Primavera Scheduling Tutorials

Overview

Tutorials (to be taken in order)
Creation
Enterprise Project Structure (EPS)
Projects
Activities
Relationships
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
Activity Codes
Grouping
Scheduling
Resources
Calendars

Updating
Baselines
Statusing
Filters
Global Changes
Financial Periods
Update Baselines

Display & Publishing
Activity Table
Gantt Chart
Print Preview
Reports
Resource Usage Profile
Activity Network
Exporting

Misc
User-Defined Fields (UDFs)
Steps
Summarizing
Job Services
Creating an OBS
Progress Spotlight
Work Products & Documents
Project Website Publisher
Importing
Claim Digger

Settings & Preferences
Project Settings
User Preferences
Admin Preferences

Display & Publishing - Exporting

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OVERVIEW – The Activity Network displays your project as a diagram of activities and relationships according to the work breakdown structure (WBS). A red border around an activity box indicates a critical activity. A line connecting activity boxes indicates an activity relationship. - Primavera

You can control nearly every aspect of the Activity Network, including the appearance of activities, the contents of activity boxes, and the spacing between activities.

The left pane of the Activity Network layout always displays the WBS hierarchy, regardless of the current grouping selection. The right pane displays the selected WBS element’s assigned activities. If you specify a grouping option other than WBS, the right pane of the Activity Network layout groups and displays the selected WBS element’s activities according to the activity data item you specify, for example, grouped by project status or budget at completion.

You can save the Activity Network layout on your computer to e-mail to another project user or to retrieve later.

  1. In the activity view, go to File and choose Export from the drop-down menu.

  2. Now, on the Home screen an export wizard comes up.  We are given 6 different file format options in which to export our project.  Exporting a .xer file is extremely straightforward and doesn’t really require any explanation so let’s instead choose Spreadsheet – (XLS) from the various options and click Next.

  3. The next screen asks what type of project data you would like to export.  Check the Activities box.  Click Next.

    Note – If you export Resource information, you will only be given options concerning the Resource itself.  This could be found useful if the Resources in your project are actual people and/or equipment but since the project that we created doesn’t use Resources in this manner, we can get all of the pertinent cost information directly from activity data.

  4. The next screen displays all of the projects that you currently have open and asks you which ones you want to export from.  Make sure the DIS – Display project is checked.  Click Next.

  5. On the Select Template screen click Add.

  6. The Modify Template screen allows you to setup a template that can be saved and used for future exports.  All project data that you want to have access to in your exported spreadsheet must to added to the template by adding the appropriate column.  But first, name the template, Billing Information.

  7. If we had checked multiple data boxes on the previous screen, we would need to use the Subject Area drop-down menu in order to modify the template for each one.  Each Subject Area becomes its own template and each one would yield different column choices for us to choose from.  Make your columns match the ones presented below.

    Note – The first three active columns cannot be removed and will automatically be included in the export.

    TIP – Since Primavera has somewhat limited options in terms of graphing capabilities, exporting financial periods as well as other data to Excel can be beneficial in creating graphical presentations of information contained within the schedule.

  8. If you wanted to apply a filter or sort the template you can, however, the Sort options seems to be a bit redundant considering this can be done very easily within the exported spreadsheet.  In any case, click OK.

  9. Our XLS Template appears.  Click Next.

  10. Click Next again.

  11. This screen shows you the default location where your Excel file will be exported.  If you are satisfied click Finish to export.

  12. Click OK at the export confirmation.

  13. Go to the location where your file was saved and open it.

  14. Adjust the columns so that all data is visible.  Notice the green triangles at the corners of all the cost related columns.  These are there because Primavera exports number values as text rather than number data.  Highlight all of these cells and select Convert to Number from the automatically appearing drop-down menu. 

    Note – The way Primavera exports and imports data from Excel becomes of particular importance when using spreadsheets to update your schedule.  Beware of the various data types and make sure that your spreadsheet’s data types match Primavera’s.

NEXT - User-Defined Fields (UDFs)







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