Previously, we wrote about dissolving a P6 activity with one predecessor and one successor, but it is also possible to dissolve an activity that has either multiple predecessors or multiple successors. Here’s a look at this.
For a discussion on dissolving an activity that has one predecessor and one successor refer to the following blog Dissolving an Activity in Primavera P6.
Following on from this blog, we want to now consider tasks that have multiple relationships. As mentioned, it is possible to dissolve an activity that has either multiple predecessors or multiple successors. It is beyond the scope of this article to demonstrate what happens when the scheduler dissolves an activity with both many predecessors and many successors.
In this article we demonstrate the dissolve of an activity that has multiple predecessors.
Below in Figure 1, we have our demonstration project schedule.
We select the task W1180 Substantial Completion and note it has six predecessors and one successor, Figure 1. We right click on Substantial Completion and choose Dissolve from the popup menu, Figure 2.
Observe in Figure 3 that the Substantial Completion task is no longer in the schedule.
But what happened to its six predecessors? They now connect to Project Complete, which was the successor to Substantial Completion. We demonstrate by clicking on the Project Complete activity and viewing its predecessors, Figure 4.
Observe now that the predecessors of the former Substantial Completion task are now the predecessors of Project Complete.
Summary
The scheduler can efficiently dissolve an activity and have that dissolved task’s many predecessors moved to its successor. The process also works well for dissolving an activity with many successors. In this situation the successors are transferred to the dissolved task’s predecessor.
You should experiment with dissolving tasks with many predecessors or many successors. In this way, you will develop the ability to confidently and efficiently dissolve activities having either many predecessors or many successors.