Oracle Primavera P6 Resource Leveling Demo Script Script Team Information Role Name Email Primary Author L. Camille Frost Camille.Frost@oracle.com Contributor Reviewer Geoff Roberts Geoff.Roberts@oracle.com Manager Jeff Wiley Jeff.Wiley@oracle.com Revision Status REVISION STATUS APPROVAL Rev Date Description Originator Reviewed Approved V1.0 9 Sep 2009 Initial Draft L. Camille Frost Geoff Roberts L. Camille Frost PRODUCT(S) Version: Primavera P6 v2 Related Documentation / Scripts Document Name Version Location Prerequisite Material / Training Prerequisite Project Management in Primavera P6 Rel. 6.2 Location http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plqdad/db_pages.getcoursedesc?dc=d57387gc10&p_org_id=1001&lang=us Page 1 of 14
Contents 1. INTRODUCTION / OUTLINE / VALUE PROPOSITION... 3 2. SET UP / DATA REQUIREMENTS... 3 2.1. Demo Project... 3 3. DEMONSTRATION SCRIPT... 5 3.1. Resource Leveling Defined... 5 General... 5 Rules... 5 3.2. Leveling a Single Resource... 6 Leveling Log... 7 3.3. Advanced Leveling Options Defined... 8 Level Resource Dialog Options... 8 Leveling and Float... 9 Leveling Priorities... 9 3.4. Advanced Leveling Demonstration... 10 Activity Leveling Priority Demo... 10 Activity Leveling Priority & Activity ID Demo... 12 4. APPENDIX A: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS... 13 5. APPENDIX B: SUPPORTING SCREEN SHOTS / ADDITIONAL INFORMATION... 14 Page 2 of 14
1. INTRODUCTION / OUTLINE / VALUE PROPOSITION This demonstration script is focused on Resource Leveling in the P6 thick client. Upon completion, you should be able to demonstrate the various approaches to leveling with respect to priorities. You should be able to discuss how P6 addresses conflicts or ties during the leveling process. In addition, you should be able to explain the leveling log and how to use the information to constrain activities to lock in the results of leveling that you want to retain. Much of what is covered in this demo are the topics you need to be prepared to discuss with your customers with respect to leveling but obviously that discussion may vary greatly depending upon the level of your audience. The demo itself can also be very customer dependent and data dependent, thus it is focused more on the most common areas of discussion as opposed to the actual demo. It is also worth noting that most experienced planners and schedulers use the P6 leveling algorithm as a starting point to solving their resource issues. The results are rarely just accepted at face value but rather tweaked accordingly. Having said that, it is considered an invaluable tool to use the results of the computer algorithm as a starting point to making the best decisions for the project(s). The script will include the following in order: Resource leveling defined Leveling a single resource o Leveling o Leveling log o Constraining activities Advanced resource leveling o Activity Leveling Priority o Activity ID 2. SET UP / DATA REQUIREMENTS This demo is based entirely in the P6 thick client as currently, the resource levelling capabilities do not exist in the web client. NOTE: Whatever project(s) you decide to use for this demo script, be certain to Schedule them all before you begin leveling. 2.1. Demo Project Because some of the leveling priorities are difficult to demo without a very controlled set of data, one suggestion would be to create two very small projects with three or four activities each, occurring simultaneously and assigned the same resource. This way, you can change leveling priorities as well as project attributes, level, and show the results. Having said that, you should reserve the more complicated leveling scenarios for the appropriate customers. In many cases, the advanced topics are discussed as opposed to proven through a demo. Page 3 of 14
Should you want to show examples of more complex leveling scenarios, prior to arriving at the customer site, create two simple projects similar to: The scenario you want to create is two projects occurring simultaneously with the same resource(s) required for both. In doing so, you have created a leveling conflict. You can then manipulate the leveling priorities and show how P6 responds. Here there are two projects, with the same resource assigned to each 8 hour task. Since the maximum unit / time for the resource is 8/d, the resource is overallocated. TIP: Create a project and copy it such that they are identical. NOTE: Make sure to schedule both the projects. Refer to the advanced leveling section for how to use this set up to demo the more advanced leveling priorities. Page 4 of 14
