If you have an extensive project schedule with thousands of activities, then grouping activities by multiple fields can be very useful. Here’s how you can do it.
You can filter tasks in a schedule to display only those tasks that meet your criterion or criteria. If you intend to display groups of related tasks, the P6 Filter tool would be effective. However, you can also utilize the Group By feature in P6 Professional to categorize your fields. The Group By tool may provide you a more efficient way to create differing task reports. The good news is, that the Group By tool can organize by more than one field.
Here we demonstrate grouping activities by multiple fields in the Group and Sort by dialog box.
Demonstration
The Group and Sort by feature is a helpful way to organize tasks in P6 Professional. As mentioned, it is possible to group tasks in a schedule by one or more fields using the Group and Sort by tool.
We begin with the default grouping in P6 Professional, which groups by deliverable or work breakdown structure (WBS) elements. Figure 1 displays our demonstration schedule grouped by WBS.
Figure 1
Note in Figure 1 the column ‘Subcontractor’, which identifies the work performance company, and ‘Longest Path’, which indicates whether the respective task falls along the critical path in the schedule, as per the project end date. We require a report detailing each subcontractor’s list of tasks, including the grouping of their longest path tasks.
We begin by choosing View | Group and Sort by or clicking the Group and Sort by button icon in the Layout Tool group, as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2
Figure 3 displays the Group and Sort by dialog box and the default WBS grouping.
Figure 3
To have a straight list of tasks and no grouping, we select the WBS field underneath the Group By heading and click delete, Figure 3. The Group By dialog box then appears, as in Figure 4.
Figure 4
We click OK, Figure 4. The schedule’s task table and Gantt chart, with no grouping and a straight list of tasks, are displayed in Figure 5.
Figure 5
Now, we want to group the tasks by the subcontractor doing the work. To do this, (1) we select the field directly below the ‘Group By’ heading, (2) choose the ‘Subcontractor’ activity code from the dropdown menu, and (3) click OK, Figure 6.
Figure 6
The resulting table is grouped by the subcontractor performing the work, as shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7
This is fine, but if you prefer, you may want the tasks listed in alphabetical order by the subcontractor column. This is done by toggling the Sort Bands Alphabetically setting and clicking OK, Figure 8.
Figure 8
The report, with subcontractors sorted alphabetically, is displayed in Figure 9.
Figure 9
In addition to grouping by subcontractor, we want to group tasks by whether they are along the longest path or not.
We note that two banners are displayed for our subcontractor table: Subcontractor level 1 is represented by the green banner, and the blue banner represents Subcontractor level 2. So, our subcontractor grouping has two levels.
We proceed, and in the To Level column, click the All field directly below this heading, Figure 10.
Figure 10
From the drop-down menu, we select Level 2, as shown in Figure 10. Then we (1) click the field immediately below the Subcontractor Level 2 field, (2) select Longest Path from the dropdown menu, and (3) click OK, Figure 11.
Figure 11
Figure 12 then lists the tasks by the performance subcontractor, grouping each subcontractor’s tasks by the longest path and those not.
Figure 12
You can copy this table to Microsoft Excel to better exercise the data or for distribution to non-scheduling team members. To do this, select the top cell in the table and choose Edit | Select All, as shown in Figure 13.
Figure 13
The entire selected Activity Table appears blue in Figure 14.
Figure 14
Open an Excel worksheet and select cell A1. Right-click and choose “Paste” from the popup menu, as shown in Figure 15.
Figure 15
The data appears in Excel in Figure 16.
Figure 16
But we lost our color banners. If you want an Excel worksheet with colored bands, consider reading the Ten Six blog article about a WBS Organizer Excel Add-in that supports transferring data from P6 Professional to Excel.
You may appreciate having this P6 Professional table organized by the subcontractor and then by the longest path, but you may have noticed that your Gantt chart looks askew.
Follow these steps to reset the task table and Gantt chart to the configuration shown in Figure 1.
Choose View | Group and Sort by. Select the Longest Path field, then click Delete, Figure 17.
Figure 17
Next, select the Subcontractor Level 1 field and click Delete, Figure 18.
Figure 18
Then, to organize by WBS, follow these steps: (1) choose the empty field directly below the Group By header, (2) select WBS from the dropdown menu, and (3) click OK, Figure 19.
Figure 19
The resulting schedule is presented in Figure 20, which is a duplicate of Figure 1.
Figure 20
Summary
Grouping activities by multiple fields in P6, using the Group and Sort by tool, makes for an efficient way to group tasks in your schedule. The default is to group by WBS, i.e., deliverable.
Many guidelines require the schedule to include deliverables; they form the backbone of the schedule. An empty Group By field generates a straight list of tasks.
But you can group by any activity code or numerous other options, including Longest Path. A Longest Path grouping is helpful beyond a stakeholder (or responsible party) grouping, so each stakeholder knows which of their assignments are along the critical path and, therefore, cannot delay without a commensurate delay in the project’s end date.
The Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Initial Project Schedule (IPS) Review Worksheet requires schedulers to confirm, using their knowledge and experience, that government activities are not arbitrarily placed on the longest path. Therefore, if you are submitting your schedule to NAVFAC, a report listing government activities along the longest path would be most helpful. These groupings are feasible using the P6 Filter tool. Refer to the following link for a primer on the Filter tool.
However, the Group and Sort by tool often provides a more efficient way to achieve the same reporting results.