Primavera P6 Professional has a feature called the Progress Line, which allows you to quickly view the status of your project by comparing actual progress with the Baseline. It offers a vertical, visual representation between a selected activity criterion. An example could be, the start or finish dates of current activities in a project against the Project Baseline.
The Progress Line visually shows the status of a project, highlighting the successes so far of a project or if there are issues that need further investigation. When applied to the Gantt chart, activities still in progress on the left of the line are behind schedule and activities to the right of the line are ahead of schedule. Activities which are on the Line are on schedule. Below is a visual representation of the Progress Line in Figure 1.
Figure 1
So, how is a Progress Line applied to a Gantt Chart? Let’s take a closer look at how to do this.
In Figure 2, we have our sample project called ‘Wellmont Substation’, which has been progressed several weeks into our schedule.
Figure 2
We can see by looking at the baseline bars on our Gantt chart and comparing them to the actual bars whether an activity is ahead or behind schedule. We want to apply a line, to better visually inspect every activity and obtain a quick overall view of our project process. To insert a line, we right-click anywhere on the Gantt Chart and from the menu, and then we select ‘Bar Chart options’ as in Figure 3.
Figure 3
We select the ‘Progress Line’ tab and in the ‘Baseline to use for calculating Progress Line’ menu we select Primary Baseline. We highlight ‘Based on difference between current and baseline activity’s’ and select Finish Date. We click OK and our line is overlaid on our Gantt chart, as in Figure 4.
Figure 4
Immediately we can see that several activities to left of the line (W1060 Set Foundation, W1140 Install Fence, and W1160 Lay Stoning activities) are going to finish behind schedule. But more positively, W1090 Erect Steel Structures is ahead of schedule and our final activity W1180 Substantial Completion is on schedule.
Our line has visually highlighted a few areas of concern, but overall our project progress looks good.
Summary
The Progress Line is a simple feature which allows you to visually recognize whether activities are behind, in front or on schedule. By using it you can easily identify activities which may require further investigation. This visual tool is particularly helpful in large projects where schedule discrepancies are not always easy to see.