The intent of this article is to help new Primavera P6 users start building their first project in Primavera P6 Professional. You may ask “why learn Primavera P6 at all when MS Project works just fine?”. That is a good question; MS Project does work just fine in many settings, however for very large construction, oil & gas or aerospace projects P6 is generally the tool of choice.
P6 provides the flexibility required to sort, summarize and analyze large amounts of data using customized activity codes, resource codes & complex filters. P6 also enables the scheduler to easily compare the project baseline to the progressed schedule. There are many other features of P6 that make it useful for managing large projects, but the main benefit is that US federal agencies such as Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Defense (DOD), Department of Transportation (DOT) all require use of Primavera P6 to build and submit the project baseline and all subsequent progress updates.
Therefore, it is important to learn how to use the tool when competing for or executing federally funded contracts. With that in mind, this article (and subsequent posts) will help you build your first project.
Step 1: Use New Project Icon and Select EPS
Use the File drop down menu to select the + New option or clicking on the + icon as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1
Once you select the + icon a pop-up window will appear that asks you to "Select EPS".
EPS stands for Enterprise Project Structure and generally aligns with your company's organizational structure. If your version of P6 came with sample projects, there will already be a sample EPS established. P6 will generally default to the top level of the EPS. For this exercise you can go ahead and assign your new project to the top-level EPS & clicking Finish. In this example the top-level EPS is named “All Initiatives”.
Figure 2
If your organization has an established EPS, rather than assigning all projects to the top level of the EPS you should determine where your project belongs within the organization. If you aren’t sure where in the schema it belongs you should ask the Project or Program Manager.
If you would like the project to reside in a specific location within your organization's EPS structure, click on the ellipses & select where you would like your project to be located.
Use the green + button to select the desired EPS. In the below example (image 3). I've selected Information Technology, LOB1, Line of Business 1.
Figure 3
After clicking “Finish” your new project will appear at the Selected location.
Figure 4
It’s ok if you make a mistake or change your mind later as to where the project belongs. You can go back and change it later by dragging the new project into the appropriate EPS level. To do this, highlight the project by clicking on it, then move your mouse to the far-left vertical bar. You will see a white rectangle appear. Once you see the white rectangle you can drag your curser to a new EPS level and the project will move.
Figure 5
Step 2: Naming your project
If you haven't already, you can name your new project by going to the General tab in the details pane of your new project and entering a Project ID & a Project Name.
Depending on your current view settings you may not immediately see the details pane of your new project. To find it, use the menu options shown in figure 6. You will need to be on the Projects tab in order to see your project details. If you use the same menu options while on the Activities tab you will be taken the activity details rather than the project details.
Figure 6
Once you’ve selected the details pane, you will see a place to enter your new Project ID and Project Name. The Project ID will need to be unique. No other project can contain the same ID. There is a bit more leeway within the tool when naming projects, but I highly recommend that the project name also be unique.
Figure 7
After following the above instructions, you will have successfully started your first project. Your project doesn’t yet contain any activities, so stay tuned for future posts detailing how to create activities and build the WBS (Work Breakdown Structure).
Comments