{"id":36371,"date":"2016-10-05t12:16:21","date_gmt":"2016-10-05t16:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.deco-dalles.com\/?p=36371"},"modified":"2019-10-18t11:16:33","modified_gmt":"2019-10-18t15:16:33","slug":"primavera-p6-162-released-whats-new","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.deco-dalles.com\/primavera-p6-162-released-whats-new\/","title":{"rendered":"oracle releases primavera p6 16.2 – java moving out, performance moving up"},"content":{"rendered":"
oracle is doing their round of webinars after the latest release of primavera p6, version 16.2. i logged in to get the skinny on what we can expect in terms of new features and functions in primavera p6 16.2.<\/p>\n
starting from release 15 of primavera p6, the oracle primavera business unit has committed to 2 releases every year. a new major version is released in the spring (xx.1) with the major versions matching the year. a minor release (xx.2) is expected each fall.<\/p>\n
as always, when there’s a release to primavera p6, we can expect updates to both primavera p6 eppm and primavera p6 professional. in addition, we can expect updates to the other primavera p6 components like primavera gateway, primavera analytics, primavera unifier and primavera prime. i don’t usually cover these other products because there never seemed like much demand, but if you want me to cover these in the future, drop me a comment below. if there’s demand, i’ll cover these. let’s get back to talking about p6.<\/p>\n
well, since primavera p6 16.2 is a minor release, don’t get your hopes up too much. it’s a pretty lean update on new features. i’ll start with primavera p6 professional.<\/p>\n
did i mention this is a lean release?\u00a0for this release, i get the sense that there’s a lot of focus from oracle on performance. now primavera p6 professional performs pretty fine since it was\u00a0ported to 64-bit. but the focus here was on primavera p6 cloud connect, the connector that allows a primavera p6 client to connect to a database in the cloud.<\/p>\n
here’s a list of the performance improvements to primavera p6 cloud connect:<\/p>\n
oracle has made improvements to p6 visualizer as well – the bundled add-on that can help display and print p6 graphical data like gantt charts & time-scaled logic diagrams.<\/p>\n
recently oracle did away with claim digger, the built-in schedule comparison tool, and ported that functionality inside visualizer under the heading “schedule comparison”.<\/p>\n
in primavera p6 16.2, you can expect some performance improvements when comparing schedules through visualizer. while comparing small projects always performed well, larger projects could take some time to get output on-screen. but in 16.2, you expect that to move faster.<\/p>\n
on top of that, oracle claims that visualizer will load faster as well, the first time you launch it.<\/p>\n
one more seemingly small, but important improvement is that primavera p6 16.2 no longer requires you to have the microsoft ace drivers installed to perform excel imports and exports.<\/p>\n
a bit of background on this one. if you have microsoft office installed, included was something called the microsoft ace drive (ace standing for access database engine). these drivers were introduced in 2007 to help applications move data to and from excel.<\/p>\n
however, there are 2 versions of the ace drivers – 32-bit and 64-bit<\/strong>, depending on which version of office you had installed.<\/p>\n if you had a mismatch in the versions of primavera p6 and microsoft office (eg: 64-bit p6 and 32-bit office), then you couldn’t export\u00a0data from p6 to excel. you would have had to install the 64-bit ace drivers to get the export\/import working, and even then there were issues.<\/p>\n i wrote this article<\/a>\u00a0a\u00a0while back, advocating to install only 32-bit primavera p6 until this confusing issue was fixed.<\/p>\n it looks like it is now fixed. the ace drivers are no longer required so excel import\/export should work with whatever version of office you have. *let me test this first.*<\/p>\n users can hopefully now install 64-bit primavera p6 professional 16.2 without having to worry about problems with importing \/ exporting to excel.<\/p>\n yes, java is still required and\u00a0bundled with the install.<\/p>\n clarification. the primavera p6\u00a0client that is part of an eppm installation (used to be called the “optional” client) is apparently java free. however, primavera p6 professional (or ppm) is still not java free<\/strong>.<\/p>\n oracle is still making strides to remove java completely and hopefully will have that done in 2017. java is holding them back significantly so expect this to happen sometime next year.<\/p>\n there’s significantly more updates to primavera p6 eppm 16.2 than we see for p6 ppm (professional). if you’re using primavera p6 eppm, any upgrade is usually a major effort. but if you’re just starting to consider adopting oracle’s web-based p6 tool, then there are improvements that you will benefit from.<\/p>\n java has become a major headache for primavera p6 eppm. it’s holding oracle back from moving to mobile in a major way. java is not supported by most mobile devices, which is the major reasons you can’t login to p6 eppm from your ipad. so primavera is moving as quick as they can to replace java applets in primavera p6 eppm with html5 versions. html5 is supported on all devices. we saw some progress here in version 16.1<\/a>\u00a0but it’s slow going.<\/p>\n here’s what to expect in 16.2.<\/p>\n new html 5 views in 16.2:<\/p>\n as you can see there’s much progress here which is nice to see.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n primavera p6 16.2 now has a daily time-scale in all resource analysis views. many users have found it frustrating that eppm doesn’t have all of the same functionality that primavera p6 ppm does and daily timescales was one of those important items. it’s here now.<\/p>\n it’s important to note that daily data relies on “publication services”, a background service that compiles the data and makes it available for viewing.\u00a0the downside (i think) here is that publication services\u00a0can be set to run every hour at most. so if you’re making changes and want to see them reflected in the resource analysis views, you may have to force the job to run or wait until it runs.<\/p>\n here’s a list of new enhancements to the activity view.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n here’s a list of enhancements to the eps view in primavera p6 16.2 eppm:<\/p>\n now in p6 team member, you can:<\/p>\n a few tweaks here as well.<\/p>\n oracle continues to make improvements to the primavera p6 platform of applications. this release, primavera p6 16.2 shows a focus on performance for ppm cloud and a continued push for html5 for eppm. it’s not a very sexy update to be honest, but sometimes the work that’s done underneath the hood will lead to significant improvements later on.<\/p>\n i personally, continue to pine for more fixes and updates to primavera p6 professional\u00a0with its large user base. but maybe oracle will set me right in the future.<\/p>\nis java still required in primavera p6 16.2 ppm?<\/h3>\n
\nwhat’s new in primavera p6 16.2 eppm<\/h3>\n
html5 replacing java – more progress<\/h3>\n
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daily timescales are here<\/h3>\n
new eppm activity view features<\/h3>\n
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new eps\u00a0view features<\/h3>\n
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team member filters are better<\/h3>\n
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p6 mobile<\/h3>\n
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summary<\/h3>\n