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Primavera are at it again - MSP import to P6

9 replies [Last post]
Tue, 2008-07-01 19:34
Andrew Dick
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Groups: Regional Representatives, The GrapeVine
Does anyone have a converter to create an MPX file?

I obviously need to create an MPX to import to P6 and as I run MSP2003 I can no longer create the format.

I logged a request with POINT and as usual they were their helpful selves.

Help!

Andy
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Replies

Wed, 2008-07-09 12:24
#1
Tara Stewart
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Joined: 9 Jul 2008
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Groups: Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas
I located step by step directions from another scheduling website forum. I have to admit....I haven’t tried it yet.



What you need:

2003 or earlier version of MS Project. P5/6 installed on the same machine.
2007 version of MS Project on another machine.
The mpp to mpx conversion utility - for p3 3.1 users.

The way that I have found most compatible is to save the 2007 version as a 2003 version file. Copy this file to the 2003 MS Project computer and then follow either of these paths. Go ahead and use the MPP to MPX conversion utility that Primavera supplies on their website. It is a standalone program. Then open that MPX file in 2003. Save as a 2003 MPP file. Go into P6 and go to import and then import the file. Then sort by WBS Structure.

Another way. Convert the MPP file to MPX File. Import this file into P3 3.0. Then utilizing the excel import/export wizard, import a WBS dictionary. The dictionary is actually all your summary activities in MPP file. You can sort through them or just import the whole darn thing.

Import this file into the dictionary.

Sort then by WBS and you should have success.

I found that the P6 has a pretty nice import as in the summary activity becomes a WBS activity (as it has the main tier WBS Code) and all subteir activities are regular activities. The WBS dictionary has the WBS names as the MS Project activities had.

Couple of things. Convert all the stupid weeks into days in the MS Project file. This is easily accomplished using cut and paste from excel. Be careful of the lags that are in weeks. In P3 3.0 it tends to not like this. P6 is better and making the conversion for you, but not perfectly.

The schedule should convert flawlessly with ties, structure and all.
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Thu, 2008-07-03 09:13
#2
Arthur Godbeer
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It is a Microsoft licensing requirement that you have a licence of MS-P for native .MPP to be an option. That is not Primavera’s decision. As far as I know it can be an earlier version of MS-P than 2003, even I think back to 95.
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Wed, 2008-07-02 03:58
#3
Colin Blair
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Joined: 22 Apr 2004
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Hi Andrew

Some time ago on the P3 customer support website, they had a mpptompx.exe convertor - which I down-loaded

see
http://support.primavera.com/supnews.nsf/0/05face2ef98348e085256cdb00518...

I searched on google and found this-
http://www.projectstatus.com/pub/

(I haven’t tested this download)

Colin
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Wed, 2008-07-02 03:16
#4
Yusuke Kamui
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Andrew,
I have another PC running P6 now and from the Export menu of P6, there is MPP format available.
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Tue, 2008-07-01 23:33
#5
Santosh Bhat
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If you have MSP2003 installed on the PC with the P6 client installed on it, the the Import from MPP option becomes available.

If you don’t have MSP2003 installed on the machine, then you can only import from MPX. MSP2007 wont work with P6 at this stage.
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Tue, 2008-07-01 22:54
#6
PINAN T.
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try here http://www.projectstatus.com/pub/
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Tue, 2008-07-01 22:40
#7
Andrew Dick
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Joined: 14 Feb 2007
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Groups: Regional Representatives, The GrapeVine
Transcript from POINT


Description
Conversion of MPP to MPX to allow import to P6

Available Worknotes

**** Entered By: OCPCust @ 2008-07-01 06:00 ****

Search Stmts: 1. mpp to mpx converter
Solutions viewed:

Please provide me with the knowledge to enable me to convert an MPP file to an MPX file so that I can importit into P6.

It all worked fine in P5 but now I need to use MPX and my 2003 MSP does not allow me to save a file as MPX.

Thanks
Andrew




**** Entered By: OCPCust @ 2008-07-01 06:12 ****

Here is the screen dump from Project;

Microsoft Project Exchange (MPX)

An ASCII (ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Interchange.) format used with project management and various other programs that support MPX 4.0. This format uses the .mpx extension. Microsoft Project 4.0, Microsoft Project 4.1, and Microsoft Project 98 use the MPX 4.0 file format. In Microsoft Project 2000 (and later versions), you can no longer save project information to this file format, but you will be able to import field data from this format.

So brainiacs - how do we create the MPX format if Bill Gates wont let us.




**** Entered By: BETH @ 2008-07-01 13:56 ****

Andrew,

Thank you for contacting Primavera Customer Support.

We do not have a converter for Project Management that will convert from mpp to mpx.

I am not clear when you say ’It all worked fine in P5 ’?

It is correct that the last version of MSP that allowed saving to mpx was MSP98.

Can you help me understand the business case for needing an mpx file and I will see if we can find a workaround for you.

Sincerely,
Beth Hayes
Primavera Customer Support




**** Entered By: OCPCust @ 2008-07-01 19:31 ****

Are you serious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did you even read my request????????????????????

P6 ONLY allows MPX import......

I don’t have the ability anymore to create this type of file.............

SO therefore I need to have a converter to convert the MPP to MPX.

As it was your idea to take away the functionality from P5 that allowed the import of MPP, MPX, and any other MP type os file I would have thought that Primavera as a corporate citizen would have also issued a conversion .exe to support the decisions that have been made which restrict the end user from using the import feature.

Honestly - do you guys even know what the tool does???????????????????????????

Just another post for planning planet I guess......
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Tue, 2008-07-01 22:39
#8
Andrew Dick
User offline. Last seen 8 years 15 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 14 Feb 2007
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Groups: Regional Representatives, The GrapeVine
Yusuke,
Have you used P6?

If you have you would realise that Primavera in their infinite lack of wisdom have changed the types of MSP files you can import.
You can now only import MPX files.

This is very interesting indeed as Bill Gates in his infinite quest to own the world has dropped the ability for MSP to save MPX files in versions later than MSP98.

P5 allowed import of any MSP file type and this was all OK.

Now I shall post in a subsequent post the POINT converstaions I have had with Primavera discussing this topic over the last 36 hours.

As you may be able to read they obviously have no idea that there is a problem and it also seems they don’t have a workaround.

I do wonder however what the import files may be for the MSP imports in Version P6.1, maybe they have fixed it along with some of the other fundamental faults that existed in P6.
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Tue, 2008-07-01 19:44
#9
Yusuke Kamui
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Hi Andrew,
Why you need MPX to import to P6? P6 can import the native format of MSProj which is MPP. I’m using P5 and MSProj2003 and for sure P6 can also import MPP.

Just a thought.
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