Do you want to sort your schedule by multiple criteria? The sorting dialog in Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management (EPPM) supports sorting project schedule data by one or more columns.
In Primavera P6 EPPM, you can sort ascending or descending directly on the activity table by the column headers. But, if you want to sort by more than one column, use the sorting dialog. The sorting dialog allows you to sort by multiple columns, and each column can be organized ascending or descending.
This article demonstrates a quick tip to sort project data columns by multiple sort criteria.
We have in Figure 1 our demonstration project.
Figure 1
We want to sort first by the Area column and second by the Planned Duration column. We proceed by selecting the customize view feature, Figure 2.
Figure 2
In the customize view columns dialog, Figure 3, we confirm that Area and Planned Duration are among the selected columns. If not, then we would not have the ability to sort by these variables.
Figure 3
The default in Primavera P6 EPPM is to group by the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), Figure 4.
Figure 4
The sort dialog, however, works best to produce reports when the group by dialog is set to none. So let’s proceed in our demonstration to choose none for the group by feature, Figure 5.
Figure 5
Proceeding we choose the Sorting page, Figure 6.
Figure 6
We want to sort by Area first, Figure 7.
Figure 7
Continuing we left click the gear and choose Add Below from the popup menu, Figure 8.
Figure 8
After sorting by Area, we then choose to sort by Planned Duration, Figure 9.
Figure 9
Great! Now our list of activities is sorted by the Area activity code then each Area code displays the activity Planned Durations in ascending order.
Figure 10
Summary
Invariably, once the schedule activities are defined in the schedule, upper level managers begin requesting reports. The sorting page, in the customize view, supports the reporting of sorted schedule data. You can sort by one column or multiple columns.
Before you can sort by a particular variable, it must be listed in the activity table. You also will want to set the Group By option to none. This way you generate a list of schedule activities without grouping that you can then sort, accordingly.