P3 e/c and P3

P3e is an Enterprise product and it is has the capability for a company to put a large number of projects in the one database under an "Enterprise" hierarchical structure, similar to a project WBS but for a corporation. P3 has a project and subproject environment where all subprojects share all the same codes, calendars resources etc. In p3e/c, each project may have its own calendars and Activity Codes and draw resources from a hierarchical pool of resources which may also have "Roles" assigned.

P3e/c does not have the restrictions on field lengths and number of fields which P3 has. Activity Code and Description lengths are very generous. There also no limits to the number of calendars and codes.

P3e lacks some of the maturity of P3 and does not have some of the functions and formatting I would normally expect, but they should come in the future. There are no Activity ID Codes that I consider almost essential in large schedules and the leveling functions are less developed than P3. P3e/c has significantly more Auto Cost rules and handles EVPV better in my opinion but will take longer to learn to use.

P3e has a number of facilities which make the product align with "PRINCE2" methodology such as Risk Logs, Issues Logs, OBS and Thresholds. It also has features which people come to expect such as holding peoples email address and a timesheet function.

P3 uses an old Btrive architecture and P3e/c may use one three types of databases and has a more modern architecture which IT departments prefer.

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

Paul’s reply on difference of P3 and P3e is very comprehensive and clear each and every thing on this issue

What can be added:
P3 and P3e are totally different products developed by different teams and different companies. Original version of P3e was presented to the market in October of 1998 at PMI conference in Long Beach (California). It was called Eagle Ray and was developed by small American company. Then Eagle Ray disappeared and later (in 1999) was pesented as P3e.
P3e is not the result of the P3 development.

"P3e is not the result of the P3 development."

Unfortunately :(

Thanks for this information Vladimir. I think this information is very vital to the extensive argument and counter argument in one of the threads here in Primavera Project Planner about why did Primavera has to change platform to P3e instead of just developing Project Planner.

In such comparisons there are always things that an author considers as valuable and others as not valuable at all, and things that somebody considers as valuable and an author just missed. Besides I think that all parameters should be weighted. And for planners most valuable parameters are among those that concern scheduling and simulating options, accuracy and reliability of results.
In any case thank you, your review is very informative.