Clients often ask us to give an overview of Oracle’s Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management (EPPM) product range and explain what all the different modules do. Because Primavera P6 can scale from a single user to the largest of enterprise implementations, it’s easy to understand the confusion.
Even after selecting Primavera P6, some clients buy modules they don’t need, buy the wrong mix of modules or don’t always take advantage of a module and it’s capabilities. Here’s a brief overview of the main Primavera P6 R8 modules and what they do. Note: R8 stands for Release 8.
Primavera P6 EPPM
This is the main module that allows clients to perform project portfolio management, planning and scheduling, resource management, reports and collaboration. This technology enables Primavera P6 to be part of a set of orchestrated business processes and is all web based. In addition to being totally web based, there is also an “optional” client.
Primavera P6 Professional
This fully functional, stand-alone tool installs on your PC and includes the P3 converter and the P6 SDK.
Primavera P6 Progress Reporter
This is the timesheet and team member module. This allows team members to view upcoming activities, collaborate and report their time.
Primavera Risk Analysis
This allows users to perform Monte Carlo style and quantitive risk analysis.
Primavera Earned Value Management
This is the Earned Value Management (EVM) module enabling organizations to perform EVM calculations. This also provides one element, the tool piece, to support US government mandates for EVMS.
Primavera P6 Analytics
This is a packaged business intelligence solution that provides insights into project performance through web based dashboard reports.
Primavera P6 Integration API and P6 Web Services
This is what is used to write apps and integrate Primavera P6 with other enterprise systems.
Primavera P6 Tools
This includes P6 Compression Server, SharePoint Connector, and the OIM Connector. These allow you to use Microsoft SharePoint or Oracle Universal Content Management for document management.
Summary
This is a brief round up of the main modules and the roles they support. As always, it is important to understand your requirements, business objectives and goals before making any enterprise tool selection. Oracle Primavera P6 is a true enterprise tool suite and with that comes some complexity. Hopefully this helps cover the very basics and make things a little clearer for you.
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