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Baseline Resources - reports

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Thomas Nicholson
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Good afternoon all, 

I've been asked if I can generate a report from P6 to show our current plan resource amount vs our baseline resource amount.

 

i.e. when we baselined a job we had for example 20 tons of steel used, as the project has progressed this has changed a few times and I want to be able to get out of the P6 baseline what our original figure was so we can see how far it has changed in the time between. 

I'm fairly sure that without detaching the baseline and going into it manually the above report can be done.  My line manager is convinced P6 allows this.  

Can someone give us a defintive answer?  if I'm wrong then great can you tell me how to do this, if I'm right and it needs detaching then someone else has some work to do :)

 

thanks

 

Thom

Replies

Thomas Nicholson
User offline. Last seen 20 weeks 11 hours ago. Offline
Joined: 4 Oct 2006
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David,

I figured it's the activity usage sheet, but I still don't have an option to look at material on it, only labour and nonlabour. Also no option at all for baseline views.

Another clue please?

 

thom

David Kelly
User offline. Last seen 1 year 38 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 19 Oct 2004
Posts: 630

Thomas,

 

Its not a resource spreadsheet, but an Activity spreadsheet..... is that the clue you need?

Thomas Nicholson
User offline. Last seen 20 weeks 11 hours ago. Offline
Joined: 4 Oct 2006
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Zoltan,

All our resources are set up as resource type 'material'. that's why i couldn't understand why it greyed out.

Regards,

Thom

Thomas Nicholson
User offline. Last seen 20 weeks 11 hours ago. Offline
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David,

Can i ask how you have got the baseline data on that sheet?  I cannot find a section for baseline data in resources anywhere at all.

Thanks.

David Kelly
User offline. Last seen 1 year 38 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 19 Oct 2004
Posts: 630

Thomas,

 

I have a chart in my P6 which shows steel in units cumulatively from the baseline and the current schedule. 

You cannot show this data in the top half of a P6 activity layout, but there are several ways to show this in a bottom layout. I have NO IDEA how you paste pictures into this STUPID dialogue... I will have one more try.... got it. 

Couple of points. 

Of course they don't want you to put costs into P6, have you any idea how many spreadsheet jockeys that puts out of a job? P6 is a better cost planning tool than it is a planning tool. it is a MUCH BETTER cost planning tool than Excel.

Anything you build in the bottom layout can be pivoted into Excel without pasting. This will keep all of the above spreadsheet jockeys properly employed, multyplying each cell by the cost of a ton of steel.  

 

4458
stuff.jpg

e one more try, may

Zoltan Palffy
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if you did not set up your material resource a s a material type then it wil be greyed out. 

Thomas Nicholson
User offline. Last seen 20 weeks 11 hours ago. Offline
Joined: 4 Oct 2006
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Vladamir,

Normally I'd agree with you but unfortunately the company I work with don't allocate costs to items within P6 they prefer to seperate cost & programme (i know alarm bells all over) so I can't even use any of the cost information to see details either.

It really does look like you can't do it in P6, which is rather annoying.

 

Regards,

 

Thom

David, you wrote:

"This is reason #3 in David's list of why materials should be entered into P6 as "Expenses" not "Material Resources""

But materials have costs and prodject budget shall include material costs. Is it possible to assign costs to Expenses?

It is necessary to get reports on both material amounts and costs. I doubt that this is possible if to enter materials as expenses.

Thomas Nicholson
User offline. Last seen 20 weeks 11 hours ago. Offline
Joined: 4 Oct 2006
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Zoltan,

As always, thank you for the information.  However when I select Units the materials option becomes greyed out.  Is this the way the resource coding has been set up?  If I use the resource version I can see how many units I'm currently planning but not how many we planned for in the baseline.  As we don't store costs in P6 it's about the volume of material used.

 

Cheers

Thom

Zoltan Palffy
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you can still get the infformaton as I described if it is a material resource. 

David Kelly
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The standard activity layouts let you pick columns under the "units" heading for Labour and non-labour resource from the Project and Primary Baseline.

 

However, you mentioned steel. If you coded this as a "Material Resource" - you are out of luck.  If you had coded the material cost as "Expenses" then you have access to Project and Primary baseline expense cost under the "Cost" heading in the column picker.

This is reason #3 in David's list of why materials should be entered into P6 as "Expenses" not "Material Resources"

Zoltan Palffy
User offline. Last seen 4 weeks 21 hours ago. Offline
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view show on bottom activity resource usage

on the right hand silde click Activity Usage Profile options

now under data select units 

now under filter for bars/curves select material

now under show bars/curves select Baseline and either Budgeted, Actual  or Remianing or ALL of them

you can also add a culumative cirve is you want by checking Cumulative

Then select Apply