A student recently asked if you can only import a portion of P6 schedule into Primavera P6 Professional. It is feasible to export a Primavera P6 Professional schedule to Microsoft Excel, make updates, and then import these updates back into P6.
When Primavera P6 Professional exports to an Excel spreadsheet the scheduler may include a filter to export only those activities meeting a criteria. The outstanding question then becomes is it possible to import only a portion of a schedule into Primavera P6 Professional?
The thinking here is you provide your team member an Excel spreadsheet listing only activities they are responsible for, they provide updates for these activities, and you then import these activity updates back into the master schedule.
In this way your team member can solely view and update deliverables and related activities in their sphere of responsibility. If possible, this may simplify the update process for lengthy schedules that have, perhaps, two thousand or more activities.
This article demonstrates how to export a portion of a Primavera P6 Professional schedule to an Excel spreadsheet, and then import into P6 only this portion of the schedule, and related updates.
Refer to the following link for a blog primer on How To Export & Import Primavera P6 Schedule Status Using Excel.
Import a Portion of P6 Schedule
In Figure 1 below, we have our demonstration project. This is a piping repair and improvement schedule.
Figure 1
We provide updates to this schedule up to and including the demolition piping deliverable, Figure 2.
Figure 2
We want the team member responsible for the Installation Piping System deliverables to provide updates for only these related activities. We therefore create and test a filter to capture all activities under the PIPE REPAIR-44.2 Installation Piping System WBS Element, Figure 3.
Figure 3
After confirming our filter works we disable all filters. We proceed and begin the export procedure. In the Select Template dialog we choose to modify the Standard Template, Figure 4.
Figure 4
Note the columns that are selected, and then select the Filter tab, Figure 5.
Figure 5
Select our tested WBS Code filter and click OK, Figure 6.
Figure 6
Proceed with the export. Figure 7 displays the exported Excel spreadsheet.
Figure 7
We then highlight in yellow the cells that require updates, Figure 8.
Figure 8
Next, we submit this spreadsheet to our responsible team member for their updates. Our primary team member provides their updates to the Installation Piping System deliverables, Figure 9.
Figure 9
Note that the Insulate Piping effort is in progress. It is 60 percent complete and has 2 days remaining duration. Continuing we import this portion, the Installation Piping System activities, into our P6 schedule, Figure 10.
Figure 10
Figure 11 displays the updates.
Figure 11
Now we simply move the data date forward two weeks and recalculate the schedule. The resulting updated schedule is displayed in Figure 12.
Figure 12
The answer to our inquiry is yes, it is possible to import only a portion of the schedule. In our situation the imported spreadsheet only contained activities associated with the Installation Piping System deliverables.
Summary
Many folks tell me they have huge projects, even three thousand activities or more. And these schedules require updates. Ideally we want to provide our responsible team members providing updates solely those activities that are in their sphere of influence.
Well, Primavera P6 can export activities captured in the export template filter. So the scheduler has the options to either export only a portion of the schedule or, perhaps the whole schedule.
If only a portion of the schedule is exported, the responsible team member then only has to view and consider activities related to their deliverables in the update process. The scheduler can then import these deliverable applicable portions back into the master Primavera P6 schedule.
So, Primavera P6 has the ability to both export and import the whole schedule or a portion of a P6 schedule. Our demonstration works equally well exporting the entire schedule to an Excel spreadsheet. There we can strip this spreadsheet down to the pertinent deliverables, and then import the relevant portions of the schedule back into Primavera P6.