Why Give Meaningful Names to Filters and Layouts in P6?
It might not seem like a big deal to give meaningful or unique names to your filters and layouts in Primavera P6, especially when they are your own user filters and layouts. After all, you made the filter and likely know what it’s for. However, having an abundance of unnamed filters can quickly become an issue.
Recently, we worked on a project that included merging multiple databases into one. As part of that effort, we needed to transfer filters and layouts from several source databases into the combined database. We were also promoting layouts from the user or project level to global layouts to make them accessible to all users. This seemed like it would be a simple process, but we discovered that there were duplicate personal, project, and global filters and layouts that were using the same name. Some of those names were descriptive, but a large portion were not.
When we used either the functionality in P6 to promote the filters and layouts or used our P6-Loader utility that transfers filters and layouts from one database to another, we discovered that both filters and layouts with duplicate names are automatically appended with -1, -2, etc. This posed a huge problem when trying to identify what those filters and layouts actually did. In some cases, the filter or layout was exactly the same as another filter/layout and created a lot of unnecessary junk in those windows. But how do you choose which ones to keep? Without meaningful names, it is impossible to determine what that filter or layout is doing.
Another problem arises when these duplicate filters are used on different layouts; the copies made it difficult to figure out what exactly these filters were doing and whether they were duplicates of other filters. When we found a duplicate, in order to cleanup the duplicate filters, we had to find out where each duplicate filter was being used and reassign the filter that had the same definition. That way the duplicate could be deleted without “breaking” the layout where it was used.
The solution was to engage our IT professionals to analyze each filter and which layout they were used in, which required writing code for this analysis. This was very time consuming and could have easily been avoided if those filters had been named properly. So in conclusion, make sure you name your filters properly!
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When we used either the functionality in P6 to promote the filters and layouts or used our P6-Loader utility that transfers filters and layouts from one database to another, we discovered that both filters and layouts with duplicate names are automatically appended with -1, -2, etc. This posed a huge problem when trying to identify what those filters and layouts actually did. In some cases, the filter or layout was exactly the same as another filter/layout and created a lot of unnecessary junk in those windows. But how do you choose which ones to keep? Without meaningful names, it is impossible to determine what that filter or layout is doing.
Another problem arises when these duplicate filters are used on different layouts; the copies made it difficult to figure out what exactly these filters were doing and whether they were duplicates of other filters. When we found a duplicate, in order to cleanup the duplicate filters, we had to find out where each duplicate filter was being used and reassign the filter that had the same definition. That way the duplicate could be deleted without “breaking” the layout where it was used.
The solution was to engage our IT professionals to analyze each filter and which layout they were used in, which required writing code for this analysis. This was very time consuming and could have easily been avoided if those filters had been named properly. So in conclusion, make sure you name your filters properly!
About the Author
Sue Fermelia - Implementation Specialist
At Emerald Associates, Sue is an Implementation Specialist and has been successful at drawing on her accounting and project management background to consult with our diverse client base. With her friendly demeanor and strong communication skills, she has become a talented Primavera P6 trainer and works very hard to effectively implement Oracle Primavera solutions that cater to each client’s unique organizational needs.
