Primavera P6 Tips and Tricks

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Oracle Advisor Webcast

P6 Tips and Tricks Matt Candela Team Lead, Oracle Primavera Support January 21, 2015

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Safe Harbor Statement

The following is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for Oracle’s products remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.

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Objectives

• Top Issues Logged by P6 Customers

• Avoid Reoccuring Issues

• Understand how to Troubleshoot

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Agenda

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P6 Functional Areas

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P6 Release 8 Client Issues

P6 Release 8 Web Issues


• Project privileges

• Import considerations

• Percent complete fields

• Baseline dates, budgeted units, and planned dates

• Longest Path

• Out of sequence activities

P6 Functional Areas

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• Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS) – hierarchy of responsible managers

How Are Project Privileges Applied?

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• Enterprise Project Structure (EPS) – hierarchy for organizing projects


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• An OBS/Responsible Manager is assigned to an EPS


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• Make OBS and EPS Identical

₋ EPS can have multiple top level nodes, OBS can only have one

• Privileges flow down through EPS hierarchy, but not OBS

• Less restrictive access overrides more restrictive

• Changes are processed by background job

₋ Document 907869.1 – “How to Manually Run Background Jobs for a P6 Database”


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• Microsoft Project (MSP)

– To import .mpp files into P6 client, MSP 2003 or earlier must be installed

– MSP 2007 and 2010 (P6 8.2 and later) use XML import, no installation required

• P3 – P3 must be installed with P6 client (not possible on 64-bit OS)

– Converter can be run from PC with P3 installed

– Document 910992.1 - “Unable to Import P3 Project Directly into P6”

Import Considerations

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• Excel ₋ P6 Web import can only add new activities

₋ Fields marked with an asterisk (*) can not be updated via import

Import and Export Considerations

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• Current project is being used as baseline

– Baseline dates are taken from planned dates

• Baseline project is used as baseline – Check Earned Value Calculation setting

How are Baseline Dates Calculated?

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• Planned/budgeted units are spread according to the planned dates

Planned/Budgeted Units and Planned Dates

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• Activity has not started

₋ Equal to the start and finish date

₋ Can be changed manually, but will be set back when scheduling

• Activity has started ₋ No longer updated by scheduler

₋ Can be changed manually and will no longer be set back when scheduling

How are Planned Dates Determined?

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Percent Complete Fields

• Activity percent complete fields • Duration % complete

₋ Planned duration – actual duration / planned duration

• Schedule % complete ₋ Based on data date, baseline start,

and baseline finish

• Physical % complete ₋ Entered manually or uses steps

• Units % complete

₋ Actual units / at complete units

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• Activity % complete – based on physical, duration, or units % complete


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• Activity % complete and physical % complete do not roll up


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How is Longest Path Calculated?

• Criticality based on float • Criticality based on longest path

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• Driving relationships, starts at the end of the project and works backwards

• Ends when activity has positive float (based on successor calendar)

• May not lead back to project start

How is Longest Path Calculated?

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• Activity starts before predecessor

Out of Sequence Activities

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• Retained logic – relationship honored as best possible


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• Progress override – relationship is ignored


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• Actual dates – actual dates override the logic


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• ORACLE_HOME environment variable

• JAVA_HOME environment variable

• HTML files

• Troubleshooting other client issues

P6 R8 Client Issues

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• P6 R8 Professional running Oracle XE database

₋ PRINTER SELECTED IS NOT VALID

₋ There was a problem communicating to the printer...

₋ Page setup hangs/freezes

₋ Event Code: tnpwn-2614-a

₋ Event Code: NESIA-1377-F

₋ The network path was not found error when attempting to export to Excel

₋ AVAAO errors attempting to view/run reports

ORACLE_HOME Environment Variable

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• Document 1381261.1 - “Event Codes, Printing Errors, and Import Issues Using An Oracle XE Database”

• P6 R8 Professional running Oracle XE database


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• Advanced System Properties

• Environment Variables

• ORACLE_HOME System Variable

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• Affects API functionality in P6 R8 Client ₋ Import/export, update baseline, claim digger, etc.

• Event Code: CNFF-3348-2

• The selected application <path>\java.exe cannot be found

• Example – C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6

JAVA_HOME Environment Variable

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• Unable to type the letter ‘s’ or save in header/footer

• Event Code: NSIS-2739-6 accessing Page Setup or Print Preview

• Unable to add text to header/footer

• Event Code: FPDBZ-3853-D modifying notebook topic

• Document 1362694.1 - “Headers & Footers Do Not Allow Typing The Letter ‘S’ or Saving”

₋ Download and register dhtmled.ocx and triedit.dll

HTML Files

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• Event Codes, AVAAO errors, Access Violation errors

• Check “More…” information

• Process of elimination – specific to project, user, layout, workstation, etc.

