Canter CADD Blog

Oracle Primavera P6 is a project, program and portfolio management tool that’s used for planning, managing and executing your project work. It’s designed to handle large and small projects in many diverse industries, such as construction, manufacturing, energy, and IT. It’s been doing so for more than 30 years in projects across the globe.

Primavera P6 can trace its origins to 1983 when it was first established under the name Primavera Systems. In the next 15 years, it rapidly gained popularity. By the late 90s, advancements in server technology drove the company to split Primavera systems into two versions of the software: a desktop application (which is preferred by contractors, suppliers and manufacturing companies) and a web-based enterprise option.

In 2008, Primavera Systems was bought out by Oracle, which then developed the tool into the Primavera software that’s used today.

The modern incarnation, Oracle Primavera P6, sells itself as a project portfolio management tool to increase your efficiency when planning, which reduces the risk of schedule overruns. One way it does this is by providing visibility into the work, so potential bottlenecks can be identified and resolved before they cause delays. It claims to work on projects of all sizes.

Primavera P6 Features

Project timelines: A traditional Gantt chart to schedule tasks on a bar graph

Risk management: Identify, track and resolve risks before they become issues

Information dashboard: A dashboard to track key project metrics

Reporting & analytics: Ability to generate status reports for stakeholders

Calendar & activity views: View project tasks set over a calendar view

Scheduling alerts: Keep the project on track by always knowing what’s due when

Project network view: Project network diagrams allow users to visualize their project schedules by sequencing project activities.

Work breakdown structure: P6 allows users to create a work breakdown structure that lets them group related tasks together and establish a hierarchy.

Critical path method (CPM): Oracle Primavera lets users find the critical path of their projects. The critical path method is an important project scheduling technique that allows project managers to estimate the total duration of a project and determine which project tasks must be completed on time for the project to be delivered on schedule.

Primavera P6 is used for project, program and portfolio management, thanks to its robust project management features. Here’s an overview of how Oracle Primavera works.

Project planning & scheduling: Primavera P6 offers Gantt charts, project tables and network diagrams as its main project planning and scheduling tools. These tools allow users to create scope, schedule and resource baselines.

Project portfolio management: It can manage multiple projects in a program or portfolio at once with the enterprise project structure (EPS) tool.

Resource management: Keep track and reallocate resources as needed by using customizable resource leveling forms.

Risk management: Risk analysis features allow project managers to identify, track and resolve risks before they become issues.

Contract management: Manage multiple projects, and get info from the database fast.

Project Reporting: Report on timelines, resources and costs.

Oracle Primavera P6 is used by project managers who are in charge of delivering a project, program or portfolio of projects. Primavera P6 is mostly used for large-scale construction projects, but it can also be used in other fields such as business and manufacturing.

Any project professional can benefit from P6, such as engineers, schedulers and others who are instrumental in planning, management and reporting on the project. It’s usually recommended that whoever uses the Primavera software takes a training course. The tool is built to help manage complex projects and therefore using it can be complicated as well.