3. DEMONSTRATION SCRIPT 3.1. Resource Leveling Defined General Resource Leveling is a process that ensures resource demand does not exceed resource availability. Activities may be delayed if too few resources are available at any time during an activity s duration. Leveling enables you to determine the earliest dates an activity can be scheduled without overallocating resources. In other words, Primavera looks at the resource requirements of each activity in conjunction with each resource s availability. When a resource is assigned to more activities than their maximum allowable units / time, this is referred to as a resource conflict or more commonly, overallocation. The result of leveling in general when resources are over allocated is the activity is delayed and thus projects are delayed (take longer to complete). The resource leveling log will detail this and the schedule can then be adjusted accordingly. Imagine though that your resources are spread across multiple projects. This is where one can demonstrate the options available to customers to appropriately prioritize one project over another for example. Rules Primavera uses rules to determine the order by which activities are leveled: 1. Mandatory Constraints Leaves activities that have a mandatory Start/Finish date on their early dates Network logic may be violated 2. Topological order (relationships) Respects network logic 3. Leveling priority ( tiebreaker ) If two activities can be leveled at the same time, levelling priorities are used to break the tie. Page 5 of 14
3.2. Leveling a Single Resource Let s start with a very simple leveling example using a single project and a single resource. Open the project that you want to level and make sure you are in the Activities view. Click the Resource Usage Profile button and locate a resource that is overallocated (denoted by red in histogram). If you are unable to find a resource that is overallocated, add a resource that is close to overallocated to some additional activities. For this example, we ll use Ken Williams. Click Tools > Level Resources What does it mean for a resource to be overallocated? It means that they are assigned to more hours than their maximum allowable. To show where the Maximum Units / Time for your overallocated resource is click Resources and select the Units & Prices tab. You can see that for Ken Williams, the Max Units / Time is 8/d (8 hours / day). NOTE: The calendar associated with Ken Williams will tell you what type of work week he is assigned (5 day, 6 day for example). For this first example, we will level only within this project and only this resource that is overallocated. Check Preserve scheduled early and late dates, click Select Resource and check the box next to your overallocated resource. Check Log to File and make certain the file location etc. exists. Click Level. In this case, you can see that the leveling pushed some of the activities out and as a result, this particular resource is not as overallocated. Page 6 of 14
NOTE: If you are not seeing similar behavior, it is most likely because there are some mandatory Start / Finish dates within the project you chose that cannot be violated. In this example, there is one task to which Ken Williams is assigned that has mandatory dates and thus he is still overallocated for one of these weeks. Another (and perhaps more informative) way of looking at the results of the leveling is in a spread sheet type form. Click on Resource Usage Spreadsheet. You can now see, in this example, that Ken Williams is now only scheduled for 40 hours / week. Return to the histogram (Resource Usage Profile) view. Click on Schedule and you will see the histogram return to its original state. In order to lock in some or all of the results of the leveling, you will have to use Constraints. The best way to determine what has changed and decide what to constrain is through the Leveling Log. NOTE: In reality, the Global Change feature in P6 would be used to set these dates in the current plan as opposed to activity by activity. Leveling Log Level the project again making sure to log the results. Click Tools > Level Resources and click View Log. Close to the end of the report, look for Activities delayed due to predecessor delay and Activities delayed due to resource leveling. Page 7 of 14
If we want the results of the leveling to hold, we will need to lock in the new dates (constrain the activities). In this case, Locate the activities delayed due to resource leveling. In this case, locate Activity 239 and go to the activity details. Select the status tab and put in the Primary Constraint, Start On or After. Do the same for Activity 241. Schedule the project again and if you have properly constrained the activities that were delayed, you should not see any change from the leveling results. NOTE: Primary and Secondary date restrictions can also be set from the P6 web client. NOTE: If you want to prove that these activities should now not be affected by the leveling, level again and you will not see them listed in the log as delayed activities as they were before. 3.3. Advanced Leveling Options Defined In this next section, we will discuss at a high level more advanced leveling techniques. Understand that you need to pick and choose according to the level and needs of your customer. Level Resource Dialog Options Click on Tools > Level Resources to bring up the leveling dialog. Automatically level resources when scheduling: As is obvious, leveling will occur each time a project is scheduled. Consider assignments in other projects with priority equal/higher than: Primavera will reduce the resource s availability by the amount of work in any of the other projects with a leveling priority equal to or higher than the value specified in the field before allocating the resource to the open project. Preserve schedule early and late dates: If marked, the project s current early and late dates are retained. If unmarked, the current scheduled early and late dates are overwritten by the leveled dates. Recalculate assignment costs after leveling: Leveling may change an activity s dates. The leveled dates may push the resource assignment into a different Effective Date, which could change the price/unit. If checked, P6 will recalculate the costs based on the new price/unit, which is based on the Effective Date of the resource assignment and the new leveled dates. Page 8 of 14
