hi sima,

often it’s as simple as pressing f5 to see the reflection you made.
also, check there’s no filters on.

lastly – are you using p6 in an eppm environment / shared database, or is it standalone?

sometimes, you will find that the service on the eppm server needs restarting.

you must be using primavera p6 eppm then. the reflection is sent to a job applet that makes the copy. the applet may need some technical attention. i would check with your administrator or an it guy to help sort it out.

ideally, you would merge projects with the same data date. however, i would use the earliest data date 18oct. you can still update activities in the merged copy to get everything to 30oct.

i merged three schedules from different companies with different data dates on it.

e.g. company a dd : 18 oct
b dd : 20 oct
c dd: 30 oct

once i merged these three and i want to update, which data date i will use?

thanks nirav!

hi everyone,

i already have tried the above scenario and i can confirm it works. there is a little catch. once we complete step5 and upload contractors file into p6 by opening reflection project we need to check the project status. with importing microsoft project file it actually changed my project status to “active” so this was not allowing me to merge the reflection. now if you change the project status back to “what if” and do the right click it will show you merge option again!!!!
also once you finish your merge reflection this will keep the data date unchanged. so you will need to review the changes and if you are happy with it you can change the data date. i really liked this functionality as imagine if you have created 3-4 reflections for different contractors and you are getting their responce one-by-one. you really dont want ot change the data date untill you receive everyones update!!!

sharing is caring

regards
nirav

first of all thanks for the wonderful tutorial and for giving us insights of reflections.

now i have a question. we are client and using primavera. out contractors are usig microsoft project. now i got one microsoft project file from them which i have converted in p6. at the month end i would like to send them the reflection of current porgram and make them update so i can merge it back. i am thinkng of following below steps. can you please suggest if there is a better way of doing it.
1) create p6 program reflection
2) open reflection. export it into microsoft project format
3) send it to contractor & contractor opens imports it into his database (microsoft project)
4) contractor performs update and sends us updated file (probably microsoft project)
5) we import his file into p6 (i will keep the reflection project open when importing)
6) p6 reflection updated
7) now merge the reflerction with main project and complete the update.

can you please review the above steps and let me know if you think it can work.

thanks in advance
nirav

i am updating master project based on the progress update i receive from multiple users in reflection project. i wish to update the forecasted dates in reflection project on daily basis based on the updated master project schedule . is there any option to achieve this requirement without creating another reflection project .

in short , my requirement is as below

daily activity status update – from reflection project(multiple users) to master project (planner)
daily updated schedule with new dates – from master project(planner) to reflection project (for multiple users)

i want to know, can i update 2 baseline program in 1 layout, because my boss ask me to do 2 baseline program which 1 we submit to client and another one for internal used which the completion date much early. i just a new planner because before this i was engineer. all this still new to me and i hope someone can help me. thank you.

sounds like you want to make a scenario. copy your project and do the scenario in the copy. if the boss like it, make the same changes in your original project or make this scenario project the new go-forward project. then rebaseline.

yes, you can unlink it. you simply have to change the “project status” field from “what-if” to something else – “active” perhaps. then the merge feature goes away. if you set it back to “what-if” you can merge it again.

if the relationship changes cannot be merged back, can i “unlink” the reflection from the main project and make it a stand-alone ? this way i could put the base project as a baseline to this stand-alone to implement the changes and maintain visibility of the past.

that would be great, but i don’t think p6 can do that.

is there any possible to create reflection for multiple project at a time? i have seen reflection when select single project that opened. give me the solution becuase i am using more than 20 projects and make schedule for every day. your solution would be really helpful for me.

thanks
arun

unfortunately, you can’t merge any relationship changes using reflections. michael

sorry – i can’t see any way you can hide 世界杯时间比赛时间 when you create a reflection. it’s a complete copy of the project. i think the only way is to move their work into a separate project and link the 2 projects together.

can you guide me please how can i solve this issue?

thank you in advance.

