Primavera P6 Integration with Deltek Cobra – Managing Percent Complete Types with Global Change in Primavera P6
A colleague of mine suggested the solution that is the topic of today’s blog. The Deltek Cobra Integration Wizard maps the Physical % Complete field in Primavera P6.
And it’s worth noting that Physical % Complete is the only percent complete choice you have to update % Complete work packages when integrating from P6. As you can see, Percent Complete mapping is not called out as an option in the Integration Wizard’s Primavera dialogs.
For DoD contractors following EIA-748 Earned Value compliance guidelines, Physical % Complete is a good thing; while for less rigorous implementations, not so much.
One simple workaround in Primavera P6 is to copy the values from whatever percent complete field you’re using into the Physical % Complete column using a couple of simple Global Change setups.
If you’re using Duration Percent Complete for example, the following settings can be entered into the Global Change dialog and saved. You can run this change every period just prior to integration with a couple of clicks in P6.
WHERE “Percent Complete Type” = “Duration”
AND “Activity Status” IS NOT EQUAL TO “Not Started”
THEN “Physical % Complete” = “Duration % Complete”
On the other hand, if you’re using Units Percent Complete, you’ll need to run a second Global Change to capture those too. The running order of these two is not important.
WHERE “Percent Complete Type” = “Units”
AND “Activity Status” IS NOT EQUAL TO “Not Started”
THEN “Physical % Complete” = “Units % Complete”
In the Global Change dialog, it looks like this:
You can perform your P6 integration as normal and have the benefit of knowing that your earned value is being driven by the correct percent complete type according to the DCMA and other overseeing bodies.
There is a caveat however. While this may help with the physical % complete values, you will still need to go in and adjust the remaining durations for affected activities in order for this to be a legitimate use of physical % complete.
This brings me to another point. Why does the DCMA and others insist that the Physical % Complete be used in an integrated earned value management system? What difference does it make what field the value comes from?
This comes down to potential accuracy of the way percent complete is being recorded in the scheduling system. And this is true of P6, Open Plan, and Microsoft Project: that physical % complete breaks the relationship between remaining duration and percent complete. You will notice that when you adjust the Duration % Complete in P6, it will also adjust the remaining duration.
Whereas if you are using physical % Complete and you adjust that value, the remaining duration remains unchanged. You need to then go in and update the remaining duration on each of those activities. Look at the following example:
With Duration based % complete, you are assuming that because time is passing, that work is happening. With Duration % Complete, the percent complete entered reduces the remaining duration.
This is a bad assumption however. It may have rained for three days that week, and although 5 days passed, only 2 days’ worth of work got done. The remaining three days should be pushed out to the next week, but this won’t happen if you’re using duration % complete.
In the above example, duration % complete says “great – five of the ten days have passed, so we only have 5 days of work left. Not true, five days passed, three saw rain, remaining duration is still 8 days, hence the DCMAs preference for physical % complete tracking. It’s more likely to reflect what’s really going on.
Summary
While tools like Global Change can help you push values around, it would be preferable to do your percent complete tracking correctly and routinely use physical % complete methods. Yes, it’s a little more work, but it will give you a more realistic accounting of project progress and earned value and will keep you off the DCMA’s Corrective Action hit list.