I recently received an email query from one of my colleagues to explain a particular business problem regarding activity updates in Primavera P6. Read on…

Let me know the best way of approach to update the activities with following requirement.

1. Activity to be updated as per units completed. Nothing else to be updated

For ex: I have an activity named ABC of 10 day duration of 100 units.
Now I want to update the actual units completed=50units on the 6th day of my activity. (Actual duration = 6 days for completion of 50units).
Is there any possibility that the finish dates will move accordingly. Will the total duration be updated to 12 days, as 6days were taken to complete 50units of the work (activity % complete=50%).

My response was as follows:

We have different activity types “Task Dependent” and Resource Dependent” which can be used for any activity based on our reporting convenience.

In your case lets first lets analyze Task Dependent activity.

What does this do when FIXED Duration and Units is used?

If out of 100, 50 units are completed as on 6th day then in Task Dependent you have to manually update saying how much is Remaining duration. And if you do so Primavera can tell that you have to work in a rate of 12 hr/dy to complete remaining 50 units.

If its Fixed Duration and Units/TIME then system reports that in remaining 4 days you can only do 40 units(taking 10hr/day) and this will fill in At completion Units.

If the task is Resource Dependent – what happens?

If out of 100 units if you  have compeleted 50 units then system will update remaining duration as 5 days (applying data date on 6th day).

Primavera says that based on units you have progressed and you need these extra days to work at fixed output period to complete the task.

Note: Always remember in any activity type , you cannot expect “Original Duration ” to be altered. Only the Remaining or At completion which will be changed.

Also if you use “Task Dependent”  Remaining Duration will never be changed whatever logic you apply. If you use “Resource Dependent”, however, yes it changes your RD based on actual units.

If you have comments or can elaborate more on this, please send me an email or post it to the blog to continue this discussion forward.