Primavera P3 is OBSOLETE

There is already a forum for P5 - the P3e/c forum.

And P3 may not be supported, but it is still too far from being obsolete. I have been using enterprise version of Primavera (starting with P3e Ver 4 and then Ver 5 for past three years). Agreed it is powerful and it has got new features which P3 did not have. But it also dropped some very user friendly features like working in multiple projects in different layouts etc. For these and many other reasons, P3 is still live and will keep on going.

I got my training for P3 back in 1996-1997. Since than, I love it. Long live p3.

Long Live P3 - for as long as you can continue to use Windows XP.

I don’ think it is related with operating system alone. There were other forum discussion here which confirm that P3 runs well in Vista as well. It the nature of programme that will keep P3 alive at least until all the features of P3 are supported by newer versions. I am going to see Briefing of P6 tomorrow - let’s see what this latest Primavera software has to offer and whether it can send the good old P3 to rest.

if P3 would be obsolete, so is Planning!

Thats not quite true, now, is it??

P3 is still strong with the planning communities because you can get more, then what you required as a planner. Except initial steep learning curve this software is still best among all other software’s available in the market. Peoples who swear by P5 can do anything of following in P5 -
1. Production of graphical reports.
2. Production of great banana curve from late & early data (graphical or otherwise).
3. Actual expenses and remaining cost curves as one curve ( they are now being shown differently in P5 and confusing).

LONG LIVE P3

Regards,

Utter Ignorance

Long Live P3

And I can guarantee even the release of P6 next month will not be able to keep P3 to rest. The multi project functionality has still not been incorporated in P6. So definitely long live P3.

I find P5 very helpul in monitoring purposes, but when it comes to planning & TIA, P3 is still the best.

Log Live P3!

I find P5 very helpul in monitoring purposes, but when it comes to planning & TIA, P3 is still the best.

Log Live P3!

hi

When you become familiar in using P5 by using advanced configuration and setting up the tools. I’m definitely sure you may embraced it..Even myself before has made comments in P5 like yours, But i reliaze im wrong...

i think p3 will still be around even though there will be P6 - P(infinity).It has the feature of basic planning which most young planner need to know.For P5 user, you may find P3 "obsolete" but remember that it is the knowledge you got from P3 that makes you appreciate and learned P5 fast.

Nonetheless, the market will determine the future of P3.There are still companies, even MANAGERS do not know the benefit of using P3, how much more P5.

Some PROJECT CONSULTANT requires project schedules to be done in PRIMAVERA.After you made them, they look afterwardskeep it in their shelves.

I got pass that cockpit problems of P5 and able to get all the printouts, matrix reports. S curves etc etc of P3. Took me a few tough days.

P5 just do not match the user friendliness of P3. And in many ways P3 is still more powerful than P5.

P3 is no longer supported, but I cannot see how that equate to P3 being obsolete, and shouted at us in capital letters as well. I suspect you do not know P3 well.

Long live P3

The other point with P5 (and now P6) is that though they are scaleable product, the whole software structure has become too big. P5 requires database server and P6 will rquire a client server. One may argue that you can still install it in your laptop. Sure it can. But then what’s the use of having a standalone version if most of the new features actually are for network.

P5 (and P6) are good centrilised systems and works really good in such environment. But as for planning, the ground reality is that projects are all different to each other and with very litte or no relationship between those projects at all. P3 is the best solution in all such situations. Of course, P3 could have been improved further, but instead they started running a paralllet software as enterprise version. And so far there has not been any sign of convergence of those two.

And as for support - I may not be wrong if I say these days Planning Planet provides more support for P3 thatn Primavera.

Don’t get too excited with P5, P6, P7. P3 is here to stay. 3 to 4 years ago, there are more excited people then, the situation have not changed.

Cheers,

Se

I felt sad and disappointed when i heard a new release called P5 . I learned P3 into exceptional limit but i regret to say that P3 has too many fitfalls as commented in the PMI college of schedulling. ( refer to CPM in construction management by Plothnick). the advantage in using P5 is i would say Time Saving, you dont need to spend much of your time doing ???? as what P3 does... P3 itself will not able to compared in details of any changes in the schedules from baseline to the current . unlike P5 it has incorporated a Claim Digger. Nothing is wrong to remain P3 as user’s as long as you won’t reliased someday you will find the world is behind at you....

i would say that i’ve never learned P3 to the "exceptional limit" as i’ve never been an exceptional person, BUT, i guess the developers of P3 has reach their limit to the extent that there’ll be no more further versions, which means that to stay in business they must create another program so that the users will continue to learn. "life goes on"

Dear Ulysses & Anoon

I am not agreeing with both of YOU. P3 was a great tool for many years and can be great tool for many more coming years if it incorporates the following changes-

