FAQ & TroubleshootingColour Coding Bars in P6

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DisclaimerInformation contained within this presentation is for education purposes only. How a programme or schedule is built, maintained and managed is the responsibility of the owning organisation. Focus Planning Ltd accepted no responsibility for changes made to programmes or schedules which are altered as a result of reading slides contained within this presentation. The configuration and settings of computer software are the responsibility of the license holders and Focus Planning Ltd accept no liability for the configuration used by the license holder.

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Introduction

Having had the question of how to colour code the bars in a Gantt Chart come up more than a few times, please walk through this guide to see how this can be achieved with a few simple codes.

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First Things FirstDecide how to define your schemeFirst thing to get out the way is what colour you want to assign to what category of activities, so lets say you are completing a schedule for the construction of a house for example. The WBS will already divide into the various elements of the work so colour coding each WBS level may not really benefit the schedule. Now during construction there may be activities with a risk associated with them, now as these could be under any WBS it would be beneficial to have them stand out in the schedule wouldn’t it? So for this guide we will highlight activities with risks that are low, medium and high using the colours below;

Low = YellowMedium = OrangeHigh = Red

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Create the Activity CodesIn order to apply the colours we use filters against codes, so first lets define our activity codes. We already know we will be using three codes called “Low”, “Medium” and “High”, so go ahead and create them in the usual way, as below;

1.Enterprise > Activity Codes > Global > Modify > Add > “Project Risks” > Close 2.Add > Code Value = “Low” > Description = “Low”3.Add > Code Value = “Medium” > Description = “Medium”4.Add > Code Value = “High” > Description = “High”5.Close

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Assign Codes to Relevant ActivitiesNow assign each code as required to your schedule, as below;

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Now the Custom BarsThe next step is to create the colour bars you want to use for each of the codes, again do this in the usual way;

1.Right click the gantt area and select Bars2.Add > Name = “Low” > Timescale = “Current Bar”3.In Bar Style choose the bar size/colour/pattern/etc4.In Bar Settings leave as the default settings5.In Bar Labels leave as the default settings6.Continue these steps and create the bars for Medium and High

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Filters to FinishNow for each bar you will need to use a filter to tell P6 to look for the relevant code, so for the low bar the filter will be;

1.Double click the “Filter” box next to the Low bar2.Click New and enter the below criteria

1. Filter Name = “Low Risk”2. Parameter = “Project Risks”3. Is = “equals”4. Value = “Low”

3.Click Ok then Ok4.Continue the process for the Medium and High bars5.With all done click Apply and Ok

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Updating the Standard BarsNow you have re-coloured some select bars you will notice a critical bar overwrites the colour of your coded bar.

The simple fix to this is to re-format the critical bars just as you chose the style of your custom bars – simply choose a nice high and thin red bar, or a custom bar end style – the choice is yours.

You will also notice critical activities now only format a normally thin line and may not be as noticeable as you may hope.

Another simple fix is to select the standard Remaining Work bar and on the filters untick “Non-Critical” and create a new filter to apply “where Project Risk is equal to BLANK”. On the next slide you will see the results of these steps…

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Ta-Da!

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SummaryThere are obviously many different uses for colour coding the bars in Primavera by code. In particular to highlight specific types of activities to various stakeholders in the project.

If you have any good examples of using these codes/colours or would like to see some other guides – then let me know.