It is possible to work on multiple open projects in Primavera P6 at the same time. The question then becomes how do you display the critical path of multiple open projects?
The critical path is a key concept in scheduling. It tells you how long your scheduled project will take. But how does Primavera P6 Professional handle the critical path of multiple open projects? Does P6 automatically compute the critical path of multiple open projects?
This article demonstrates how to display the critical path of multiple open projects in Primavera P6 Professional.
We have in Figure 1 Primavera P6 Professional with two open projects: Project 1 and Project 2.
Figure 1
Note the Total summary bar that summarizes the durations and dates of both open projects, which is what we want. You may also note that each project has a critical path, so we have multiple open projects displaying multiple critical paths. We want to display one critical path for all our multiple open projects. Yes, this is possible in Primavera P6 Professional.
Depress F9 or select the schedule feature in the tools tool group, Figure 2.
Figure 2
In the schedule options dialog, Figure 3, set the “calculate float based on finish date of…” option toggle to ‘opened projects’ instead of ‘each project’
Figure 3
Primavera P6 will now base activity total float on all open projects, and will display one critical path for all the open projects, Figure 4.
Figure 4
Primavera P6 is also able to connect activities between two open projects with relationships. In Figure 5 we connect Project 1 activity E to Project 2 activity D in a finish to start (FS) relationship. We do this to demonstrate a critical path that spans between two open projects, Figure 5.
Figure 5
Summary
It is possible to simultaneously work on multiple open projects in Primavera P6 Professional. Set the group and sort feature to ‘show grand totals’ to summarize the duration and dates of all the open projects. And if you want to have one critical path for all your open projects Primavera P6 can do that as well. Further, your critical path may span between two open projects if you have relationships straddling between the two open projects.