Oracle Primavera P6 Version 8: Project and Portfolio Management
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About this ebook
In 2008 Oracle acquired Primavera Software, Inc., a leading provider of Project Portfolio Management (PPM) solutions for project-intensive industries.
Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management is an integrated project portfolio management (PPM) solution comprising role-specific functionality to satisfy each team member's needs, responsibilities, and skills. It provides a single solution for managing projects of any size, adapts to various levels of complexities within a project, and intelligently scales to meet the needs of various roles, functions, or skill levels in your organization and on your project team.
Oracle Primavera P6 Version 8: Project and Portfolio Management aims to show you all the features and functionality of the software thoroughly and clearly.
With Oracle Primavera P6 Version 8: Project and Portfolio Management, readers will master the core concepts of Primavera P6 and the new features associated with version 8.
This book is divided into two sections, in the first section we learn the fundamental concepts behind managing projects which include organizing projects, adding activities and relationships, assigning roles and resources, scheduling a project, and much more. In the second section we cover portfolio management and how to make the best use of the web client that includes working with portfolios, portfolio analysis, portfolio capacity planning, ROI, tracking performance, and lots more.
ApproachThis book is written in simple, easy to understand format with lots of screenshots and step-by-step explanations.
Who this book is forIf you are a Project manager or a consultant, who wants to master the core concepts of Primavera P6 and the new features associated with version 8, then this is the best guide for you.
This book assumes that you have a fundamental knowledge of working in the Primavera P6 environment.
Daniel L. Williams
Daniel L. Williams first began working with Primavera in 2001 as part of an integration project with JD Edwards World. Since then, he has helped clients integrate Primavera with many other systems, such as PeopleSoft, Timberline, and Oracle EBS. His work centers around helping people make best use of Primavera and other software investments. Sometimes this involves heavy integration; sometimes it involves customization and automation of business processes. Sometimes it simply involves listening to people talk through their business goals and helping them come up with workable solutions. Daniel's background includes a Ph.D. in Physics from Caltech, many years of programming in C, C++, C#, and Java, and for the past decade, leading numerous software development projects oriented around Primavera
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Reviews for Oracle Primavera P6 Version 8
6 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5not what i was expecting more like an introduction to everything without concrete examples and steps
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book is written very comprehensively for the users who work in the field and want to control the projects in order to bring them all under CCTV camera like overview. All types of P6 users will definitely be benefited from reading this book.
Book preview
Oracle Primavera P6 Version 8 - Daniel L. Williams
Table of Contents
Oracle Primavera P6 Version 8: Project and Portfolio Management
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
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Preface
What this book covers
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Errata
Piracy
Questions
1. Getting Started with Oracle Primavera P6
Product history
Enter Oracle
P3 and SureTrak
What's in the name?
P6 core concepts
Project Management Life Cycle
Activities
Resources
What's new in P6 Release 8
New in Release 8.2
Summary
2. Getting Around: Understanding and Customizing the P6 Interface
EPPM Web Client overview
Application menus
Tabs
Modules
Main screen
Logging into the P6 Client
Screen overview
Main menus
File menu
Edit menu
View menu
Project menu
Enterprise
Tools
Admin
Help
Customizing screens and saving layouts
Summary
3. Organizing your Projects with EPS, OBS, and WBS
Enterprise versus project data
Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS)
Enterprise Project Structure (EPS)
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
A simple example
Summary
4. Creating a New Project and Work Breakdown Structure
Creating a new project using the New Project Wizard
Setting project properties
General
Notebook
Budget Log
Spending Plan
Budget Summary
Dates
Funding
Codes (project level)
Defaults
Resources
Settings
Calculations
Structuring the WBS of the project
General
Notebook
WBS Milestones
WPs & Docs
Earned value
Importing projects in the web client
General
Activity
Resources
Notebooks
Custom Field Mapping
Importing in the Professional Client
Exporting projects
Summary
5. Adding Activities and Relationships
Activities
Oracle Primavera P6 compared to other tools
Oracle Primavera and scheduling best practices
Activity details
General
Codes
Expenses
Assignments
Documents
Feedback
Issues
Notebooks
Predecessors/Successors
Trace Logic
Risks
