Setting-Baseline that has Actuals and Constraints in P6

it’s quite hard to get a reply either, my concern is that the approver of the Baseline is very meticulous that he wanted to see the Hours and Minutes in the Program (but I supposed that he doesn’t have any clue of what he is looking after);

somehow, i believe that an ideal Baseline has no constraints or actuals (but in real world, things are different)

any ideas?

Anoon,

I don’t have P6 but P5. I can tell you that ALL baselines SHOULD have constraints -its not a necessity but you aren’t planning if you don’t have constraints in your plan.

As for actuals, I haven’t tried this in P3 but I would expect there not to be a problem. Are you taking a new baseline or copying the current programme to an old baseline? If its the latter I am unsure. I guess you should just try it and see but take backups first.

I hope this helps,

Mark

Thanks for the reply Mark, I’m setting up a Baseline Program (a new one), it is a Design and Build Project (EPC). The thing is, there are constraints that I have to consider as well as actual dates (which I supposed cannot be neglected in the program), I have around 3,000 activities at the moment, but I haven’t completed the program yet (there are still a lot of details to be considered - which I haven’t got yet).

P6, I supposed is calculating on hours (as planning unit); I don’t have a problem considering a baseline with constraints and/or actuals, my concern is, when I present it to the approver, I know that they’ll be asking about the set-up (i.e. start of a certain activity - please note, in terms of hours and minutes!). When you run the schedule in P6, I believe it calculates to minutes depending on your timeperiod settings (Admin preference and User preference), this is where the actuals and constraints will affect. i.e. Activities will not start exactly at 8:00 am and ends @ 5:00 pm (for an example).If we are going to use Timesheets...I don’t know.

I hope I made myself clear.

Hi
Internal calculation does not depend on your user preferences, it depends on your data-base’s settings how many digits behind decimal point will be calculated. But in your preferences you can decide if you want to show the minutes to outside.
Regards
Dieter

Hi Dieter,

What do you mean by internal calculation? I’m not really well versed in P6. I believe I cannot hide the settings or columns (even if I do, it is still there). I believe P6 uses calendars and timeperiod settings, whenever there are actuals, then the program will read it.

I am just trying to set-up a baseline (I supposed to be ideal), but I realized that there’s no such thing!

Hi
By internal calculation I meant scheduling, which is to calculate an algorithm. How precise this calculation will be, depends on the database’s parameters not on your preferences.
I you’ll create a baseline (by maintain bl) this is a complete copy of your project.
Regards
Dieter

Hi,
the ’’AACE international Recommended practice’’ recommends that the Baseline schedules should be relatively free of imposed or “mechanical” constraints...

’relatively’ is very subjective!!!
Having up to now arround 3000 activities either constrainted or having actual dates, my advise would be have a talk with whom it may concern in the Acceptance of the baseline schedule to have his feedback on the subject... It will be a lost of time and energy to revise all these activities if the baseline is rejected....

Regards
JK

Just a quickie Anoon,

What u normally do in re-baselining the program? Are there any actuals in re-baseline program.

if ur answer is yes, then it is evident that we can use actuals in baseline program as well.

One more problem without the actuals in these type of programs is that then there will be lot of open-end activities in the program as the predecessor (having actual date) are not being entered.

Cheers,

Ravi

Dear All,

At the moment, I personally believe that no one is really well versed in P6 (for it is not even a one year old program); and i also believed that it was programmed to produce precise output, in other words, garbage in - garbage out; however, Planning which evolved from the word uncertainties, cannot be certain unless it happened (meaning - past, which has actuals!).

For me, having constraints and actuals for a baseline program cannot be avoided especially if the works include Engineering and Procurement.

My concern is, the mindset of the Project Team, and to study a program without enough knowledge and experience is time consuming.

I just want to finish the Baseline Program, before the project ends!

just read aacei’s RP for forensic schedule analysis (but i’m not sure if I understand it) and found an item: "De-statusing a Progressed Schedule to create a Baseline";

Say for example, you got a Schedule which is continuously updated (i.e. daily) but never Baselined and when the time comes that everybody is looking for a Baseline, you de-status it and forgot to have back-up, (i.e. you got around 5,000 activities, some of which has constraints - which happened actually), will the next update be valid?

apologies in advance

Hi Anoon,

Yes it is ideal for a baseline with no actuals, but I don’t think there’s a problem in keeping the actuals and constraints once you assign it as a baseline.

In fact in P6, you can’t only compare your current programme to the original baseline (BL for delay analysis), but also you can compare it with last week’s update (BL1 - slippage analysis).

I hope this will help you in concluding this thread.

Best regards,

R. Catalan

R. Catalan,

Where did you find this thread? I even forgot that I started this one, thanks for digging anyway.

For now, I have no idea what happened then, or they had arrived into conclusion (I supposed they had).

Yes, I believe that constraints and actuals are things that you cannot avoid when setting-up a baseline, especially for EPC projects.

cheers

Anoon,

I missed to read the current year for the thread.

Thanks anyway!

R. Catalan

Hi Experts,

I have a difficulty here. I hope I get a good solution from you.

I have assigned a partially updated program as a Baseline (Project Baseline) (Say PB) to my current program (Say CP). Now I want to compare my current program (CP) to mentioned Baseline program (PB).  

I followed the usual steps. In the Bars template, I have selected 'Project Baseline Bar', 'Actual Bar', 'Remain Bar' etc.

But the display of 'BL project start' & 'BL project finish' shows Planned dates of PB instead of Actual Dates of PB. How can I fix this?

Really appreciate your help.

Kind Regards,

Nith

 

 

Hi Experts,

I have a difficulty here. I hope I get a good solution from you.

I have assigned a partially updated program as a Baseline (Project Baseline) (Say PB) to my current program (Say CP). Now I want to compare my current program (CP) to mentioned Baseline program (PB).  

I followed the usual steps. In the Bars template, I have selected 'Project Baseline Bar', 'Actual Bar', 'Remain Bar' etc.

But the display of 'BL project start' & 'BL project finish' shows Planned dates of PB instead of Actual Dates of PB. How can I fix this?

Really appreciate your help.

Kind Regards,

Nith

 

 

Nith,

Restore your PB, open it, and execute Global change to make the Planned Dates = Current Dates.

Re attach PB into CP, assign again as PB.