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yes, you can. just delete the original. the reflection will stay – these are all just projects in the end.

hassan,
before you import, open the original project first. it sounds like you have no project open when you do the import so p6 doesn’t offer the update options.

hi,
when i tried to import the reflective programme back from my sub-contractor, under the import action i could only see two options as create a new project & ignore existing project.i cant find the update the existing project option as i find trouble in merging the reflection into source project. need assistance.

thanks & regards,
hassan a

is there a way we can load data from excel to the work products and documents in p6. i have tried exporting and importing including using global change but it’s not working.

best regards,

arnold

i was afraid that was the case, but hoped to be wrong.

thanks

in the reflection project, click the options button on the scheduler window (like you’re rescheduling).
in options, check “ignore relationships to and from other projects”. then run your scenario. this setting should make sure you don’t drive dates to your other projects when they are rescheduled.
let me know how it works out.
m

– create a reflection from the broken source project and open only that project.
– export the copy or broken reflection that won’t merge to an xer file.
– import the xer back into the database as ‘update existing’ to the created reflection.

make sense?

thanks in advance.

examples projects: “a” “b” “c” “d” “e” “f” “reflection of a”

my concern is that when the reflection is created (“reflection of a”
), it created duplicate logic ties to the non-reflection projects (“b” “c” “d” “e” “f”) in our ims.

won’t the “reflection” processing changes affect my non-reflection project dates based on predecessor / successors from the “reflection”?

appreciate your help.

i don’t have any clue and couldn’t dig up any known bugs that might be related. did you try a screen refresh (f5) after merging? when you merge, it’s possible to copy the merging stuff and to paste into a notepad doc – or print it – then you can go over it in detail to ensure it’s working as expected.
sorry i can’t offer more than this.
michael

thanks for the tutorial and for any comment.

thank you in advance!

with regards.

can you re-name the reflection project without compromising it’s functionality?

elements that are not deleted during a merge include:

activities
relationships
resource assignments
wbs elements
work products and documents
project expenses
project issues
project risks

thank you in advance.

best regards

hi kash,

a few options.
1) you could create a new activity to replace a b c, then delete a b c. but as you said, it would disturb your plan. if you delete a b c, it might also upset any baselines that have those activities in them as well.
2) a second option is to use a level of effort activity (set activity type to level of effort on general tab) to “summarize” those 3 activities. a level of effort activity is a special type that can summarize groups of activities – it will automatically span the duration from the start of a to the end of c. create a new activity (loe). set it to be a “level of effort” activity type. create a predecessor from loe to a – set as start-start. create a successor from loe to c – set as finish-finish. reschedule your project and loe will summarize those activities – it’s duration will be auto-calculated as the duration from the start of a to the finish of c.
give that a try and let us know if it helps. you may also review this tutorial which explains level of effort somewhat //www.deco-dalles.com/use-a-level-of-effort-to-add-work-stoppage-info-to-a-project-and-still-track-to-your-primavera-baseline/.
regards,
michael

regards
kash

hi doug,

p6 has no problems with creating baselines mid-project. after you merge your reflection in, you can rebaseline your schedule to capture it with the newly merged changes.
hopefully that answers your question. if not, drop us another line here.
regards,
michael

hello krishna,
please browse the site. all our tutorials are posted here and are currently free to peruse.
warmest regards,
michael

thanks dave! we really appreciate your positive feedback and will strive to continue to helping this community.

hi vicky,

i have a better understanding of your scenario now. if i was in your shoes, here’s how i would proceed.

1) my first choice is, if at all possible (even by nagging managers and it folks), get these contractors to work directly in my primavera database. if i can do that, i’ll have the utmost control over the flow of data and security to keep each contractor focused on only their activities.

2) if i have exhausted all possibilities of acheiving 1) above, then my second choice is to divide the project into 2 separate project plans. each contractor can then perform updates via .xer file without interfering with the other contractor’s updates or activities. it is possible in primavera to work with multiple projects as though they are 1 project, by opening them together, using activity codes to essentially merge the two projects together for viewing and analysis even though they are separate. depending on what you’ve agreed to with the client, this is the next best option, however it is not perfect either. there could be challenges if both contractors don’t update their projects at the same (or reasonably close). each project will have separate data date and if these dd’s become very out of sync, then i would have other challenges to deal with.

