In P6 Professional, you can generate time-distributed data in P6 for project schedule reports.
Schedulers can create time-distributed data in P6 for the initial planning baseline and a real-time snapshot. This snapshot is the project data at a specified time, e.g., the end of the first month’s reporting period. The time-distributed reporting feature outputs time-phased schedule data for selected Time Interval Fields.
In this way, the scheduler can report Time Interval Field data for a date interval such as Day, Week, Month, or Year for the project’s life.
This article demonstrates using the report wizard to generate time-distributed data in P6.
In Figure 1, our demonstration project includes a baseline and two months of reported progress.
We want to produce a tabulated monthly project report that is time-distributed. We proceed and create a time-distributed monthly report showing resource hours (units) in a time-phased table. The following are instructions on this process:
In our demonstration, we want to place our Wellmont Substation reports in the Substation Project Reports group.
- Select the Substation Project Reports Report Group to store the report, Figure 2, and choose Edit | + Add.
- Click next in the Create or Modify Report Wizard dialog box.
- Toggle on the Time Distributed Data option in the Select Subject Area dialog, Figure 3.
Note: The selection of this option filters the list to display only time-distributed subject areas.
- Choose the subject area for the Activity Resource and Role Assignments, Figure 4.
- Click next.
- In the Configure Selected Subject Areas, click the Columns… button.
- Add and locate Budgeted Units at the bottom of the list, composing Activity ID, Activity Name, Start, and Finish, Figure 6.
- Below the Columns button, choose the Group & Sort button and set it up as follows:
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- Confirm the Group By field is set to Resource ID Name.
- Change the font color of the Group By fields to black.
- Set the Show Group By Options to ID/Code.
- Set the Show Totals to ‘Bottom’.
- Click OK.
- Click Next.
- In the Date Options dialog box, choose the Timescale button.
- Confirm the Date Interval is set to Month.
- For the remaining options in this dialog, keep the defaults.
- Click on the Time Interval Fields… button.
- In the Fields dialog, add the selected options Budgeted, Actual, and remaining Units, as shown in Figure 11.
- Click next.
- Enter a suitable title for your report.
- Click Next.
- In the Report Generated dialog box, uncheck the Format Numbers option and click Run Report.
- Confirm Print Preview is on and click OK to run the report in the Report Previewer, Figure 14.
The output for the Foreman resource in the report should appear as follows: Figure 15.
- Close the report.
- Click Next.
- Save the Report by clicking the Save Report button.
- click OK when the below dialog appears.
- Click Previous.
- Click Run Report.
- Toggle on Delimited Text File and click OK.
The spreadsheet and Foreman resource time-distributed data appear as follows:
The activity percent complete of the Project Management effort through the end of February is calculated as follows:
The original and remaining duration of the project management effort are shown in Figure 1. The equation then computes as follows:
The Foreman Actual Labor Units during this period is as follows:
This matches the Figure 19 Actual Units’ end-of-February Period Total of 303.38 hours in the spreadsheet output. The remaining Units value for the period is 186.62 hours.
Summary
Using the reports feature, schedulers can generate time-distributed data in P6 throughout the project’s life. The scheduler can then tabulate respective time interval fields for each reporting period or other intervals in the schedule.
These time interval fields include budgeted, actual, and remaining labor units. In this way, the scheduler reports resource allocation and usage at the end of each reporting period, including weekly and monthly intervals.
Furthermore, there are numerous Time Interval Field options for cumulative time-phased reporting.