P5 Issue using 2 different set of calendars

You will find the same issue with many products on the market including SureTrak and MSP. They all have one factor to convert hours to days and when there are two calendars with different hours per day the one summary duration is incorrect.

It is sad to see that a new product such as Primavera Enterprise does not have a factor for each calendar to convert hours to days. Asta PowerProject is one product that does convert each calendars hours to days with a factor for each calendar.

Your options I know off are:
1. Have the same number of hours per day calendar
2. Display all durations in hours
3. Run a global change to calculate the correct durations in days in a Custom Field
4. Buy another software package.

This issue makes it very hard for construction companies to run multiple projects in one Primavera database and my clients and I are coming to the conclusion that they will need one database per project, which adds a considerable admin overhead and destroys the point of an Enterprise system.

Paul E Harris
Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia
Planning and Scheduling Training Manual & Book Publishers & Consulting
www.eh.com.au

Paul,

I had this issue on a bid programme for a decommissioning project.

Primavera technical support stated that there was a fix going to be implemented in P6, as this problem had already been raised as an ’enhancement request’.

Regards,

Oliver

Thanks,

sadly Oliver i was in contact with Primavera technical support and they know of the problem but, we will have the same issue and no date is set for fixing the problem!

What happens when we import P3 files, is there a possibility of corrupted information? meenong changes in start and finish date because of this issue

Cheers

Mot sure, don’t have any dealings with P3.

Hi all.
Yes I think Paul is right.
According to me, if you decide to use Primavera ,the easiest solution is "enter/view duration in hours".
If activity have 20hr/day, activity’s end date will be sooner than 10hr/day.

Thanks

Oliver

I have the Client Server Primavera Version 6.0 loaded on one of my machines and there is no new function to display summary durations correctly for calendars with different hours per day in the same way as products like Asta Powerproject does.

The Client Server version does not have fields that calculate from other fields like MSP, so it looks like we are stuck with the Global Change option to calculate the durations in days in a User Defined Field, which in my opinion is not satisfactory for new software.

I understand the web interface does have fields that calculate from other fields but I do not have this version loaded yet.

Paul E Harris
Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia
Planning and Scheduling Training Manual & Book Publishers & Consulting
www.eh.com.au

Hi Paul.
In Primavera the summary band (WBS band) display duration based on default Global calendar which was set in Enterprise -> Calendar.
If we need to show 20hr/day in summary band, simply create 20hr/day calendar and make this one became default global calendar.

Thanks

Hi all,

My suggestion is to use default 10/day calendar and use multiple calendar on your resources. I used shift calendar for 20hrs day work and 10 hrs on day with no problem on it. And the calendar durations will have the same days output. I can generate a report with the correct manhour per day and shows 10 days duration for either 10 hrs calendar and 20 hrs shift calendar as per samples stated.

None of these work arounds help if you are on a complex project with some work on 24 hrs/day some on 16 hours per day, some on 10, some on 8, weekend work etc, etc, as one gets in a complex infrastructure project involving roads, rail and ports. Only one calendar will display the duration in days correctly.

I expect any software package sold as a “Enterprise Project” management solution for the Engineering and Construction Industry to have addressed this very basic issue of calculating summary durations in days correctly.

It was not an issue in P3 as it only could schedule in one time unit per project but this presented other issues. MSP and SureTrak also have this problem and it is difficult to use these with multiple calendars as outlined above without only displaying durations in hours.

Paul E Harris
Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia
Planning and Scheduling Training Manual & Book Publishers & Consulting
www.eh.com.au

I don’t have experience of older planning software, as I have only ever used Primavera Enterprise and MSP, but it strike me as being a fundamental flaw.

Surely its an easy fix to get durations to work off an activity calendar as opposed to the admin perferences?

I’m glad to see that others are experiencing similar issues as to what we have found.

We have a requirement for multiple calendars on our current project, and we will likely require more as we proceed further into our project, as the work is very complex. We are also with differing construction seasons in partsof our project, as well as mixed onshore and offshore work. This was easily managed in P3, but things are not working out correctly in P5. Displaying our dates in hours is not a sensible solution for us (we will have some big numbers if we do).

I was hoping that P6 might fix this problem, but it looks like a UDF & Global change might have to be our work around!

Tony

Hi All.
By default Primavera use Global calendar for WBS band.
But I think there is another way to assign different calendar to different WBS.

We can create 1 WBS-summary activity for each WBS. This kind of activity play as WBS band role. Then assign the calendar we need to that activity. Now the activity will show date based on our special calendar.
Now instead of using date from WBS band ,we will use date from WBS-summary activity.

Thanks

Hi Tony
As far as I know, P6 still have not support this feature.

KD,

It is the activity duration that doesn’t display correctly.
The dates are ok, but as P5 works in hours behind the scenes, when durations are entered in days P5 converts them into hours then spreads them based in the Hours per period in the admin perferences.

The only quick fix is global change.

Oliver