P6 Baseline Changes in Version 15.2 and Above

When I added my first baseline in 15.2, I uttered a few choice words because they were not working!

I could not see my baseline, it was not doing anything and I was getting a bit annoyed to say the least. I could not understand what was going on, I mean baselining is not a new thing in P6. So before you panic and get worked up like I did, you need to know that Primavera has made a technology change here.

Since P6 v15.2 Oracle has changed the way baselines work from the P6 client. This is a trend we are going to see more and more from the Primavera team as they make their tools more consistent across P6-Web and client and of course keep pushing the platform to the Cloud. So far copying a project, summarizing, apply actuals, scheduling and leveling have all been moved to job services.

Adding a Baseline

As usual when you want to make a new baseline, you click on add, then you can save a copy or convert another project. No change there, but what is new is it runs a job service and you see a message like this.

It may take a little while especially if you have a large project. At first I was a bit freaked out because this was taking a lot longer than it used to. Finally, it will come back with a message when it is done, and if all went well you will see “completed successfully”.

Making Sure Job Services are Running

Now if your job services have not been setup to run for some reason and they are not turned on, nothing will happen, which can be a little disconcerting. Job services first and foremost are controlled by your administrator under the Administer, Global Scheduled Services.

At the project level you can see what is going on with your job services under P6-EPPM, under projects, go to project scheduled services and you can see the status of all the services including your baselines.

You will then need to go back to the baselining window to retag the baseline after the job services were run.

Happy baselining.