OVERVIEW -Activities are the fundamental work elements of a project. They are the lowest level of a work breakdown structure (WBS) and, as such, are the smallest subdivision of a project that directly concerns the project manager. - Primavera

1. In the Projects’ View, highlight ACT, right-click and select Open Project.
   
   
2. When the project opens you are taken to the Activity View. 
   
   
3. The default layout we are given in this view is not very useful, so our first matter of business is to change the layout to one that is useful. To do so click the skinny bar in the upper left hand corner that says Layout: Classic Schedule Layout
   
   
4. Highlight Layout, and click Open… from the pop-out menu.
   
   
5. A Windows dialogue box comes up asking if you would like to save the current layout.  Click No.
   
   
6. The Open Layout window is displayed with all of Primavera’s packaged layouts.  Once you start customizing your own layouts they will appear in another section in this window.  But for now, highlight Classic WBS Layout and click Open.
   
   
7. Your screen should now look like the one below. 
   
   
8. We’re not quite there yet though because the various panels are wildly out of proportion to what they should be.  First, let’s reduce the size of the Activity Details panel by placing our cursor over the skinny gray bar that separates it from the top half until the cursor changes into this symbol.  Once your cursor looks like this, click and hold while dragging the bar downward to match the screen below.
   
   
9. Now, do the same thing except for the bar that separates the left and right sections of the top half of the screen.  This is the typical layout used for P6.
   
   
10. We’re now finally ready to add an activity.  To add an activity, the easiest way is to right-click within the activity table panel and select Add from the drop-down menu. 
    
    Note – There are four different ways to add an activity.  I usually find using the right-click option the quickest and easiest.
    
    
11. A new activity appears with the Activity ID of L2-1000 as we set in the previous tutorial. 
    
    TIP - Notice that the activity was automatically given a 5-day duration.  The default duration given to any new activity can be changed in the Admin Preferences window that can be found by going to Admin on the menu bar. 
    
    
12. Now, enter each of the activities below into your schedule by following the same steps.  If you feel that you don’t need any practice with your typing skills, you can download the .xer file of the completed schedule here and follow the Importing tutorial to get it into your database.  In either case, you will however need these activities for the proceeding lessons.
    
    Note – Primavera does not have a Save function.  This can be quite disconcerting for new users.  Once anything is added or modified in P6 it is automatically stored in the database.  For this reason, it is important to regularly backup your schedules in case you want to go back to a prior state.

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