The Resource Profile Curve or more commonly known as S-Curve effectively presents the project workload distribution in terms of labor units or cost of a baseline schedule. During program updates, the S-curve reflects the project performance by means of the actual curve and actual periodic bars.
Most often, the Progress Profile Curve is a basic requirement to be included in baseline schedule proposal and progress reports.
After loading resources or cost to your work program, P6 will provide you with the ‘Resource Profile Curve. During schedule updates, the P6 chart will reflect the cumulative curve and periodic bars for actuals.
But, where are the percentages and the data labels?
Well, P6 will not provide you with a tabulated percentage, though it can separately generate a printable Activity Usage Spreadsheet. Still, it looks crude if you have the chart on one hand and the chart data on the other.
What if you can extract the P6 raw data and turn it into a chart full of options.
For this purpose, I have created a VBA spreadsheet program that can process the copied P6 data, tabulate the percentage, value or cost, and from the tabulated data, automatically generate a chart will all the information you need.
It even provides a contiguous actual and forecast cumulative curve.
P6, present the cumulative forecast curve as represented by the remaining units or cost, starting from the intersection of the data date line and x-axis or simply from the zero value, most planners I know think otherwise, It should start from the last data point of the actual cumulative line extending to the estimated project finish.
I don’t judge who is wrong and who is right, but I prefer the later.
For those interested planners regarding the VBA spreadsheet, kindly reply to this topic, provide comments and at the same time email me at vicmalou@yahoo.com [1] if you want a copy of the excel file.
If you have some more time to spare, you can read my other post ‘Bridging The Gap – Planning Practical Solutions posted last March 9, 2017.