The FS (Finish to Start) relationship is the most commonly used relationship type to link activities. A lot of scheduling guidelines prefer the use of FS relationship to link activities, although there are many exceptions and situations where the other relationship types need to be used. The good news is that Primavera P6 Professional supports a quick way to link activities with the FS relationship.
So, let’s take a closer look at how this is achieved.
In Figure 1 below, we have an example Construction Project with five activities (A to E).
Figure 1
By highlighting activity, A and holding down the shift key and highlighting activity E, we select all the activities (A to E) in sequence. If we right-click and choose ‘Link Activities’ from the ‘Activity Details’ dialog box as in Figure 2, FS relationships are inserted between activities A to E.
Figure 2
When we calculate the schedule the FS relationships are displayed in sequence order (A to E) as in Figure 3.
Figure 3
Primavera P6 Professional also supports non-sequential activities; linking FS relationships between these activities.
Below in Figure 4, we have a similar Construction Project, but we require a non-sequential order of A, C, E, B, D. To link these with FS relationships, we highlight activity A, C, and E individually in that order and then add B and D. We select ‘Link Activities’ and then calculate the schedule.
Figure 4
In Figure 5, our schedule now displays the non-sequential order of activities that are now linked with FS relationships.
Figure 5
Summary
Primavera P6 supports inserting FS relationships between activities both sequentially and non-sequentially. If you want to insert FS relationships between activities in sequence, the scheduler can highlight the activities as a block using the shift key. However, if the scheduler needs to insert FS relationships non-sequentially, they have to pick them out individually in the order that they want to link them.