Primavera P6 Data Management

While working with a client the other day I was asked “when should we look at integration versus using a loader?”

I am not sure I answered the question particularly thoroughly in the moment, but thought it would be good to share some of Emerald’s surprising experiences related to both in our blog.

Integration

Let’s start with integration. Integrations are wonderful, they save the team laborious data entry work that can also be riddled with errors. They also help ensure that your highly skilled project team members do not have to bounce between too many software tools throughout the day. With an integration, you can ensure that the security to your ERP tools, for example, is not compromised. So the real benefit of an integration is time and cost savings and improved quality and performance for the project team.

The best time to consider integrations are when you have data that is time sensitive and needs updating on an ongoing and regular basis. Examples that fall into this category are contract changes to ensure payment processing is not delayed and cost forecasting that is real-time. Timesheet updates and invoice payments are a few other examples where timely information will help with productivity analysis and real-time decision making. But does your work breakdown structure or cost code structure need the same regular updates and treatment? Or do the resource dictionary and activity codes need constant updates?

The downside to an integration is that it can take a long time to design and develop and cost a lot of money to program. Integrations vary in size and complexity but it is common to spend between 25K to150K and several months of effort. If you have many integration points and tools, these estimates may be conservative. Not only that, you may find that your business processes change, particularly in a new or growing organization, so that the integration that you spent a lot of time and money putting together no longer fits the new business requirements. Asking for more time and money to head back to the drawing board on an expensive integration can be a career limiting move.

Some integration products enslave you to one vendor, which means that while the initial programming may be reasonable, later changes are much more expensive, since you really don’t have any options but to give the work to the original vendor.

Loaders

Loaders can breathe new life into the data management process. We have found endless uses, as we fill gaps in data management. The limit of loaders is only the users’ imagination. In some cases that is a good thing and in another a bit scary, so making sure the access is compliant with the source systems security and data models is crucial. Loaders can fill the gaps where integrations would not make sense on a cost and effort basis.

Loaders can be used in one-off circumstances, like when a re-org happens and you need to completely rebuild and reload the EPS and OBS in Primavera P6. This is not something that happens all that often, but when it does you are happy to have a way to handle these changes efficiently.

Loaders can also fill the gap when extended project team members need to contribute data, but are not familiar with Primavera tools. Since Excel is so widely used by companies large and small it becomes the de facto standard for so much data entry. Having a way to load this information is essential.

Loaders also allow casual programmers to develop simple macros to manipulate data and can easily be tweaked as circumstances change.

Both integrations and loaders have a fit in the efficient management of project data and bring tremendous advantage to the project team. Which is right for your team?

Emerald Associates has developed a toolkit of unique Primavera add-ons including the P6-Loader. To find out more information please visit the Emerald Tools webpage. In addition, more information on integrations can be found here.