1.Convert the software to 32bit.
2.Change the backend database from betrive to other better option.
3.Change the way in which WBS are being made and updated ( can borrow the usability from P5)
4.Change the way in which Resources are being assigned and updated to activities.
5.Close association with Ms Office for better reporting purpose.
Remember that P5 and P3 are for different audience and both were serving to them in last several years nicely. Only Primavera can tells us why they are converging to one. Are they listening????
Garcia- being a follower of PMI for many years, I can assure you that P3 can full all the obligation of PMBOK.
LONG LIVE P3

Regards,
A.S.Shukla.
Shukla@myrealbox.com

Amreshwar,

i cannot remember what i said, you can use P3 as long as you like! i don’t even have a single clue about P5, and i’ve heard that there’ll be P6 coming! i just hope that there will be no P100!

hk! hk! cheers!

I agree with Amreshwar Shukla entirely.

I don’t know either why Primavera decided not to continue P3. I reviewed P3e/c with them in 2003 and told them they had reverted to where they had been 5 years previously, they were not happy. Even the output then was designed to look the same as MS Project output, with the same limitations.

No, they don’t appear to listen.

Basically P3 is a Planner’s tool, and p5 (P3e/c etc) is a Manager’s reporting tool, and we all know where Planner’s sit in the management heirarchy!!

Allan,

I think what you are trying to say is that "planner are becomming obsolete without face in the organizational heirarchy."

It is not really the software that becomes obsolete but the planner that rely so much with P3.

I really did pity the planner without vision to move on the higher heirarchy: Project Manager.

planning using P3 is only one of the many tools use by project managers to drive the project team to achieve project goals.

what you are really trying to say is that irrespective of what software including version of that software, the planners are highly paid project team members that only they know what they are planning for 30,000 +++ activitiies devoid of realities as per site progress.

I been there and i know, unless someone got the balls to make planning relevant of achieving project goals.

Cheers,

Charlie

Charlie

No, you have not interpreted correctly what I am trying to say, and as you cannot spell my name maybe you didn’t read it properly anyway.

Despite the contradiction in your reply, you make a point in saying that ’planning using P3 is only one of the many tools use (sic) by project managers to drive the project team to achieve project goals’.

Surely the point of the programme is to provide a basis for monitoring progress against a baseline produced at a given moment in time, to help the management of the project (including the planner) to adapt to the ever changing circumstances surrounding the project in order to achieve project completion? Using proper planning software rather than PM reporting software surely makes this easier and more efficient.

Always remembering, of course that the planner utilises the software to enhance his/her skills; the ability to use the software doesn’t necessarily make one a planner!

Gentlemen, gentlemen,

The only issue is, if P3 is already obsolete.

From Merriam Webster Dictionary:
Obsolete - no longer in use, old fashioned, extinct, outworn, superseded.

So now tell me, is P3 obsolete?

Cheers,

Se

Absolutely !! I agree with Mr.OBRE statement that keeping oneself idle in using P3 will not only the primavera P3 tool will become obsolete but the planner itself who uses it will also become OBSOLETE very soon... for sure...

Hi guys,

Primavera P5 came into existing in todays modern world ,it is mainly because the software company has lend thier ears from the users feedback...
So the premavira P5 has offer a tons of option to make you more productive in project management by not doing useless things in P3 and consuming your time and effort for nothing.Why not do it in Primavera P5

This posting started when someone had just installed P5 and "EUREKA" he shouts as if he has just discovered the project management solution. The subsequent postings merely show how that was not the case. More you use, more you will know about about its limitations and plus points. Having used P3ec all through Versions 3.5, 4 and 5 for past three years, I appreciate the power of P5. (and also limitations). Interestingly P3 is better in the same area where P5 is week. And despite several suggestions to Primavera about it, they did not implement those in version 4 or version 5 (P5). And in fact they have not implemented those even in recently announced P6 which is web based programme.

When asked about it, Primavera said that they are now working in this area as a priority basis but did not give any time frame.

Anyway the point I want to make is that it is not the software alone that makes you "Up to Date". You or your method can be obsolete if you do not take the full picture into view.

SE

to answer youre question then

Primavera announced in 2010 P3 will no longer supported by Primavera Inc - extended two more years from original plan.

By that time I think P3 as a software product is almost to the end of its life.

If we take the software / hardware product life cycle 13 years is a very long time 1996 first release in MS Window 3.1 to 2010 (Sorry not go back to the DOS P3 version, because I consider that is another product)

P3 is certainly is superseded / replaced by P6 in 2010 and certainly old fashioned. So i think according to your stated defination then P3 is Obsolete. (Because that is OR statment)

Give you an example, DOS a obsoleted product, but still there are people/organisation using it in processing plant.
From Merriam Webster Dictionary:
Obsolete - no longer in use, old fashioned, extinct, outworn, superseded.

