Using Primavera P6 UDF. There are differing ways to measure schedule progress. One way is to measure variance of start dates to the baseline. A more conservative approach are metrics to track variance of finish dates to the baseline. Regardless of your approach Primavera P6 may be programed to list task, on schedule or behind schedule, indicators.
Primavera P6 Professional User Defined Fields (UDFs) are custom data fields that can be defined in P6. P6 UDFs have several different data types. One popular data type is the indicator, which returns blue, yellow, green, or red icons depending on the associated global change routine. The global change tool is a robust and powerful tool, and when used in conjunction with P6 UDF data types it can be used to help analyze the schedule.
This article discusses how to program a global change routine with indicator P6 UDF data type to quickly identify activities that are on schedule or behind schedule.
We begin our demonstration by creating an activity associated P6 UDF with data type indicator to highlight on schedule status, Figure 1.
Figure 1
Next we create an activities associated global change routine, Figure 2.
Figure 2
The parameter is the Variance – BL Project Finish Date. This metric inspects the activity actual finish date compared to the baseline finish date. When the Variance – BL Project Finish Date parameter is zero or positive the routine sets the indicator to green, on schedule. Otherwise, the routine sets the indicator to red, behind schedule. Values of Variance – BL Project Finish Date can be complicated to interpret.
But indicator UDF simplifies the analysis to green, on schedule, and red, behind schedule. When the On Schedule Status routine is run the global change generates a report similar to Figure 3.
Figure 3
Review the values, and, if appropriate commit the changes. In Figure 4 the schedule is displayed with a Variance – BL Project Finish Date column data and an On Schedule Status UDF indicator column.
Figure 4
The scheduler can quickly spot on schedule, green, and behind schedule, red, task indicators.
Summary
There are numerous variables to measure schedule progress. Sometimes though you want a quick indicator to identify on schedule and behind schedule tasks. The indicator data type UDF in conjunction with a global change routine in Primavera P6 Professional can alert schedulers to on schedule tasks in green and behind schedule tasks in red.