A Reflection is an interesting concept and as far as I know (correct me if I’m wrong folks), is unique to Primavera P6. You can think of a Reflection as a special what-if copy of a project. Unlike a straight copy however, a Reflection retains a link back to the source project. That means that if the Reflection is changed, you can merge some or all of those changes back into the source project.
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This is a very slick what-if capability. What’s more, it’s easy to execute and you only need to know two menu options to pull it off.
Right-click on the Project you wish to create a Reflection of and from the context menu, select Create Reflection.
If you have a baseline in your source project, then you will get an extra dialog allowing you to select which baselines get copied.
Upon clicking OK, Primavera P6 creates the Reflection, in the same EPS node as the source project.
The Reflection project has the word Reflection appended to the source file project name. It has been created with a project Status of What-if.
The Reflection can be opened and edited as normal and you can make your what-if changes. Once the changes are approved, you can merge a selection of the changes back to the source project.
Just right-click on the Reflection project and choose the Merge Reflection into Source Project… from the context menu.
Primavera P6 will offer you a list of all the changed items and you can select which ones to merge back into the source project.
It even offers to create baselines and make backups of your source project before you commit to clicking the Merge Changes button. In all, Primavera’s P6 Reflection feature is a well thought out function that deserved a little airtime in the blog. Check it out next time you have a what-if scenario to chew over.
UPDATE: We have received many of your ideas on other uses for Reflections and have an updated article here Reflecting On Reflections
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