Primavera P6 Adding Activities and Activity Types

Oracle Primavera P6 Adding Activities and Activity Types

Once you have created your project’s work breakdown structure (WBS) in Oracle Primavera P6, you will insert activities under the specific WBS levels. Activities are the main work elements of a project. A schedule is built by creating activities, inserting activity durations, and linking them with relationships. When all these elements are in place, the next step is to calculate the duration of the schedule by using the critical path method (CPM). Oracle Primavera P6 adding activities and activity types is an important step in scheduling. Therefore this article discusses the activity types and demonstrates how to add activities in Oracle Primavera P6.

Activities in Oracle Primavera P6

Activities represent various items, works, and deliverables within a work schedule.

According to PMBOK, an Activity is “ a distinct, scheduled portion of work performed during the course of a project.”

Activities are the basic work elements of a project. An activity is also known as a task, item, or event.

Activities typically have estimated resources, costs, and durations. However, milestone activities do not have any duration or cost. Sometimes, activities can be divided into a number of logical steps.

Describing the activities is an important step in the project scheduling process. Therefore it requires an expert’s knowledge to make a successful activity definition. A comprehensive activity definition and the corresponding estimates regarding the duration are key to develop a realistic schedule.

How Many Activity Types Are There in Primavera P6 for Building a Project Schedule?

There are six different types of activities in Oracle Primavera P6. Please note that the “Activity Types” topic is a comprehensive topic and it should be analyzed in detail. Below are only brief descriptions of the activity types.

Activity types determine the activity scheduling criteria in various scheduling scenarios.

Let’s review the six different types of activity.

Task Dependent

Task Dependent is used when the work needs to be completed in a determined time period, regardless of the existence of the assigned resource. Task dependent activities are scheduled based on the activity’s calendar, rather than the calendars of the resources.

Resource Dependent

Resource Dependent is used when the work is to be completed depending on the existence of the assigned resource. In other words, resource dependent activity type can be used when the activity duration may be affected by the availability of resources in Primavera P6. Resources are scheduled based on their assigned calendars

Level of Effort

Level of Effort is used for activities such as project management, executive,
clerical work, security guard, etc. activities. Duration of is Level of Effort is determined by its predecessor/ successor activities.

Start Milestone

Start Milestone is a zero duration activity that only has a start date. It is used to mark the beginning of a phase or an important event.

Finish Milestone

Finish Milestone is a zero duration activity that only has a finish date. It is used to mark the completion of a phase or an important event.

WBS Summary

WBS Summary compromises a batch of activities that have a common WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) level. The start date of the WBS Summary is the earliest start date and the finish date is the latest finish date of the activities in the group.

Oracle Primavera P6 Adding Activity Types

In P6, the Activity type can be selected by using the ‘General tab at the bottom details area as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 – Primavera P6 Adding Activities

How to Add Activities in Oracle Primavera P6 ?

Activities can be inserted into a schedule by using a couple of ways from the Activities window. (Figure 2)

1. Click Add from the Command Bar
2. Select Edit | Add from the main drop-down menu
3. Press Insert on the keyboard.
4. Right-click in the activity table and Select Add.

Figure 2 – Primavera P6 Adding Activities

Activity ID settings (increment, prefix, suffix) can be changed by using the Defaults tab in the bottom details area in the “Projects” window. Also Activity Type, Duration Type, Percent Complete Type can be determined as defaults for new activities from this tab.

Summary

There are six types of activities in Oracle Primavera P6 and they can be added to a project schedule by using several ways. Task-dependent activities are scheduled based on the working and non-working days of the activity calendar. Resource Dependent activities are scheduled based on the working and non-working days of the allocated resource’s calendar. The duration of a Level of effort activity is dependent on its predecessor and/or successor activities. Start and finish milestone activities mark the important start or finish dates of the project. They don’t have any duration or cost. A WBS summary activity is used to summarize a WBS level. The start date of a WBS summary is the start date of the activities of the WBS level and the finish date of it is the finish date of the activities of the WBS level.

It is important to understand the activity types and their usage in order to build an effective schedule.

In this article, we discussed six activity types of Oracle Primavera P6 and demonstrated how to add activities. If you want to share your knowledge or experience related to the usage of the activity types, you can do so by using the comments section.

Oracle Primavera P6 Adding Activities and Activity Types

Activities in Oracle Primavera P6