The Gantt chart in Primavera P6 Professional can be used to make relationship assignments and here we show you how to do it. The Gantt chart is at the heart and center of scheduling software. Much scheduling analysis takes place on the Gantt chart. It makes sense then that Primavera P6 Professional has an efficient way to make a relationship assignments directly on the Gantt chart.
This article demonstrates a Primavera P6 Professional quick tip to create relationship assignments on the Gantt chart.
We have in Figure 1 our demonstration project schedule.
Figure 1
This is a pipe inspection and repair project. We have just inserted an activity for the order and delivery of pipe adapters. Now we want to assign this Order & Delivery Adapters relationships. We plan to assign Finish to Start (FS) predecessor and successor relationships.
We begin by hovering the cursor at the finish end of the A1050 – Pipe Inspection activity until it changes from a default pointer to a staggered or jagged arrow symbol, Figure 2.
Figure 2
Left click the mouse key and drag the cursor to the start of A1080 – Order & Delivery Adapters and drop it there when the blue relationship arrow appears, Figure 3.
Figure 3
A tool tip will also tell you the type of relationship you are creating. Read the tool tip to confirm the relationship before releasing the mouse key.
We continue and place the cursor at the finish of A1080 – Order & Delivery Adapters, Figure 4.
Figure 4
Again, when a jagged cursor appears drag and drop to the start of A1090 – Pipe & Adapter Installation, Figure 5.
Figure 5
Again, read the tool tip before releasing the mouse key.
Finally, we recalculate the schedule with the F9 function key. The final schedule is displayed in Figure 6.
Figure 6
Note the predecessor to A1080 – Order & Delivery Adapters is A1050 – Pipe Inspection and the successor is A1090 – Pipe & Adapter Installation.
Only one-to-one individual relationships are feasible when you insert relationships directly on the Gantt chart. Four different relationship types may be created on the Gantt chart including: FS, Finish to Finish (FF), Start to Finish (SF), and Start to Start (SS). These are created as follows:
- FS – Draw from the right edge of the predecessor to left edge of the successor.
- FF – Draw from the right edge of the predecessor to right edge of successor.
- SF – Draw from left edge of the predecessor to right edge of successor.
- SS – Draw from the left edge of predecessor to left edge of predecessor.
Summary
Creating activity relationships directly on the Gantt chart is a handy feature in Primavera P6 Professional. It provides another helpful way to insert individual FS, FF, SF, and SS relationships.
It is also possible to edit relationships on the Gantt chart by hovering the cursor over a relationship line until an upward arrow appears. When the ↑ appears double left click to bring up the edit relationship dialog. In this dialog you can delete the relationship, change the type of relationship, or define a lag.
So some simple relationship assignments and edits are possible directly on the Gantt chart. This keeps the scheduler’s focus on the Gantt chart, which may help efficiency.