Primavera P6 Release 8.2 : Progress Line on the Gantt Chart

Primavera P6 Release 8.2: Progress Line on the Gantt Chart

Primavera P6 Release 8.2 provides several tools that enable you to quickly view the status of your project against the baseline plan. Comparing the status of the project against it’s baseline is useful for understanding the success or issues with your project. The Progress Line in the Primavera software application is an excellent tool for viewing variances between selected activity data and the baseline. The Progress Line provides a visual representation between selected activity criteria such as the start or finish dates of activities in the current project versus the baseline project, or the progress of an activity based on its remaining duration or percent complete.

How to use the Progress Line in Primavera P6 R8

Applying a progress line to the Gantt chart enables you to quickly view the progress of activities with regard to their scheduled deadlines. As a variance line, the progress line can represent a variance between the planned (ie. baseline) and actual start or finish dates of an activity. As a progress point line, the progress line shows either the remaining duration of an activity or the percent complete of an activity. When the progress line is displayed, it is simple to quickly view the status of your schedule. If the progress line is drawn to the left of the data date, the activity is behind schedule. If the progress line is drawn on the data date, the activity is on schedule. When the progress line is drawn to the right of the data date, the activity is ahead of schedule.

The Progress Line can be displayed by accessing the View menu and selecting the Progress Line. The calculation for the Progress Line can be identified by accessing “Bar Chart Options” from the Layout Options Bar. The Bar Chart Options dialog box gives you the ability to select the thickness and color of the progress line. The baseline will need to be selected in order to be used as the basis for the calculations.

The Progress Line can be calculated based upon the following options:

1. Difference between current and baseline activity’s start or finish dates: Select the finish date to calculate the progress line based on the variance between the activity finish date in the current project versus the baseline plan. You can also select start date to calculate the line based on the variance between the current project start date versus the baseline plan.
2. Connect Points based upon the activity’s remaining duration or % complete: This option will draw the progress line with respect to the baseline bar. For example, if you select Percent Complete, the progress line will be calculated from the Activity % complete, so if the activity is 25%, the progress line will be drawn 25% of the way along the baseline bar. If you select Remaining Duration, the progress point will be calculated as Baseline Finish minus Remaining Duration.

The Progress Line will be drawn from the Data Date if:

• the activity is a milestone
• the activity does not exist in the baseline
• the activity is completed
• the activity is not started and the baseline start is on or after the Data Date