3) if neither 1) nor 2) was an option, then my next choice would be to enforce regular project updates from both contractors using reflections. when you merge the reflection project, i’ll be able to see if there were major changes (new activities, new resource assignments, etc.). since these major changes can’t be merged, i would have to preserve the project before (make a copy or baseline) and then either do an .xer import or manually update the major changes. i might use the claim digger tool to compare the differences after the import. i would also ask contractors to perform status updates more regularly to manage fewer updates each time.

i know it sounds difficult and tedious, and in some ways it is but using the tools in 3) would ensure that i’m very careful with the data to ensure one contractor doesn’t affect the other’s section of the project.

4) i have one further option i might pursue. bring complete control of the schedule in-house – ie: don’t allow the contractors to update their schedules, do it for them. many companies also take this approach and find it can help to better manage their contractors as well. this way, we get rid of hassle of updating and merging, but now we need to have a good communication strategy to get information from the contractor when we require an update.

vicky, i hope i’ve given some viable options to consider. this is all tricky business. but i really think if you can go with option 1), it’ll make life alot easier.

please feel free to email again if you’ve more questions. i’m here to help.

michael

hi vicky,

the best approach to updates is to have the companies work in the database where the project resides. this eliminates all sorts of hassle with importing data and updates. you’ll want to ensure you have proper security profiles set up for each company that logs in.

however, if having the contractors log in to the database is not possible, as you’ve stated, then importing .xer files is probably the next best approach.
yes, you can use reflections for updating projects as well. i think it would be a good choice for you to use in this situation. i might suggest you make a copy of the project to test the reflection updates on first – so can you get a feel for how they work. just remember that reflections don’t update all data. if there are major changes in the reflected project, like new relationships and resource changes, the reflection merge will not import them and you’ll have to do it manually. however, you can still import a .xer without using a reflection in that case.
if your contractors are merely providing status / actuals updates on existing activities, i do recommend you use reflections. you’ll have the ability to review the changes in the reflection differences report before merging them in.

this will be the topic of a future tutorial soon.

please feel free to contact me via with any other questions. i’m happy to help. michael@plannertuts.com
michael

now my question is
the xyz company want to have their part of schedule i.e activities by xyz company & common activities (i.e activities by both companies) & they will update & send that schedule to us. but the client wants only 1 schedule for the whole project which is natural & standard.

both the companies are located far away geographically.
web access to xyz company is also not possible due to security policy.

what will you suggest in this situation?
can reflection project option help me in this case?

thanks in advance for your reply

hi rob,

another good question and likely scenario. this is a nice way to use reflections for updating which i hope to cover soon.

i was able to create a reflection, export it to .xer, reimport it and merge the changes. one thing that might be tripping you up is during the import – you have to make sure that you have the reflection project open before you perform the import. this will update the reflection project in your database from the .xer file. if you don’t have the reflection project open, p6 will try to create a new project in the database and you won’t be able to perform the merge.

steps:
1) open the reflection project.
2) goto file -> import.
3) select your file.
4) choose from the import option dropdown to “update existing project” and select the project in the “import to” field to the right.
5) complete the import.
6) merge the reflection project back into the source.

drop me a line back if this doesn’t fix it for you. thanks for the comments.

rob

great question.
i did some checking and testing on what permissions you need to both create a reflection and to perform a merge. the p6 user guide says that you don’t need global “admin superuser” privileges to create a reflection. you only need to have privileges to create projects. as for project-level permissions, you do need to have “project superuser” privileges for both the source project and the reflection project.

project superuser gives you all of the project privileges in the profiles setup screen, as well as the following (which are unstated for some reason):

1. can change the responsible manager for any project that they have access to
2. allowed to import into an existing project with the following options – update, add into or replace
3. select or deselect the option to copy activities when copying a wbs node
and i guess we would add…
4. can merge reflection projects back into the source project.
m