₋ Document 894279.1 – “How To Delete A User's Application User Preference Settings (Edit, User Preferences) If The Account Has Become Corrupted In Project Management Or Web Access”

₋ Document 1083481.1 – “Check Project Integrity Utility: Description of Utility Including Detailed SQL Statements Executed”

Other P6 Client Issues

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• Java issues

₋ Display issues

₋ Java errors

₋ Java prompts

• Web Access Log

₋ Other errors or problems

P6 R8 Web Issues

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• Display issues Browser hangs, page does not load

Page is blank

Red ‘X’ in upper left corner

• Check version in Java Control Panel

Should match Tested Configurations Document

Java Issues

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• Clear the Java cache ₋ Java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetEx

ception

₋ Java.lang.NullPointerException

₋ Useful after making a change, such as downgrading Java version

Java Issues

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• Disable automatic updates ₋ Prevent new, incompatible version

₋ Avoid prompts

• “Java was blocked because it is out of date...” in Internet Explorer, add P6 as trusted site

Java Issues

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• Java and browser should match – 64-bit or 32-bit ₋ Firefox is 32-bit

• Multiple Java Runtime Environments (JRE) should be uninstalled

₋ Document 898373.1 – “How To Fully Uninstall Java Runtime Environments (JRE) To Prevent Conflicts with Other Versions”

• JAVA_HOME should point to appropriate Java location

• Java must match value specified in P6 Configuration – Document 899568.1 – “How To Hardcode P6 Web Access To Use A Specific Java

Runtime Environment (JRE) Version When Running Applets”

Java Issues

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• Document 1575379.1 - “SRDC – Process to set the Web Access HTML log file logging level”

• Log file locations: ₋ WebLogic on Windows – webaccesshome\WebAccessLogs

₋ WebSphere on Windows – webaccesshome\WebAccessLogs

₋ WebLogic on Linux - :/webaccesshome/WebAccessLogs

₋ WebSphere on Oracle Enterprise Linux- :/mount_point/WebSphere/AppServer/WebAccessLogs

Web Access Log

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• Error attempting to copy and paste project

Web Access Log

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Web Access Log

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Summary

• What we covered today

• Top issues logged by P6 customers

₋ P6 functional areas

₋ Release 8 Client Issues

₋ Release 8 Web issues

• How to troubleshoot

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Top Articles and Community Links

• Document ID 1353831.2 – Information Center: Primavera P6 EPPM and PPM

• Document ID 1292929.1 – Master Note for Primavera P6 Common Application Questions or Issues

• The following thread will have a copy of the presentation and can be used for additional questions or discussions on this topic.” https://community.oracle.com/thread/3650484

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https://support.oracle.com/epmos/faces/DocumentDisplay?_afrLoop=524861960246046&id=1353831.2&_afrWindowMode=0&_adf.ctrl-state=a614owv4u_376

https://support.oracle.com/epmos/faces/DocumentDisplay?_afrLoop=524444115167429&id=1292929.1&_afrWindowMode=0&_adf.ctrl-state=a614owv4u_89


Learn More

• Available References and Resources to Get Proactive

• My Oracle Support Essentials Webcast Series

https://support. oracle.com | Doc ID: 553747.1

• My Oracle Support Blog https://blogs.oracle.com/supportportal/

• Get Proactive in My Oracle Support https://support. oracle.com | Doc ID: 432.1

• Ask the Get Proactive Team [email protected]

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https://support.us.oracle.com/

https://support.oracle.com/epmos/faces/DocumentDisplay?id=553747.1


https://blogs.oracle.com/supportportal/

https://blogs.oracle.com/supportportal/

https://support.us.oracle.com/



mailto:[email protected]




Accessing My Oracle Support Community

1. Via My Oracle Support -> Community Tab

2. Directly – https://communities.oracle.com

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https://community.oracle.com/


Session Related Community Links

• https://community.oracle.com/docs/DOC-894765

• https://community.oracle.com/thread/3650484

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Where Can I Get The Slides From This Session?

1. PDF link from Doc ID 740966.1 (within 48 hours)

2. Primavera - PRIM Community >Content Tab > Documents (within 24 hours)

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Primavera P6 Tips and Tricks