Solutions to the Most Common Primavera P6 Calendars Problems

Although Primavera P6 is one of the most useful tools for project managers, it is not without some policies. Depending on a project manager specific actions and navigations within Primavera P6, Primavera P6 calendars may change and result in different errors.

Fortunately, solutions to these areas can be found relatively quickly and fixed before they cause permanent problems to the schedule. Take a look at three of the most common problems with Primavera P6 calendars and how you can fix them as the project management or a member of the project management team.

1. Inaccurate Durations

As a project manager, it is your responsibility to change the calendar of the work day to reflect the actual needs and actions of your project. Unfortunately, changing the work schedule for each activity may result in changes to the duration of the given activity. For example, changing a work week for activity A from 5, 8-hour days to 4, 12-hour days will result in the completion of the project ahead of the planned time. Although this seems like a minor issue, it can be a serious problem if the duration of the given project is reliant on a previous aspect of the project.

Essentially, project managers can avoid this problem by going into the enterprise menu, clicking on modify of the specific calendar, and entering the time periods window. This window will have the duration of the given calendar, which is where a project manager can alter the duration to reflect the change in the calendar. For example, the duration may need to be altered to a 1.5-hour completion time for a change from 8-hour workday to a 12-hour workday.

Additionally, the project manager can get around this problem by going into tools and selecting global change. Within the global change, the project manager will then be able to access the time period duration and adjust as necessary. However, creating the global change will result in the inability to access previous versions of that schedule, and project manager should consider saving a backup copy of the given schedule before applying a global change.

2. Not Assigning Dependency Relationships

Often and project management, the topic of cause and effect relationships tends to appear. In most cases, direct cause and effect relationships can be a negative aspect of project management, specifically, because they do not allow for any potential delays in the project. However, certain parts of the project are incapable of starting until previous activities or tasks have been completed.

For example, the walls of a project cannot begin until the concrete foundation and electrical connections are in place. The project schedule needs to always contain dependency relationships, and the project manager needs to know how to identify when a dependency relationship is not correct. This can be achieved by looking at the type of relationship in the third field to the right from the activity name.

3. When Printing the Gantt Chart, It Does Not Show the Complete Baseline

The Gantt Chart provides a comprehensive view into how a project is currently looking. It shows milestones, activities, and resources. Unfortunately, printing the Gantt Chart can be somewhat complex, and the beginning or ending of the Gantt Chart can be cut off. However, project managers can access the view of the Gantt chart for printing by going to page setup, clicking on options, and changing the project start and finish values.

The default values are PS and PS. However, the project manager can change the view of the print by using a plus or minus sign plus a number and time abbreviation, such as “+4W,” in the project start field. PF-$W would similarly be placed in the project finished field.

As a result, the view of the project nap chart is moved back 4 weeks before it actually started as well as extended 4 weeks from the actual finish date. Project managers can also change these values to either expand or zero in on a specific part of the net charge.

Regardless of accessible Primavera P6 resources, some project managers will always have a hard time navigating its resources and functions. However, project managers can improve their productivity and efficiency by understanding how these three solutions to the most common Primavera P6 calendar problems are used and applied.

Key Takeaway

• Correct and accurate durations by making global changes.
• Always assign dependency relationships, not start-to-finish relationships.
• Make backup copies when applying global changes.
• Change the Page Setup when printing the Gantt chart to change how it appears in the printout with respect to project start and project finished on line.