{"id":7891,"date":"2019-03-10t04:00:48","date_gmt":"2019-03-10t08:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.deco-dalles.com\/?p=32"},"modified":"2024-08-01t15:38:18","modified_gmt":"2024-08-01t19:38:18","slug":"primavera-p6-reflections-merge-scenarios","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.deco-dalles.com\/primavera-p6-reflections-merge-scenarios\/","title":{"rendered":"use primavera p6 reflections to merge scenario projects"},"content":{"rendered":"

reflection projects are a little-known but very handy feature in primavera p6 professional<\/a>. a primavera p6 reflection<\/strong> project is essentially a copy of a project but with one snazzy built-in trick – the ability to merge the copied project back into the original at any time. if the genius of this trick hasn’t struck you yet, it will.<\/p>\n

this merging ability was designed to help planners work with scenario projects.<\/p>\n

let’s say you’re the planner for a large capital project that is a falling behind schedule. the boss wants you to assess the impact of adding an extra shift to the work schedule.\u00a0 how much time can be caught up with this approach (ie: scenario)?<\/p>\n

the thing to do here is to create a reflection<\/strong> of the project in primavera p6, add an extra shift and verify the finish date. if the boss approves the extra shift, then you can merge this scenario project into the original project along to keep the changes you made.<\/p>\n

primavera p6 reflections save you the time of renaming projects, resetting permissions and copying and pasting changes from one project to another. there are also some nice options to help you create a backup of the original project in case you need to reference it again in the future.<\/p>\n

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step 1 – creating a reflection project in primavera p6<\/h3>\n

\"primavera<\/p>\n

from the projects window, right-click on the original project and select create reflection from the menu.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"primavera<\/p>\n

if the original project has any baselines you will \u00a0see pop-up window where you can select whether or not to copy these baselines into the reflected project.\u00a0 simply mark the checkbox in the copy column if you want to preserve any baselines in the reflected project.<\/p>\n

\"copy<\/p>\n

you should now see a copy of your project in the projects window. \u00a0the copy will have the same project id with “-1” appended. \u00a0this reflection project will also be marked with a status of “what-if” which is primavera’s way of indicating the project is a “scenario” project and not a real project plan.<\/p>\n

\"primavera<\/p>\n

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step 2 – open the reflection project and activity layout<\/h3>\n

you primavera p6 reflection project is now created and ready for editing.<\/p>\n

now it’s time to run your scenario – ie: you can now make changes to the reflection project to run your scenario, test out a hypothesis, etc.<\/p>\n

in this tutorial, we’ll make a small change to the reflection project’s 世界杯时间比赛时间 .<\/p>\n

open the project<\/strong> and then open the activity layout<\/strong> provided the tutorial downloads section.<\/p>\n

\"primavera<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

before we make any changes, you’ll need to\u00a0make sure a key setting for working with 世界杯时间比赛时间 is set correctly in user preferences<\/strong>.\u00a0 go to edit -> user preferences<\/strong>, and click on the calculations tab<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"p6v7<\/p>\n

set the “recalculate the units, duration, and units\/time for existing assignments based on the activity duration type<\/strong>” option. \u00a0this will make sure that primavera will perform the necessary recalculations when 世界杯时间比赛时间 are added or removed from an activity. \u00a0close the user preferences window.<\/p>\n

note: this step isn’t necessary when working with primavera p6 reflections, but i like to set this option when i’m doing resource-based scenarios.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

step 3 – making changes to your primavera p6 reflection project<\/h3>\n

find activity a1020 – convert legacy data.\u00a0 you’ll be adding another resource to activity a1020 to see how this will affect the project’s overall finish date.<\/p>\n

since the activity’s duration type<\/strong> is set to “fixed units”, adding an additional resource will have the effect of reducing the activity’s duration and spreading the units equally over the 3 世界杯时间比赛时间 assigned. \u00a0let’s give it a try.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"making<\/p>\n

i’ll now add resource tom bell<\/strong> as a new resource assignment to a1020 and reschedule<\/strong> the project using the current data date and check the project’s finish date.<\/p>\n

\"adding<\/a><\/p>\n

the project should now finish on dec 20, 2010 whereas before it was scheduled to finish on march 1, 2011.<\/p>\n

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step 3 – reviewing the reflection differences report<\/h3>\n

one of the best features of working with primavera p6 reflections reveals itself when you initiate a merge – the differences report.<\/p>\n

the differences report will show you specifically what has changed in your primavera p6 reflection project.<\/p>\n

go back to the projects window<\/strong> and right-click on the reflection project – “billing-1”.<\/p>\n

choose “merge reflection into source project<\/strong>” from the menu. you should now see the differences report window.<\/p>\n

this screen is really nice. \u00a0it provides you with a report on the differences between the original project and the reflection at the activity level. you’ll see the value for say remaining duration from the source project, and the updated value from the reflection project.<\/p>\n

from here you can choose which changes you want to merge into the original, or leave out by checking the box in the “merge” column next to the item. \u00a0don’t like the updates on a particular activity? \u00a0just leave them out.<\/p>\n

primavera p6 also gives you some options to archive the original project, either as a baseline or as an .xer export file. \u00a0this is *essential*<\/strong> as you’ll likely need to keep the original project around. and you can also choose how to handle the reflection – keep it, delete it or replace it (update it) with the new merged project.<\/p>\n

\"the<\/p>\n

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step 4 – merging the reflection into the original project plan<\/h3>\n

if you agree to merging the projects, you can go ahead and set the options as above, and click “merge changes<\/strong>” to finalize the merge. \u00a0you may want to print this differences report first, or you might even copy and paste it into a text document before you merge. \u00a0you can do either of these by clicking the display bar.<\/p>\n

\"the<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

with your scenario complete, don’t forget to communicate the results<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

merging primavera p6 reflections – limitations<\/h3>\n

the merging process between a source project and a reflection project has some limitations that i’ll do my best to outline here.<\/p>\n

permissions to create reflections and merge<\/h4>\n

the following permissions apply if you are running a version of primavera p6 professional<\/a> that connects to an enterprise database – not a standalone version.<\/p>\n

in order to be able to create a primavera p6 reflection project, you will need to have the permission to “add projects” in whatever project security profile you are assigned. most folks will already have this permission.<\/p>\n

the ability to merge reflections requires further permissions. in order to be able to merge a reflection, you will require big access – yes – super admin. you will need to have the “<admin superuser><\/strong>” global security profile in order to merge reflections.<\/p>\n

\"primavera<\/p>\n

deleted data in your reflection project<\/h4>\n

if you have deleted data in the reflection project, primavera p6 will have a very difficult time resolving the differences when you merge the project back together. according to oracle, the merge cannot distinguish whether or not an item was deleted from the reflection or if the item was added to the source after the reflection was created. (here’s another way to compare 2 project files.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

thus any deletions in your reflection will not be deleted in the source project during merge.<\/p>\n

more specifically, the following items will not be removed from the source project if they were deleted from the reflection:<\/p>\n