Filters. For the MASTERS only.

Are you sure that the correct baseline is assigned? 

Is there progress in the baseline plan? If that is so BL Project Finish may be the wrong data, it might be BL Project Early Finish

Marcel,

I advice you to create UDF for your Baseline Dates then use that field for the "Finish before DD".

Copy the Start and Finish Dates of your Baseline into a UDF "Initial Start" and "Initial Finish" respectively. Transfer this data into the current Schedule.

Hope this will help.

Here is the sieve:

- 'Activity Type' = Task dependant (I don't want milestones).

- 'BL Project Finish' less than or equal to Date Date.

- 'Activity Satus' not equal to completed (I want to show both not started and not completed).

I suggest testing of each condition with an individual filter for each to see if you can isolate the source of problem. 

I would suspect  'BL Project Finish' less than or equal to Date Date is having problems. Even when I do not have[nor use] P6, from a reference I can see there might be confusion between BL Project Finish and BL Finish, it may be you should use BL Finish.

http://www.kinleyconsulting.com/2011/11/primavera-p6-date-fields-explained/

Seems like in the table when there is a single field it applies to either Project or Individual Activities as per checkmark, while if there are two fields first applies to project while second applies to individual activities.

Always remember the warning by Kelly, it must always be your first check when using baselines. Check you baseline settings. If you use< current project> then you have not assigned a baseline.

Thanks you guys for your answers.

You Rafael Davile were right. "BL Project Finish" is the part having problems. Unfontunately there is no such "BL Finish". I can not assigned BL1 because I only use standard baseline and not baseline 1, 2 or 3. Should I use "Baseline 1" instead of "Baseline"?

Raymund de Laza. I have never used UDF although I have heard about them. If that is the solution I must bone up UDFs. I look up info here and see if there is any useful post.

David Kelly. The report I am creating analysis a program, different project at once. Each project has its own baseline but that is not an issue as P6 deals with that. I think though it is confusing they way P6 names BL Project Finish or even BL Project Early Finish. Apparently every activity has its own BL Project Finish but as a matter of fact there is only one Project Finish. I assume every activity also has its own BL Project Early Finish but there is only one Project Early Finish. Maybe I got this wrongfully.

Hi Marcel

If the project(s) is/are open, the filter should work.

BL Project Finish is not the finish date of the project or its BL. It is the finish date of an activity from the BL which was assigned as Project BL.

You must assign your BL under Project --> Assign BL

Regards

Dieter

I guess Dieter and David are correct to suspect it to be an issue of Baseline assignment.

• As Dieter just said - You must assign your BL under Project --> Assign BL
• Do not overlook what Dieter said - If the project(s) is/are open
• You can use UDF to transfer data so you do not need to keep open all files if this is a software requirement. In addition they allows you to define other baselines while at the same time the referenced values are frozen in your active job. They are very useful, shall be named Useful Defined Fields.

Try it and let us know.

It works now. There was just a silly mistake. My fault.

Thank you all for your answers.

By the way, P6 naming "BL Project Finish" to what it does is not the most straigh forward accurate term, is it?

Cheers,

Marcel.

Hi

When I started with P3e some years ago I had a copy from the manual with the meaning of especially the dates on my desk - different terms for any other software I had to use.

Regards and successful planning

Dieter

Agree about the names, it might be confusing at the beginning but soon you shall get used to. At times I just display the fields to investigate and understand them better, just that in this case I do not have P6.

I believe that after solving the issue you shall investigate about User Defined Field.

Let say you transfer the file to someone else using XER but not the baseline, the person at the other side will not be able to use the filter while if you use UDFs to transfer the BL Dates he will be able to filter and make use of your reports.

UDF can be useful to make simple filters, can even consist of "X" or Blank Values entered manually and then filter for activities where the UDF value equals "X".

Also UDF can be populated using Global Change and formulas, kind of a worksheet functionality.

The following is another reference for P6 Dates you shall also consider having available.

http://www.ronwinterconsulting.com/Understanding_P6_Dates.pdf

Going back to UDF you can try creating a UDF called 'BL Project Finish UDF' then with a global change you can make 'BL Project Finish UDF' = 'BL Project Finish'. Make your filter using the UDF instead of the BL field 'BL Project Finish'. Now you shall be able to detach the baseline or use XER files and still be able to see the values of the original baseline.

Afterwards you can practice transferring of UDF field values using SDK Excel Worksheets instead of the BL method.

Regards,

Rafael

Thanks guys, appreciated.

Certainly my next step is to dive myself in UDFs. I heard about them but...

Thanks Rafael Davila also for the link. It seems very thorough and I will definetely read it through.

So long,

Marcel.

Hi Marcel, 

Another option would be to import the schedule into Acumen Fuse and build your filter there.  I've attached a screenshot of the metric builder, and how I think you could create your desired filter as well as a screenshot as to what the results of this check would look like in Fuse. There is a free trial on our website if you'd like to try it on your project. 

Below shows you how this metric could be applied to the project.  You will get a count of activities that Should Have Finished (In this example it was 5) in both the project as a whole as well as broken out by time-phase.  You will also see a list of the activities included in that count. You could even slice and dice the project by activity attribute or by WBS for further filtering.

The free trial of Acumen Fuse is at: http://www.projectacumen.com/products/trial 

Jenn,

I don't think that exporting the schedule to other tool is an option for Marcel.

If yes he can easily create and apply any filters in Spider Project and even optimize project schedule if there are resource constraints.

But filters are usually applied for the work with the schedule and exporting/importing makes the work too complex.