Bijaya - give you a bit of history why P3 and P3e ... P5 is so different, P3e is developed by another company (forgot their exact name - in short form its xer that is why the export project name is xer) That company try to develop a project planning tool where P3 is weak @, prior to gaining any major market share Primavera brought their product (not the company) and develop futher and become today’s P5, that is why it cannot produce exactly the same funcation and feel and like as P3.
Cheers

Alex

So if 2010 is any fixed date to go by, let’s hope that by then Primavera incorporate all the functionalities of P3 in its forthcoming versions. It is not there in P6. So let’s hope P7 (whenever it comes) incaptulate all the good old functionalities of P3.

One can appreciate that P3 started as a really powerful tool. And this power has not changed much from its DOS days - a lot of functionalities even in P5 looks the similar as it used to do in DOS days. It is mainly the graphics and reporting that has been added in subsequent releases. UNDO was the main function added in P5 compared to earlier version.

It is convenient to use primavera P5 for some other reasons , it has incorporated Claim Digger..ect...

I am migrating from P6 to P3. How ironic.

P3 is the backbone for planning world in Window version for Primavera users. I am using this since 1997. Once someone is conversant with this, you can not live without it. I love P3. It makes you professional front runner. I am working with P6 too. But the taste I get with P3 is missing elsewhere.

P3 is excellent but is losing some functionality, among others full integration with Outlook 2007. Eventually it might not even work under the upcoming operating systems. I hate to admit P3 is close to becoming obsolete.

P6 and whatever Enterprise Software there is on the market is not the appropriate tool for the average General Contractors or a mere 98% of the industry. As a matter of fact Enterprise Applications has been available for decades for the Aerospace and Oil Industries. Because P6 compared to other Enterprise Software is cheap in all aspects, cost and quality, it might find a place at the Utilities that cannot afford the cost of a good Enterprise Application.

For the few in true need of an Enterprise Application; Integrating SAP with P6, a product that every other month comes with a service pack or an upgrade to solve about 40 bugs at a time does not makes any sense. I wonder how these upgrades affects the database and it’s integration with SAP, maybe it is that integration is a piece of cake.

Hi All

In my opinion P3 was obsolete on the day that NASA stopped using it.

It is a rubbish bit of software - not even an undo feature on progress entry!

One typo and it is set in stone.

Best regards

Mike Testro

For the needs of the average contractor, less tha 100,000 activities per job,
even an Exactus Mini-Add would be better than P6.

Best regards
Rafael

Mike, any idea what they are using now ! (NASA)

mimoune

Mike,

What are you using? Same as NASA? I suppose it is not a neighborhood/regional thing, but something with worldwide acceptance, with representatives to provide onsite assistance anywhere in USA and its territories, South Africa, Japan, the Philippines, anywhere not a regional thing.

By the way how would you label P6?

Best regards,
Rafael

Hi Rafael

The last I heard was that Primaveera was closing its support for P3.

I have to use all sorts of software but my choice is PowerProject by Asta Development - this is the most popular for Contractors in the UK and the most easy to use of the lot.

Regarding P6 - I have it but not had to use it yet - it seems overcomplicated with many features that are rarely used in construction.

Following the PP threads it also seems to be full of bugs and complexities.

You will notice that the P6 Forum has 2199 threads and Powerproject 86 - I think that says it all considering that Powerproject was in place long before P6.

Vladimir will no doubt say that there is no need for a Spider topic because there are never any problems.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Mike,

I ventured into PowerProject site. Seems like superb, a good one to fill the gap when Primavera stopped developing P3.

Among other things in favor of PowerProject is the way it handles Baselines, maybe not as good as P3 but close and better than any other. I also would like to see in detail how it handles multiple activities under the same bar, good for housing and multistory buildings, something I have never seen before, this is a very good one indeed. Buffers are another one I would use in a simplified way, but good to have if you want to use it at full functionality. And what about the Enterprise option that can export licensing to jobsite laptops, seems like Workstation and Enterprise versions are fully compatible.

But what happens with their marketing guys that do not move out of their comfort zone? Don’t let P6 take over, it is now or never.

Cordially,
Rafael

I think this is a case of having a good headstart in the business similar to what Microsoft did when it comes to operating software. Primavera did get a very good headstart with P3, but unfortunately, it is the same headstart that they are now stopping to support in lieu of supposed to be better software than P3.

Now, people are using XP and vista because of their experience with its predecessor operating software. But in the case of P6, it’s not really a cutting edge technology that you could easily tell yourself that I can forego its predecessor P3 because P6 is way better than its predecessor. I’m using P6 now not because I like the product, but because of the doomsday scenario on P3. As what I have been saying in this PP, it would be better for Primavera that they improve P3 rather than sticking with a no better software P6. Of course, this needs technology experts to assess if this is feasible.

My other 2 cents.

