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Annoying time problem.....

9 replies [Last post]
Neal Walsh
User offline. Last seen 3 years 24 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 16 Sep 2007
Posts: 49
Hey all,

Can anyone help me fix this annoying issue?

I’m using P6.1 (at work) and Primavera has somehow given random start and finish times to certain activities. I know there’s probably a reason why its doing it, I’m just not too sure the easiest way of correcting it. I had noticed by enabling 2 decimal places in the durations option that some of the activities didn’t have whole days against them. I have corrected these now but I’m still getting activities with a start time of 08:31 instead of 08:30 and random finish times...anything but 15:30! I have even tried a global change but to no avail. There is no odd lag between activities either.
Im 99% sure it has something to do with FF Logic?? I have P6 v7 at home and don’t seem to get this problem now as the Calendar options have been improved.

Answers on a postcard please!! ;)

Thanks guys ( and gals!)

Walshy

Replies

Neal Walsh
User offline. Last seen 3 years 24 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 16 Sep 2007
Posts: 49
Paul,

That’s great! I look forward to your P7 book when it arrives ;) And funnily enough Windows 7 is released on my b’day on the 22nd, hows that for timing? so i’ll have a great day uninstalling Win 7 RC & reinstalling Win 7 RTM along with P7! ;)

And if you get the chance at some point, get an SSD for the new OS (& main apps) on your new machine...I installed one a few months back after I’d had a new pc built and its well worth the upgrade. Win 7 Bootup in 30 secs! And Primavera runs like a dream too.

Regards

Neil
Paul Harris
User offline. Last seen 1 year 5 days ago. Offline
Joined: 11 Apr 2001
Posts: 618
Neil

As I can not load P6 and P7 on one machine, or P7 and Contractor, I am waiting for Windows 7 to come out at the end of the week and I am getting a new machine with a partitioned disk (so I can load two of the three) and will start the P7 book next month.

Regards

Paul E Harris
Neal Walsh
User offline. Last seen 3 years 24 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 16 Sep 2007
Posts: 49
Hey Paul,

Just saw your reply, thanks very much for the info! Ahh the 1 minute error! ;) And im using 6.1 at work so that figures! Even on certain FF logic where one Activity had the correct finish time, the other was still that 1 minute out, weird! But thanks to your reply I now know im not going mad ha ha

As stated above, I have finally solved the issue, but much appreciate the tip.....Oh, and I have some of your books, they’re fantastic! Keep up the good work, will you be releasing anything for V7? (I have this at home)

Regards,

Walshy
Neal Walsh
User offline. Last seen 3 years 24 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 16 Sep 2007
Posts: 49
BINGO!!!

Solved it....

I was correct, it was down to a dodgy FF relationship. I had an activity with a FF -5 Predecessor which was incorrect. It should have been FS 5 with a ’Late as Possible’ constraint. The Activity needed to be complete 5 days BEFORE the Successor. Whoever programmed this needs to be hanged! lol

Phew! Case Closed ;)

Walshy
Paul Harris
User offline. Last seen 1 year 5 days ago. Offline
Joined: 11 Apr 2001
Posts: 618
I think you may be dealing with the not so well documented "1 minute error", where one minute is added when a finish milestone is followed by a start milestone.

The handy feature was removed in version 6.2.

If you want to be aware of some of the other handy features in P6 there is an article on my web sites titled "Issues and Solutions facing Construction Contractors Implementing Primavera P6".

Paul E Harris
Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia
Planning and Scheduling Training Manual & Book Publishers, Consulting and Training
www.eh.com.au
www.primavera.com.au
Neal Walsh
User offline. Last seen 3 years 24 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 16 Sep 2007
Posts: 49
Shah,

% Complete wasn’t a contributing factor as the Activities hadn’t started....I think I have sorted it now, but I have had to go through every activity, started and non-started, and manually assigned the start time to 08:30.....Ive had to constrain certain activities to achieve this, and to be honest I don’t really want them constraints so I will remove them at some point and re-run the schedule, no doubt the times will revert back to 08:31!! we will see......
I actually inherited the programme from a previous planner, and I guess they didn’t double check the times as they were building the programme. There just doesn’t seem to be a quick fix for this. As I stated earlier though, I’m sure it has something to do with FF relationships.

Thanks anyway

Walshy
Shahzad Sikandar
User offline. Last seen 5 years 41 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 1 Feb 2006
Posts: 67
Groups: None


try this

go to user preferences and show the time.

now in your activities window, see the very first activity after the data date and change its start time to 8.30.

run the schedule and you will see most most of AF dates will end at 5.30.

the reason for this happening is dure to percentage complete input.

as every body put put percentage complete (duration) which enables some activities to not finish exactly at 5.30. because in the background the remaining duration is calculated in hours of the day considering the % complete of the activity.

regards

Shaz
Neal Walsh
User offline. Last seen 3 years 24 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 16 Sep 2007
Posts: 49
Morning Muhammad....

Thanks a lot for the reply and link to this known issue, but it still doesn’t solve my problem. Some of my Activities are NOT in progress and show start and finish times of 08:31 - 08:31 instead of the correct 08:30 - 15:30
It must be another calendar glitch in Primavera, ill give them a call and report back with my findings!

The annoying thing regarding the issue you mentioned, is that this is apparent in ALL versions of Primavera, except of course the wonderful P3! Its all gone downhill since then! Wouldn’t you think a calendar issue like this should have been corrected by now? It’s issues like this which should take priority as they can really affect programme timescales! Come on Oracle, pull your finger out!!!!!

Cheers again

Walshy
muhammad anwar
User offline. Last seen 3 years 37 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 5 Feb 2007
Posts: 46
Groups: TILOS
Neil,

Is your plan in progress??
If yes then this is a know bug with primavera and can be corrected by
prim22720
When you are not displaying time (and the data date is correctly set to the beginning of the day), the first time you check an Actual Finish (AF) for an activity, the AF correctly goes to the end of the day.

If you then change the AF date to another day, the AF is now at the beginning of the day.



Example:

1. Add an activity with a 1 day duration. The activity will correctly show the start and finish to be the same day (finish is at the end of the day):

2. Check the AS and AF.

3. Go to User Preferences, and choose to display time, the AF correctly displays at the end of the day:

3. In User Preferences, choose not to show time.

4. Change the AF date to the next work day. The duration will not appear correctly, it should go to 2 days, but remains at 1 day:


If you then go to User Preferences and show time, the AF has changed to the first minute of the day, rather than the end of the day:

Fix: Workaround:

Uncheck Actual Finish checkbox and then choose the finish date. Then re-check the Actual Finish checkbox.

By un-checking the Actual Finish checkbox, the date is now a remaining date and since remaining finish dates MUST be on the activity calendar, it will be defaulted to the latest valid finish time based on the activity calendar. Then re-checking the Actual Finish check box will set the AF date.


Fix: This known problem in Project Management will be corrected in a future release.