Some Primavera P6 users find that they have to update activity ID names partway through the schedule planning and/or execution process. If this is your situation, you will want Primavera P6 to renumber the schedule and renumber baselines.
Choosing an appropriate activity ID nomenclature is important for schedule clarity. Good scheduling practice encourages development of a smart numbering convention where each activity ID character tells something about the project and/or associated activity.
Consider activity ID characters to describe location, work phase, and/or responsibility. Finding the right activity ID nomenclature may take a few iterations. It is therefore highly likely that the scheduler will renumber the activity IDs during the course of planning and/or executing the schedule.
It is preferable in this scenario to renumber the associated baselines to match the updated schedule. Fortunately Primavera P6 Professional’s renumber feature has a setting to simultaneous renumber baselines.
This article demonstrates a Primavera P6 Professional quick tip to include baselines in the activity ID renumbering regime.
You may want to read the article Renumbering Activity IDs in Primavera P6 Professional for a more introductory demonstration on renumbering activity IDs in Primavera P6 Professional.
We have in Figure 1 our demonstration project schedule.
Figure 1
This schedule is for the modelling and experimental validation of a motor analytical model. Note that the schedule has one weeks’ progress. Further, as displayed in Figure 1, our activity ID nomenclature includes the prefix character A followed by an incremented numeral suffix.
We want our activity ID prefix be more descriptive of our actual project. Proceeding we change the activity ID prefix to Motor Model Validation (MMV) to generate activity IDs that provide more insight to the purpose of the project.
In Figure 2 we simply confirm that our MMV schedule has two baselines.
Figure 2
In Figure 3 we highlight all activities, right click, and choose renumber activity IDs from the popup menu.
Figure 3
In Figure 4 renumber activity IDs dialog we toggle to replace the first activity ID character with MMV.
Figure 4
Additionally, we toggle to renumber selected activities in baselines, again, Figure 4.
Figure 5 displays our schedule and the more descriptive activity ID MMV prefix.
Figure 5
Let’s confirm that the baselines were included in the activity ID renumbering. In Figure 6 we select the ‘Motor Stator Component Model – B2’ baseline and click restore to unlink it from the Motor Model-7 schedule.
Figure 6
In Figure 7 we see the restored ‘Motor Model-7 – B2’ project.
Figure 7
In Figure 8 we choose the ‘Motor Model-7 – B2’ project and open it.
Figure 8
Figure 9 displays the restored baseline as a project. Note the activity IDs’ prefix MMV.
Figure 9
Summary
Primavera P6 Professional supports smart activity IDs, which makes it likely the scheduler will want to update the activity IDs during the course of the project. The renumber activity IDs feature updates both the current schedule and baseline. In this way the scheduler can apply the most up to date and suitable activity IDs to the schedule and associated baselines.