If you are responsible for multiple projects, then you can group these projects and create a portfolio in Primavera P6 EPPM. The projects could be grouped by type for example, in construction you may have Electrical and Engineering as one group of projects, Energy as another and Manufacturing as another. All of these can make up different groups of projects – in other words, portfolios.
By making a group of similar projects into a portfolio in Primavera P6 EPPM, you will have access to data from multiple projects in one view. Instead of searching for projects to compare data from each of them which, is time-consuming, data is consolidated and comparisons between projects can be easily viewed in the portfolio.
How to Create a Portfolio in Primavera P6 EPPM
From the dashboard, we left-click on the ‘Portfolios’ tab, and from the drop-down menu, we select ‘Open Portfolio’ as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1
From the ‘Open Portfolio’ dialog box we expand ‘Enterprise -All Initiatives’ and select ‘EC-Engineering & Construction’ and click open tab at the bottom right of the dialog box, as shown below in Figure 2.
Figure 2
We enter the ‘Portfolio Analysis of Engineering & Construction’ and select Bubble charts to display data. In the center of the top ribbon in the box ‘Are We Doing the Right Projects?’
When we click on the box on the right-hand side a drop-down menu appears displaying the different charts we can access; from Bubble Charts to Scorecards. Each chart displays different data aspects of the projects, as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3
From the selection of charts, we change our screen to ‘Pie Chart’ and select ‘Budget by Location’ which displays a pie chart of the portfolio of projects by location in the top section of the screen. In the bottom half of the screen, we select Budget by PM, and display a pie chart of all the Project Managers in the portfolio and their respective projects, as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4
We select the ‘Capacity Planning ‘tab in the top ribbon and displayed is the resource usage across the portfolio. On the left-hand side at the bottom of the screen, we expand the ‘Engineering & Construction’ to reveal all the roles in our portfolio, as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5
In the resource usage graph, we left-click on the gear next to the ‘Role’ box and uncheck ‘Limit’ as below, in Figure 6.
Figure 6
And displayed in Figure 7 is a clearer view of our resource usage across the portfolio.
Figure 7
Next, we select the ‘Performance Status’ tab in the top ribbon, and this page displays the health and performance of our projects across the portfolio, as shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8
We select ‘Earned Value’ and some Earned Value variables are displayed as in Figure 9.
Figure 9
When we select ‘Index’ some more Earned Value variables are displayed such as; ‘Schedule Performance Index’, ‘Cost Performance Index’, and ‘To Complete Performance Index’ as shown in Figure 10.
Figure 10
Summary
When creating a Portfolio in Primavera P6 EPPM, you should group your projects by type whether that is Energy, Manufacturing, IT, or some other type depending on your organization. If the same types of projects are grouped to form a portfolio, then the data provided will be comparable across the whole portfolio.
Primavera P6 EPPM offers many differing graphs that can display numerous different facets of project performance, which help to monitor and complete the projects successfully. These range from Budget by Location, Spend by Phase, Resources by Project to Earned Value variables.