activity barcodes (TAPS Classic) or process updates using TAPS Mobile from your phone. These tools make it quick and painless to get accurate updates into your P6 files. Your team will then have more time for analyzing your schedule instead of wasting time with tedious updating.
Written by Mary Lynn Backstrom, PMP, PMI-SP, PMI-BA – Implementation Specialist
on Tuesday, 17 October 2023.
Posted in All Articles, P6-Reporter
Let’s take a high-level look at the timesheet functionality in Oracle Primavera Cloud (OPC). Timesheets provide functionality allowing users to enter hours worked against projects. The project hours are logged against resource assignments on activities. Security privileges assigned to users for timesheets are based on the actions they require access to perform on a timesheet.
OPC contains Timesheet User, Timesheet Supervisor and Timesheet Approvers. Timesheet Users can create timesheets, log time against activities on projects, and submit them for approval. Timesheet Supervisors can create their own timesheets and enter time. They can also create timesheets for the resources assigned to the projects for which they are the timesheet supervisors. They can enter time on behalf of the resources and submit their timesheets for approval. Timesheet Approvers can create their own timesheets and enter time. They can also create timesheets for the resources for which they have been assigned as the timesheet approver. They can enter time, submit, approve, or reject their resources' timesheets.
Written by Mary Lynn Backstrom, PMP, PMI-SP, PMI-BA – Implementation Specialist
on Sunday, 17 September 2023.
Posted in All Articles, Oracle Primavera Cloud (Prime)
Are you new to using Oracle Primavera Cloud (OPC) for your project scheduling? When entering or importing information, keep in mind OPC is structured into modules. When you login, you will have icons available for the modules you have been assigned access to. For a quick walk through of a few items of interest, we will start by looking at the Utilizing the Scope Module which gives access to the windows in the list below.
Written by Mary Lynn Backstrom, PMP, PMI-SP, PMI-BA – Implementation Specialist
on Monday, 11 September 2023.
Posted in All Articles, Oracle Primavera Cloud (Prime)
Have you ever had a critical piece of data deleted in your Primavera P6 database and needed to recover it?
A client of ours had just this sort of scenario.
The user reached out to us in a panic. This user had just been given increased access in P6 and had renamed an existing UDF. He realized it was renamed improperly and instead of changing the name of the UDF, he deleted it. The project level User Defined Field (UDF) had data assigned to many of their projects. They needed to recover it and ensure the values were reinstated on their projects. We were able to recover the data in less than and hour and a half.
Written by Sue Fermelia - Implementation Specialist
on Friday, 25 August 2023.
Posted in All Articles, P6-Auditor, P6-Loader
Your project is in execution. What schedule update options do you have out of the box using Oracle Primavera Cloud (OPC)? There is more than one approach available to updating your schedule of course. Updating in OPC can start with task updates and progress to updating the activities in the schedule.
The work plan receives updated status on the tasks. The updates for tasks can be entered in the task list window as well.
Written by Mary Lynn Backstrom, PMP, PMI-SP, PMI-BA – Implementation Specialist
on Saturday, 05 August 2023.
Posted in All Articles, Oracle Primavera Cloud (Prime)
The Work Plan screen in Oracle Primavera Cloud is a virtual planning board available for use by the companies working on a project to coordinate their tasks. This functionality allows adding tasks, assigning, and monitoring task constraints, commitments to dates, and placing tasks in sequence using hand-offs. Tasks can be color-coded according to their assigned company. Task cards are customizable to display information important to your project. You can customize the board display from a daily view to up to six weeks.
The Work Plan screen planning board provides easy sequencing for your tasks. Create tasks and then drag and drop them onto the planning board to build your work plan. Change the hand-off mode that is selected. Enable activity bands to assist with assigning tasks to activities. Easily move the planning board time period to previous or future periods. Application of quick filters to the tasks is available as well as grouping them by best fit or by company to organize the view.
Written by Mary Lynn Backstrom, PMP, PMI-SP, PMI-BA – Implementation Specialist
on Monday, 31 July 2023.
Posted in All Articles, Oracle Primavera Cloud (Prime)
If you have an .xer or Primavera .xml format file and you’re looking to set up a schedule in Oracle Primavera Cloud, you can start importing those files from the Projects window under the Actions menu.
By clicking on Activities from the Schedule icon in Oracle Primavera Cloud, you can reach the upload template from the Actions menu in that window. You can also choose to enter your project schedule information manually.
Written by Mary Lynn Backstrom, PMP, PMI-SP, PMI-BA – Implementation Specialist
on Sunday, 23 July 2023.
