Just so you know, if you’re planning to rename an activity code in Primavera P6 Professional, it will disappear from any saved layouts.
When we uncover an issue like this, we like to give our readers a heads-up. It’s an easy workaround but if you don’t know you need to do a workaround, it could be a problem down the road. The following issue affects Global, EPS and Project Activity Codes in versions up to and including R8.3.
Problem Description
Here’s the deal. Let’s say you have a global activity code named Area and you’re planning to rename it to say Functional Area. You can see in the screenshot below that the layout has been saved with the original Global Activity Code named Area.
Now we’re going to open the Activity Codes dialog and rename the code to Functional Area.
If the Area column is visible in the current layout, you will see it change its name to Functional Area.
But don’t let this fool you. It may look like P6 is doing the right thing, but if you close that layout without saving it; the next time you open it, the column will have disappeared.
This also means that any other saved layouts that used that column will also have lost them when the layout is opened.
Why this Happens
This occurs because Primavera P6 doesn’t give the activity code a static ID in the database. When you rename the activity code, P6 changes the ID of the activity code in the database. Any layout using that ID will now have the wrong ID saved, and thus fails to find the renamed activity code.
The Workaround
The only workaround is to open every layout that uses the renamed code, add in the new column and then save it again. The good news is that activities using that code do retain the same values when the code is renamed and reapplied to the layout, so project data is not being lost. This problem only affects saved layouts.
It’s also worth noting that User Defined Fields (UDFs) are not affected in the same way when renamed. These do have a static ID in the database, so they do not disappear from layouts when the UDF is renamed.
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