Here’s a look at how you can filter a schedule to display the tasks using the names of Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) elements in Primavera P6.
When reporting on work on a large project, it is important to know how to focus on one or more related deliverables. Familiarizing yourself with the P6 Professional filter tool helps. Filters allow you to either highlight or display data that meets your criteria. P6 Professional comes standard with many preset filters; we recommend you create a project-specific filter criterion.
This article demonstrates a quick tip on how to filter a schedule by WBS Name.
Demonstration
We have in Figure 1 our demonstration project schedule.
Figure 1
The schedule is more extensive than we can present in full. When dealing with large projects, it is good to have handy tools to display only those deliverables requiring review or editing.
Here’s a demonstration to show how to filter a schedule on the WBS Name and tasks we want in focus.
As shown in Figure 2, we choose View | Filter By or the Filter By button in the layout tool group.
Figure 2
In the Filters dialog box, we note the list of default filters that come standard with P6 Professional, but we choose + New to create schedule-specific filter criteria, Figure 3.
Figure 3
In the Filter dialog box, we enter a suitable filter name, Figure 4.
Figure 4
Observe the settings (All of the following) and (Any of the following) in the parameter column in Figure 4 in the first row. These settings comes into play when you have more than one line of filter criteria. For the setting (All of the following), every line of criteria must be met to display; it is like putting the “and” conjunction between each line of code.
For (Any of the following), the item displays if it meets any one line of filter criteria; it is like putting the “or” conjunction between each line of code. And it is a lower hurdle to leap over, and a larger set of tasks. This Filter dialog box matching criteria is shared for your awareness, as the filters we demonstrate only have one line each.
In the Filter dialog box, we click the + Add button to add a filter line criterion, as shown in Figure 4. We set the parameter to ‘WBS Name’ and the equivalency to ‘equals,’ then click the ellipse for the value field, Figure 5.
Figure 5
When we click the ellipse, a select WBS dialog box appears. We scroll down to select the WBS Code with the WBS Name ‘Workshop Assembly’, Figure 6.
Figure 6
Our filter is displayed in Figure 7, and we click okay.
Figure 7
We confirm or check our newly created filter, ‘Filter By Workshop Assembly,’ select to highlight tasks captured by the filter criteria, then click okay Figure 8.
Figure 8
Figure 9 displays the schedule with all Work Assembly tasks highlighted in blue.
Figure 9
Again, we confirm or check our newly created filter, ‘Filter By Workshop Assembly,’ select to replace tasks captured by the filter criteria, then click okay in Figure 10.
Figure 10
Figure 11 displays the output.
Figure 11
Only the Work Assembly deliverable’s tasks are listed in Figure 11. But notice that all other deliverables appear, though our filter criterion captured none of their tasks.
To display only the relevant deliverables, we select View | Group and Sort By or click the Group and Sort by button in the layout tool group.
Figure 12
Then, in the Group By Option section of the Group and Sort dialog box, we toggle ‘Hide if empty” Figure 13.
Figure 13
We click okay, and then, only deliverables that have tasks captured by our filter appear in Figure 14, this is all the Work Assembly deliverable’s activities.
Figure 14
I typically only keep the Group By Options ‘Hide if empty’ toggle on when reporting, so we toggle it off in Figure 15.
Figure 15
In the Filter dialog box, we click the + Add button and enter the filter displayed in Figure 16.
Figure 16
Again, the parameter is ‘WBS Name,’ but this time, the equivalency is ‘contains,’ and the value we type in is ‘Assembly’, Figure 16, not ‘Workshop Assembly’. This way, all deliverables with a name that includes the word ‘Assembly’ will list their respective tasks. In Figure 17 we choose the Filter by Assemblies filter and click okay.
Figure 17
Figure 18 displays the output.
Figure 18
Tasks in ‘Workshop Assembly’ and ‘Clean Room Assembly’ are listed in Figure 18.
Summary
In the Filter dialog box in Primavera P6, specifying a filter criterion with ‘equals’ equivalency, you can filter a schedule by its WBS Name. This filter can be broadened to have a wider net by changing the equivalency from ‘equals’ to ‘contains.’
In this way, the Filter feature becomes a handy tool to filter a schedule on one or more deliverables on a large project. The Filter dialog box ‘Show activities that match’ setting provides a conjunction for a multi-line filter criteria to define the connection between filter lines. In this way more complex multi-line filters are definable.