Many Primavera P6 users want to create a 4-week look ahead (or similar) of all in-progress or starting activities. Here we demonstrate how to create this filter in Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management (EPPM) 16.1.
Primavera P6 EPPM 16.1 is Oracle’s most recent version. The standard view is the most up to date interface for creating schedule filters. But this standard view has limited filtering abilities. To create the kind of filter we need to only display in-progress or starting activities in the next 4 weeks we must activate the classic view.
So, in Primavera P6 EPPM release 16.1 classic view we can create a filter to support displaying next step items in the schedule. This is all activities starting or already in-progress in the near term.
This article shows how to create a 4-week look ahead filter in Primavera P6 EPPM Release 16.1 to support the schedule update process.
Let’s proceed in Figure 1 by displaying our demonstration schedule.
Figure 1
Figure 1 shows our schedule in the P6 EPPM Release 16.1 standard view. Figure 2 shows the filter features available in the standard view.
Figure 2
Our 4 week look ahead filter requires the ‘is within the range’ operator. As you can see from Figure 2 there is no such operator available in the standard view filter features. Additionally, the value field does not have a data date (DD) option, which, again we need for our filter.
We therefore switch to the classic view, Figure 3.
Figure 3
Figure 4 displays our schedule in the classic view.
Figure 4
Select the filter icon and add new filter…, Figure 5.
Figure 5
In Figure 6 we have displayed all the elements required for our 4 week look ahead filter.
Figure 6
Note, in particular, we have the operator ‘within range of’. The ‘within range of’ low value is the DD and zero days modifier, i.e. no modifier. The high value is the DD and 4 week modifier. That’s great! We now will capture all activities starting in the next 4 weeks.
What about activities that are already in progress and continuing during the next 4 weeks? To include these in-progress activities we add the additional ‘activity status’ rule or criteria, Figure 6. The operator is equals and the parameter is ‘in progress’. Now we should be able to capture all activities progressing in the next 4 weeks.
There is, however, something not quite right about our filter. This is the “Where’s Waldo?” question of the day. The problem with our filter is that we currently require our 4 week look ahead filter to match ‘all’ rules, Figure 6. This doesn’t make sense. It means our filter only displays activities that are both starting “and” in-progress.
Well, there are no activities that meet this dual criteria, so no activities pass through the filter. In Figure 7 we adjust the filter match criteria to ‘any’ instead of ‘all’.
This is like placing an “or” between each rule. Now our filter captures activities that either start within the next 4 weeks “or” are currently in-progress. Figure 8 displays all activities in our demonstration that pass through our filter criteria.
Figure 8
Summary
The filter feature in Primavera P6 EPPM release 16.1 standard view requires further development before it becomes sufficient for our 4 week look ahead filter needs. Fortunately, the classic view in release 16.1 provides filter features that support a 4-week look ahead filter.
The key point is to note the difference between matching ‘all’ selected rules verses ‘any’ selected rules. A slight variation of this filter is to make the high value a custom date, the first day of the next month. This will capture all in-progress or starting activities from the DD to the end of the month.