NOTE: The setting to Automatically level resources when scheduling is not a preferred option but rather included due to its presence within Microsoft Project. To view the rates and Effective Dates of a resource, click on Resources, locate the resource and click on the Units & Prices tab. You can see in this example for Ken Williams that he has two different rates with different Effective Dates. If an activity to which he is assigned is scheduled for 2 July 2009 and due to leveling, gets pushed to 6 Aug 2009, costs would be recalculated to the new rate if this last option is selected. Leveling and Float Leveling Priorities Preserve minimum float when leveling: Mark to delay activities with resource conflicts up to their late finish dates. Limit the float and percent overallocation as required. Next, we will focus on probably the most complicated portion of P6 resource leveling: Leveling Priorities. Two activities are ready for leveling, Primavera chooses one using the priorities you specify in the Leveling Priorities section. If you do not specify a prioritization, Primavera sorts by Activity ID. Click Add and then click in the Field Name column to see the list of priorities from which you can pick. Once selected, you would then specify Ascending or Descending. Some of those more commonly used are: Activity ID Ascending levels activities with lower IDs first. Descending levels activities with higher IDs first. Activity Leveling Priority Ascending levels lower priority activities first Descending levels higher priority activities first Page 9 of 14
TIP: If the Activity Leveling Priority column (or any other) is not showing and you wish to view / show it to your customer, right-click in the layout and select Columns. Move the appropriate columns to the Selected Columns side of the dialog. Early Finish Ascending levels activities with earlier, Early Finish dates first Descending levels activities with later, Early Finish dates first Early Start Ascending levels with earlier, Early Start dates first Descending levels with later, Early Start dates first There are many more priorities from which to choose. Activity Codes, for example, are one of the more common. Please consult a P6 User s Guide for descriptions of the remainder. NOTE: The ultimate tie-breaker is internally set to Task_ID. This is not a field you can view in Primavera. It is an internal database field that assigns numbers to activities based upon the order in which they were entered into the database. 3.4. Advanced Leveling Demonstration Refer to the script set up section for the projects / data that will be referenced in this section. Activity Leveling Priority Demo In this first scenario, note that DP1-Activity 1 and DP2-Activity 1 are scheduled for the same day with the same resource (LCF.Camille Frost) Change the Activity Leveling Priority of DP1- Activity 1 to 1-Top. Click on Tools > Level Resources: Configure as shown. Focus on adding Activity Leveling Priority / Ascending to the Leveling priorities. Click Level. Page 10 of 14
Review the before and after leveling with your customer. 1) Gant Chart Before: Projects start and end at same time. Resource is overallocated. After: Project 1 completes and then Project 2 starts. 2) Histogram Before: Resource overallocated. After: Resource leveled. 3) Spreadsheet Click Tools > Level Resources and click View Log to see the Leveling Log: DP2-Activity 1 was delayed because it had a lower Activity Leveling Priority than DP1-Activity 1. Page 11 of 14
Schedule the projects to return them to their unleveled state. Activity Leveling Priority & Activity ID Demo In this next scenario, change the Activity Leveling Priority of DP2- Activity 1 to 1-Top. Add a new Leveling priority: Activity ID / Ascending. Level the Projects. View the results in the Gant chart and the Log: Because DP2-Activity 1 had a higher Activity Leveling Priority, it won the tie against DP1-Activity 1. At that point, Primavera used the Activity ID and of course those starting with DP-1 got priority. You should experiment with the various leveling priorities and other leveling options discussed in this script and with dummy / easy to manipulate type data such that you are comfortable with the various outcomes prior to the customer demo. NOTE: A few notes upon conclusion: You might want to explain the importance of a Baselined project prior to leveling or any significant changes such that if results are not as expected etc. you can return to the original project easily. Page 12 of 14
4. APPENDIX A: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Question How is the performance of the P6 Resource Leveling with respect to very large projects. Response It is important to note that because the process is still managed at the desktop and not at the server, it can be time consuming for significantly large projects. Page 13 of 14
5. APPENDIX B: SUPPORTING SCREEN SHOTS / ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Page 14 of 14