Activity types
Start milestone
Finish milestone
Task dependent
Resource dependent
Level of Effort
WBS summary
Relationships
Finish to Start
Start to Start
Finish to Finish
Start to Finish
Lag and float
Working with Activities
Gantt chart
Table
Activity network
Summary
6. Resources
Resources
Resources: General
Resources: Codes
Resources: Details
Resources: Units and Prices
Resources: Roles
Roles
Roles: General
Roles: Resources
Roles: Prices
Roles: Limits
Teams
Resource assignments
Resource curves
Calendars
Modifying calendars
Calendar priority
Summary
7. Scheduling and Constraints
Scheduling activities
Understanding scheduling algorithms
Scheduling using CPM and P6
The scheduling algorithm
The formula for start and finish
Settings at the user level
Settings at the project level
Calculations
Scheduling (F9) options
Settings at the global level
Settings at the activity level
Activity types
Summary
8. Issues and Risks
Thresholds
Issues
Risks: P6 Professional
Risks: P6 Enterprise
Summary
9. Baselines and Statusing
Maintaining baselines
Updating a baseline
Baseline assignment
Updating project status
Auto compute actuals
Percent complete
Entering hours
Actual dates
Actual costs
Resources
Summary
10. Project Templates
Creating a new project template
Creating a template from an existing project
Creating a new project from a template
Inserting a WBS into an existing project
Summary
11. Portfolios
Managing portfolios
Creating a portfolio
Portfolio Views
Scenarios
User Defined Fields (UDFs)
Summary
12. Portfolio Analysis
The Portfolio Analysis screen
Scorecards
Choosing data to display
Columns
Waterline
Graphical displays
Pie charts
Histograms
Side-by-side histogram
Stacked histogram
Bubble charts
Summary
13. Measuring and Scoring Projects
Scoring projects
Creating and using scenarios
Waterline Analysis
Summary
14. Capacity Planning and ROI
Capacity Planning
Frame A—scorecard
Frame B—Gantt chart
Frame C—resources and roles
Frame D—Resource and Role Usage
Putting it all together
Return on Investment (ROI)
Summary
15. Dashboards
Dashboard examples:
Managing dashboards
Customizing a dashboard
Content tab
General
Portfolio Views
Project Performance
Resources
Personal Information
Custom Portlets
Dashboard Layout
Access
Summary
16. Resource Management
Planning
Planning by project
Planning by resource
Splitting
Assignments
Resource analysis
Summary
A. Integrations
Integration overview
Integration benefits
Enforcing best practices
Ensuring data integrity
Fewer people handling more projects
Integration pitfalls
Over-analysis
Imposing external culture
Underestimating technical skillset
Integration possibilities
Integration technology
JD Edwards
E-Business Suite
PeopleSoft
Summary
B. Reporting
Reporting from Professional
Screen printing
Reports
Editing reports
Reporting from the web client
Screen printing
BI Publisher
Summary
Index
Oracle Primavera P6 Version 8: Project and Portfolio Management
Oracle Primavera P6 Version 8: Project and Portfolio Management
Copyright © 2012 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author(s), nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: August 2012
Production Reference: 1140812
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
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ISBN 978-1-84968-468-2
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Cover Image by David Gutierrez (< bilbaorocker@yahoo.co.uk> )
Credits
Authors
Daniel L. Williams, PhD
Elaine Britt Krazer, PMP
Reviewers
Denitsa Banova
Robert W. Self, PMP
Deepak Vohra
Acquisition Editor
Rukshana Khambatta
Lead Technical Editors
Shreerang Deshpande
Sonali Tharwani
Technical Editors
Apoorva Bolar
Madhuri Das
Project Coordinator
Joel Goveya
Proofreader
Cecere Mario
Indexers
Hemangini Bairi
Tejal R. Soni
Graphics
Manu Joseph
Production Coordinator
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Cover Work
Prachali Bhiwandkar
About the Authors
Daniel L. Williams, PhD first began working with Primavera in 2001 as part of an integration project with JD Edwards World. Since then, he has helped clients integrate Primavera with many other systems, such as PeopleSoft, Timberline, and Oracle EBS. His work centers around helping people make best use of Primavera and other software investments. Sometimes this involves heavy integration; sometimes it involves customization and automation of business processes. Sometimes it simply involves listening to people talk through their business goals and helping them come up with workable solutions. Daniel's background includes a Ph.D. in Physics from Caltech, many years of programming in C, C++, C#, and Java, and for the past decade, leading numerous software development projects oriented around Primavera
I would first like to thank my wife Heather for being the cornerstone of our family and allowing me to pursue a career I enjoy. I would also like to thank Justin Cohen for his years as a friend and business partner, and Patrick Martin for his long-term friendship, advice, and support. This book would have not been possible without all of the clients I have worked for over the years—Wendy Kaszycki, David Myers, Sandy Kayser, Sally Rau, Beth Maclean, Cathy Rosczewski, and many others. Their guidance is what drives me to learn and improve every day, and their thanks is the greatest reward for my labors.