Posted in All Articles, Oracle Primavera Cloud (Prime)
In Oracle Primavera Cloud (formerly Oracle Prime), you can create and track scope items, work packages, and WBS elements.
If you’re not using the default PBS structure, you can set up a custom PBS structure. The PBS structure commonly reflects a hierarchical structure of the components required for a project. You can use a PBS in initial planning to organize scope items.
Written by Mary Lynn Backstrom, PMP, PMI-SP, PMI-BA – Implementation Specialist
on Monday, 17 July 2023.
Posted in All Articles, Oracle Primavera Cloud (Prime), Other
Recently, I was working with a client who was reorganizing. This client has many business units (BU) that work in the same database, so they have a prefixing standard for each BU.
When they reorganized, all the prefixing for several BUs needed to be brought into alignment with the reorganized BU structure. This involved moving their EPS structure around and updating the prefixes on calendars, codes, resources and roles. I had started moving the structures to accommodate the changes and updating the prefixes with P6-Loader, but I also did some updating directly in P6. I had completed roles and was partially through resources when the client realized their reporting may be effected by the changes. They wanted to revert all the changes I had made. While I did have several P6-Loader change files that I could use to revert the changes I made using P6-Loader, I wanted to be sure the manual changes I made were also restored.
Written by Sue Fermelia - Implementation Specialist
on Thursday, 29 June 2023.
Posted in All Articles, P6-Loader
A solution for common cases of accidental data deletion in Primavera P6
Accidental deletion of important data is something that happens. Everyone has done it at some point.
In Primavera P6 EPPM, some of the most common cases of accidental data deletion are:
- Deletion of the wrong resource
- Deletion of the wrong project
- Deletion of the wrong WBS node or nodes
Written by Ravi Wallau - Integration Specialist, Sue Fermelia - Implementation Specialist
on Tuesday, 16 May 2023.
Posted in All Articles, P6-Auditor, P6-Loader, Primavera P6
Your project schedule will be created in P6, and you are looking to provide the best schedule tools for your project team. What can you add to your team tool kit to assist the project team, address building the schedule, monitor schedule quality, utilize options for updating the schedule and make reporting quick and easy? Let’s look at a few examples for some food for thought.
Written by Mary Lynn Backstrom, PMP, PMI-SP, PMI-BA – Implementation Specialist
on Friday, 10 February 2023.
Posted in All Articles, P6-Loader, P6-QA, P6-Reporter, TAPS
Often on a Turnaround, or any large project, you need to report resource availability and requirements in your schedule by Craft (trade) and Company. But often, that’s not how the resource dictionary hierarchy is set up. How do we solve this problem? Well, an easy solution to the reporting requirement is using resource codes.
Written by Mary Lynn Backstrom, PMP, PMI-SP, PMI-BA – Implementation Specialist
on Thursday, 12 January 2023.
Posted in All Articles, Turnarounds
The cancel function has been long available in TAPS Classic and has now been added to TAPS Mobile. Just how easy is this function to use? This easy:
Step 1 – Enter your credentials and Sign In.
Written by Mary Lynn Backstrom, PMP, PMI-SP, PMI-BA – Implementation Specialist
on Sunday, 18 December 2022.
Posted in All Articles, TAPS
TAPS is not just a tool to streamline P6 project file updates. Are you looking to monitor and report on earned value (EV) at the resource level? P6 out of the box (OOTB) calculates EV at the activity level. Using TAPS Classic or Mobile provides some additional background calculations which are available for monitoring and reporting from P6 itself or from P6-Reporter (if you are using that tool). Even when multiple resources are assigned to an activity, the EV calculated in P6 OOTB is at the activity level. With EV calculations at the resource level you can gain more insight into where you may need to step in because a subcontractor is struggling (for example). With any issues easily identified, the assistance required can be coordinated and implemented to help bring activity progress closer in line with the execution plan as well as document lessons learned to prevent repeat occurrences.
Written by Mary Lynn Backstrom, PMP, PMI-SP, PMI-BA – Implementation Specialist
on Sunday, 04 December 2022.
Posted in All Articles, TAPS
Access your self-serve Project Detail Dashboard for easy to digest project information (displayed below in Tableau). Just choose the project and snapshot you want to view using the filters at the top left corner of the dashboard. The project displayed in the dashboard below is a drilling project. This example is food for thought on reporting options available for your projects.
Written by Mary Lynn Backstrom, PMP, PMI-SP, PMI-BA – Implementation Specialist
on Sunday, 27 November 2022.
Posted in All Articles, P6-Reporter
