Primavera P6 was released in August 2007, and an updated v6.1 came out in March 2008. As a result many contractors are considering an upgrade to Primavera P6 and what such an upgrade will entail in terms of lost time, learning curves and so on.

Earlier this year, attendees of AACE International's 52nd Annual Meeting heard from J. Scott Palmer, vice president of engineering at Alta Cascade, about how Primavera P6 differs from P5 and about what to expect when they decide to make the switch. Here we report on Palmer's session.

What Primavera P6 fixed -- and what it missed

As Palmer noted, Primavera P5 is not without its strengths -- it allows multiple users to access and update the same database and project simultaneously, it offers a handy work breakdown structure, or WBS, and it comes with unlimited user-defined fields and unlimited activity and resource codes.

That said, Palmer in his research identified 28 specific issues with P5. Some are performance issues. Others limit a user's ability to import and export documents. A few can be described as quirks.

First, the good news, According to Palmer's research, six of those 28 issues were completely addressed and six more were partially addressed in Primavera P6. These improvements include the following:

• Finish constraints no longer default to 16:59 and start constraints no longer default to 8:01.
• P6 no longer automatically expands previously collapsed categories of the WBS when certain commands are executed, Palmer indicated. In addition, WBS and activity code group and sort bars can now be narrowed, though they cannot be removed completely.
• P6 will now calculate total float on a project-by-project basis and across multiple projects, he said.
• Along those same lines, P6 will now automatically calculate an activity's new forecast end date when its original duration is manually changed.

On the other hand, 12 of those 28 issues were not addressed at all, and in the four remaining cases the wrong issues were addressed. These scenarios include the following:

• Primavera P6 still lacks backup and restore capabilities. P6 does use SQL Server 2005 for this purpose and, while it is an improvement over P5's use of DOS-based SQL commands, it still makes it hard to share data between parties
• Activity code dictionaries, calendars, project codes or resource codes still cannot be imported by Primavera P6. To address, Palmer indicated on his slides, "Use the Excel spreadsheet entitled 'Dictionary60.xls' to bypass the P6 front end, which allows data entry directly to the SQL database via standard spreadsheet input."
• The P6 dictionary, just like the P5 dictionary, lacks key construction terms like "submittal" and "compaction." Moreover, spell check is limited to what's been highlighted by the cursor.
• Regarding performance, the print engine remains slow and real-time refresh remains sporadic.
• Finally, activity lists still get reordered whenever a new activity is added -- and disabling this feature doesn't always work, Palmer said.

What's new in Primavera P6

It should be noted, too, that P6 does come with several new features. These include the following:

• Reflections lets project managers create what-if scenarios and identify differences between the original project and the reflected project. These differences can then be assembled into a report that users can print or export to Microsoft Excel, Palmer noted.
• Feature period bucket planning offers customizable time periods for entering resource data. These mimic the functionality and activity structure of Excel, he said.
• New copy and import options let end users copy project-specific layouts and filters as well as project baselines.
• Web-based schedule management is now available.

Making the leap to Primavera P6

Those new features, combined with the fixes to some of Primavera P5's known issues, could certainly compel a contractor to upgrade from P5 to P6. However, Palmer said there are several considerations associated with such an upgrade.

• As noted, Primavera P6 leaves numerous issues unresolved, and it won't be until P7, or even P8, that all are addressed, he said.
• Users cannot selectively implement P6 on certain projects -- so if you're in the middle of a huge project, you'll have to wait.
• There is no forward or backward compatibility here, meaning that P6 cannot read P5 databases and P5 cannot read P6 databases. The same is true of P6 v6.1-- all databases must be upgraded.
• Finally, remember the learning curve. If it took end users a while to get used to P5, then it might make sense to delay an upgrade to P6, Palmer said.

For those who ultimately opt to make the switch, Primavera offers a page with information about upgrading to Primavera P6 version 6.1. According to Primavera, customers who currently use P4, P5 or P6 are eligible for a free upgrade to v6.1.