Elaine Britt Krazer, PMP began working with Primavera products as a project manager for a government contractor in a top secret environment in 2003. Having managed projects since 1986, she embraces Primavera as her tool of choice. She has written training materials and published materials that combine best practices (as defined by the Project Management Institute® and from experience) and the appropriate use of Primavera within client organizations. Her philosophy is that understanding an organization's strategic goals for projects are the foundation for project management excellence and Primavera is the tool of choice. She has a master's certificate from George Washington University 2002, and Project Management Professional (PMP®) and ITIL Foundations certifications. She is an Oracle Certified Primavera Implementation Specialist and is Primavera Training Authorized. Elaine has worked in most major industries implementing Primavera. Her past includes technical change management, business process redesign, data center management, and PMO creation.
I would like to thank Daniel, the team at Packt Publishing, and my family for their constant support during the writing of this book. I am blessed.
About the Reviewers
Denitsa Banova works as a Primavera implementation consultant. She has extensive experience in Portfolio/Program/Project Management gained in more than five years of work as a team leader, consultant, and trainer in Primavera implementation projects in various IT companies, construction and manufacturing sectors, and also as project manager in different software implementation projects. Her specialties are Primavera P6 EPPM and Primavera P6 Professional.
I would like to thank Joel Goveya for being such a cooperative and an understanding project coordinator.
Robert W. Self, PMP has over 20 years experience in training, implementation and use of Primavera products with expertise in Primavera Project Manager (P6), Contract Manager (Expedition), and Project Risk Manager (PertMaster).
He has written multiple training manuals to help students become power users of P3 and P6. These manuals range from basic concepts through advanced topics, such as reporting, resource management, and use of Risk in P6.
Currently, Robert is a part of the project controls team at the DFW International Airport, working directly with civil and facility project managers on a variety of projects ($1M $20M each project) throughout the entire project lifecycle. These projects include basic renovation to Greenfield projects, even the occasional LEED project. His daily duties include performing frontline evaluation of programmatic (internal), as well as contractor schedules. In addition to his regular duties, he provides mentoring to DFW colleges and contractors in terms of schedules and project controls.
I would like to thank my wife, Sharon, for her patience and understanding. She has been and remains my inspiration. She has long suffered as a road warrior's wife.
I would also like to thank Mike Stone for giving me the opportunity to get into the training and consulting business by working with the Houston Primavera dealer. The variety of industries and clientele proved an excellent crucible to focus my understanding and appreciation of quality project management tools and techniques.
Deepak Vohra is a consultant and a principal member of the NuBean.com software company. Deepak is a Sun certified Java programmer and web component developer, and has worked in the fields of XML and Java programming and J2EE for over five years. Deepak is the co-author of the Apress book Pro XML Development with Java Technology and was the technical reviewer for the O'Reilly book WebLogic: The Definitive Guide. Deepak was also the technical reviewer for the Course Technology PTR book Ruby Programming for the Absolute Beginner, and a technical editor for the Manning Publications book Prototype and Scriptaculous in Action. Deepak is also the author of the Packt Publishing books JDBC 4.0 and Oracle JDeveloper for J2EE Development, Processing XML Documents with Oracle JDeveloper 11g, and EJB 3.0 Database Persistence with Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g.
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Preface
Oracle Primavera P6 is the most sophisticated and widely-used project portfolio management software in the world today. Some people think of P6 as simply a tool for scheduling projects, such as Microsoft Project, but on steroids. But while P6 can be used to plan a project a simple as writing one book, it can also be used to plan and manage a multi-year, globally-distributed set of engineering projects involving tens of thousands of workers, machines, and materials. When used to its fullest, it can give an organization the ability to manage current projects, plan future projects, and make key metrics to improve processes and ensure future success.
Primavera P6 is a vast product, with so many parts and features that it can seem overwhelming to the new user. And there are many aspects to discuss under the topic P6, such as the system architecture and database models, the various APIs and how they work, and fine-tuning P6 for optimal performance under varying conditions. There are also many books on project management and scheduling, centered around the principles set forth in the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK).
This book is designed to be a gentle introduction to P6, covering all of the main aspects of the product from a user's point of view. Novices to P6 may read this book from end to end, trying out the features and working through the examples as they read along. For those who already know P6, or perhaps P3, OpenPlan, or some similar product, this book serves as a refresher and shows the capabilities of P6 in its current release, what features there are, what they are for, and how to use them. Each chapter of this book covers one or more core features, and each of these features can be explored at a much greater depth than can be contained in these pages. It is the sincere hope of the authors that this book will serve your needs as you and your team use Primavera P6 to manage your projects and to continually improve your project management expertise.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Getting Started with Oracle Primavera P6, reviews the history and core concepts of P6 and introduces the new features in version 8.
Chapter 2, Getting Around: Understanding and Customizing the P6 Interface, walks you through logging into P6 Professional and P6 web, and gives an overview of the key menus and screens in both applications. Users will also be shown how to customize the screens to best meet their needs.
