There are differing schedule naming conventions for activity IDs. Do you know how rename your activity ID accordingly, to generate your desired naming convention?
Depending on the size of the project schedulers may want to adopt a particular naming convention for their schedule activity IDs. One such naming convention says to prefix the activity ID name with letters that are parts of the respective work breakdown structure (WBS). This convention may be helpful on large projects that have deliverables produced by the implementation of numerous activities.
This article provides a Primavera P6 Professional quick tip on how to change the activity ID prefix.
We have in Figure 1 our demonstration project.
Figure 1
This a tile manufacturing and installation project with several WBS elements. We have adopted the naming convention that prefixes the activity ID with letters that are parts of the associated WBS element. We therefore need to edit the prefix for all our activities.
Let’s proceed by updating the high level project activities. Highlight these activities, Figure 2.
Figure 2
Select Edit | Renumber Activity IDs, Figure 3.
Figure 3
In the renumber activity IDs dialog, Figure 4, we toggle auto-number and specify the prefix TLP, which stands for Tile Project.
Figure 4
Select Ok. The schedule with the updated high level activity IDs is in Figure 5.
Figure 5
In Figure 6 we have our entire schedule updated with smart activity IDs.
Figure 6
For clarity we may want to include the below abbreviation documentation in our project schedule report:
TLP – Tile Project
TLM – Tile Manufacture
TLI – Tile Installation
TQA – Tile Quality Assurance (Installed Tiles)
Summary
Schedulers may want to implement an activity naming convention to make the schedule’s activity ID labeling more meaningful to their specific project. In Primavera P6 Professional it is possible to edit activity IDs to conform to your preferred activity naming convention. A more detailed discussion on the Primavera P6 Professional renumber activity IDs feature is in the following article Renumbering Activity IDs in Primavera P6 Professional.