PowerProject looks way better than P6, but I (sadly) know that I wouldn’t be able to use it in a real job since everyone else is using Primavera or Project, and it would come with compatibility issues sooner or later.

So, I second Rafael’s opinion regarding PowerProject’s marketing guys. Bring it here, to Mexico!

Best Regards,

Carlos.

Hi Carlos

If you have P3 software and Powerproject on the same computer then you can switch from P3 to Powerproject v10 and back again at any point.

I have also used this to upgrade a switched P3 to P6 - don’t ask me how - it just seemed to happen.

The only problem is that the infinite variety of Powerproject calendars and resources are lost in the transfer back.

You can also transfer between Microsoft Project and PowerProject but why bother - rubbish in rubbish out.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Seems like the UK has it solved with PowerProject, but we don’t, yet.

US automakers did not listened what the world markets were asking until Toyota and Honda took over, now it is too late, the same will happen to Primavera/Oracle, maybe SAP from Germany and PowerProject from the UK will take over.

If PowerProject is a better product, then welcome.

In reply to

Vladimir will no doubt say that there is no need for a Spider topic because there are never any problems.
Best regards
Mike Testro

Mike,
though Spider Project users live in 25 countries most of them don’t speak English. I think that this is the reason why PP admin did not create Spider Project forum.
We have forums on Spider Project in Russian where people discuss how to model complex cases and project management issues. There are very few problems that were discussed and all of them were solved not later than in a week - new versions of Spider Project with improved functionality are published very frequently (at least once in a month). So I don’t agree with the statement that the number of threads correlates with the number of problems.
Exporting data from Spider to other PM software means lost of valuable information like physical quantities of work on activities, resource productivities, cost components, financing and supply simulation, variable resource workloads, etc. Importing is easy.
I suggest you to download Spider Demo and think that you will enjoy its functionality.
Best Regards,
Vladimir

Powerproject 10

Link types, this is my idea!!!, you have no idea how useful this can be.

Control on link display other than on and off, no other has it as they do not have link types or option to control on displaying driving/non-driving relationships, avoids clutter and provides understanding.

These are simple and practical things, why do I need P6 with 2000 field database with no such functionality? P3 upgrade, long overdue, never happened.

Ahgg, ##11xx&##, we are far behind.

Hi Rafael,
you are so enthusiastic about this simple feature. Why?
Yes, it is useful but I never even mentioned it as Spider Project advantage. In Spider Project you can apply any filter on relationships like Driving, Not Driving, FS, FF, SS, SF, Lags more or less something, Lag Calendars, Strict or Not Strict and any combinations.
It is nice but there are other functional features that deserve much more attention.
Best Regards,
Vladimir

Vladimir

At times you want to force some sequence that is not a true dependency but to account for some resource limitation or a sequence you want to control and not allow the software to do so. When things go sour and your job start to fall behind, then you might want to identify these and release them. I know how good you consider resource leveling under Spider Project but I still wonder what will happen to your resource leveling as the schedule is updated, will it keep course or will change course in search for the “optimum”?

What about the clutter you get into the bar chart when all dependencies are shown, in occasions you want to concentrate with driving relationships. Of course we all know driving relationships are dynamic as well as the critical path might be. Any change when compressing the network you will notice immediately and will keep you in focus on the new driving predecessor. Because of the clutter I usually turn off the graphic display and use the tabular display, equivalent but not as intuitive, a combination of both even better.

These are refinements P3 does not have; obviously the most important are covered even under 1970’s outdated software.

P3 is showing its age.

I am not saying Powerproject is perfect, not sure about PERT or PDM views, usefull to communicate and review relationships as long as you dont print out the whole schedule.

Best regards,
Rafael

Rafael,
in Spider Project you can select between finding the optimal levelling solution for shortest possible schedule and "Previous Version Support" when resource levelling is done keeping the order of activities in one of the previous versions of the project schedule.
When resources are limited activities may be delayed not because of logical dependencies but because of resource (supply, financing) restrictions. In this case relationships analysis does not help.
I understand that displaying only driving dependencies is useful but it is only one of many network analysis tools (like displaying only those activities that have no predecessors or successors) that simplifies this analysis but itself does not improve the scheduling capabilities of the software and the quality of the schedule model.

There are many important improvements since 70-s.
And I have nothing against Power Project, I am sure that it is praiseworthy PM software.

Best Regards,
Vladimir

Hi Mike

"The only problem is that the infinite variety of Powerproject calendars and resources are lost in the transfer back"

That’s my point: You can get all excited with improved functionality from PowerProject, then export your schedule to P6 and everyting what looked shiny in PowerProject becomes dull and unreadable in P6. Then, PowerProject becomes the likes of a Ferrari with an engine restricted to 60 mph.

Anyway, the conclussion I reach is: For me to start a scheduling career, maybe the adequate tool to buy is PowerProject.