Chapter 3, Organizing your Projects with EPS, OBS, and WBS, introduces the organizational elements of P6. The Enterprise Project Structure (EPS) organizes projects, and the Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS) organizes people. Traditionally, EPS matches internal divisions within a company, and OBS matches the employee hierarchy. We also show how the WBS is used to organize work within a project. This chapter also covers how OBS relates to project access and security.
Chapter 4, Creating a New Project and Work Breakdown Structure, takes readers through setting up a new project, detailing all of the decision points including how to enter WBS according to best practices. We also discuss creating project codes and show how codes are used for other P6 entities as well. The chapter closes with a discussion of importing projects into P6 from other sources.
Chapter 5, Adding Activities and Relationships, shows the many types of activities and explains the relationships that can be created between them.
Chapter 6, Resources, discusses resources and roles, how they are created, organized, and used globally and within projects. This chapter will also cover how costs are associated with roles and resources.
Chapter 7, Scheduling and Constraints, zeros in on the heart of P6 scheduling. It will discuss the algorithms used and how to run schedule calculations. It also explains the many different settings in P6 that affect the scheduling algorithm.
Chapter 8, Issues and Risks, illustrates how to keep projects on track using issues and risks. Readers will learn to create, manage, and report on issues. Readers will also learn how to create project risks and how to track, manage, and report on risks.
Chapter 9, Baselines and Statusing, describes how to manage changes in a project schedule using baselines. We also discuss updating project status and entering actuals.
Chapter 10, Project Templates, illustrates the concept of project templates, which can be used to quickly generate new projects in a consistent manner.
Chapter 11, Portfolios, steps above the project level and discusses portfolios, how to coherently manage and analyze sets of projects. In this chapter, we show how to collect projects into static and dynamic portfolios. Readers will learn about key built-in project-level fields and how to group data for Portfolio Analysis. We also discuss user-defined fields (UDFs) and how to use these when creating portfolios.
Chapter 12, Portfolio Analysis, introduces the tools of portfolio analysis, such as scorecards and graphs, and shows how to use these to compare portfolio data.
Chapter 13, Measuring and Scoring Projects, discusses creating portfolio scenarios, scoring projects, and using waterline analysis.
Chapter 14, Capacity Planning and ROI, shows how to use P6 to plan out resource usage across projects. We also discuss how P6 calculates Return on Investment (ROI).
Chapter 15, Dashboards, presents real-time reporting using dashboards. These allow users to focus on the data they need the most. We show the wide variety of dashboards available, and how to customize and make your own dashboards.
Chapter 16, Resource Management, discusses the features of P6 that allow you to manage resources across the enterprise by analyzing resource requirements, requesting resources for projects, and committing resources to projects.
Appendix A, Integrations, gives a high-level overview of the key integrations provided by Oracle that tie data between P6 and each of Oracle's three key ERP systems—E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards.
Appendix B, Reporting, discusses the many ways to obtain and view data from P6, including screen printing and the built-in reporting engine in P6 Professional, and using BI Publisher in P6 EPPM.
What you need for this book
In order to get the most out of this book it is helpful to have a copy of P6 at hand so that you may try out the concepts for yourself. It is also very helpful to have one or more actual projects to work with, so that you can apply what you learn as you read along.
The easiest way to obtain P6 is to visit edelivery.oracle.com. If you do not already have an Oracle account, go ahead and make one, as it costs nothing and gives you access to a wide variety of resources, such as forums.oracle.com and support.oracle.com, which contains a rich variety of knowledge articles and allows you to communicate with other Primavera users and the Oracle support team.
Once you have logged-in and read and accepted the licensing terms and restrictions, you may search for and download many Oracle products. Choose the Product Pack called Primavera Applications and then choose the proper platform that you need.
Note that the screen will show many Primavera products besides P6, and will show many versions of P6 as well. By default, the products are arranged by release number. It is helpful to click on the Updated column twice so that the products are sorted by the one most recently updated. In the following screenshot we have highlighted P6 Enterprise version 8.2:
P6 Professional is in general much easier to install on your own system. P6 Enterprise (the web version) will require a greater deal of technical know-how, as you will be installing WebLogic and BI Publisher as well as P6.
If your company already has an installation of P6, then see if you can have someone create a database instance just for you to work with as you go through the book. This will allow you to try out all of the functionality of P6 without the risk of altering the production-level system.
Who this book is for
This book is for people who are new to P6 and who want an overview of the full product, and for people who are familiar with P6 or similar products, who want to understand the features available in version 8. It is a broad outline of P6, covering all of the aspects of the product. The reader is expected to have some basic understanding of scheduling concepts, as this book is by no means a stand-alone introduction to that vast topic!
While reading this book, the reader is encouraged to follow along and try out the ideas presented in each chapter. Hands-on experience, using real-world projects, is the best way to master P6.
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: The Role Limit may be selected from either the resource limit of the Primary Resource or the custom limit assigned to the Role.
Note
Warnings or important notes