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Primavera P6 vs. Microsoft Project: It's All About The Enterprise

Primavera P6 was designed for enterprise-level project management from the start, while Microsoft Project started as a desktop application and later added enterprise capabilities. Primavera P6 integrates with other Oracle applications and allows for deeper enterprise integration than Microsoft Project. Some key differences include that Primavera P6 allows unlimited baselines, tracking of project issues and risks, steps feature for sub-activities, tracking of expenses at the activity level, over 200 standard columns, and multiple relationships between activities, while Microsoft Project is limited in these areas. Both tools allow custom fields and multiple project creation, but Primavera P6 provides more advanced multiple project tracking capabilities.

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126 views4 pages

Primavera P6 vs. Microsoft Project: It's All About The Enterprise

Primavera P6 was designed for enterprise-level project management from the start, while Microsoft Project started as a desktop application and later added enterprise capabilities. Primavera P6 integrates with other Oracle applications and allows for deeper enterprise integration than Microsoft Project. Some key differences include that Primavera P6 allows unlimited baselines, tracking of project issues and risks, steps feature for sub-activities, tracking of expenses at the activity level, over 200 standard columns, and multiple relationships between activities, while Microsoft Project is limited in these areas. Both tools allow custom fields and multiple project creation, but Primavera P6 provides more advanced multiple project tracking capabilities.

Uploaded by

sujitmenon
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Primavera P6 Vs.

Microsoft Project
Often folks are asking about the differences between Microsoft Project and Oracle Primavera
P6. While coming up with a definitive list is more than challenging, below highlights some of
the detailed feature differences between Primavera P6 over Microsoft Project.

Its All about the Enterprise

Its clear that Primavera P6 was designed for the enterprise from the start, while Microsoft
Project migrated from a desktop application and added enterprise capabilities with Project
Server. Now that Oracle owns Primavera P6, this gap is accentuated with the introduction of
other heavy weight Oracle applications that support Primavera P6. Examples of these include
Primavera P6 Analytics, Business Intelligence Publisher, Workflow and Primavera Gateway.
These tools allow for integration with other enterprise applications marrying project
information with other corporate data, applications and dashboards. Microsoft has not stood
still either, with additional offerings such as SharePoint and Dynamics.

With all these true enterprise capabilities in mind, below are some of the more detailed
features differences listed by real users. This list is not meant to be exhaustive. It is also
important to note that were not recommending one product over the other.

Multiple User Access

Microsoft Project doesnt allow multiple users to work on a single project at the same time,
Primavera P6 does. In Primavera P6 you can specify what features of Primavera a particular
user is permitted to use. Microsoft Project Server supports many projects at the same time,
but a user locks a project when its in use.

Baselines

In Microsoft Project, 11 baselines can be created for a project. In Primavera P6, unlimited
baselines can be created and as many as four of these baselines can be assigned at any one
time to a schedule.

Progress and Status

Primavera P6 offers a feature called Progress Spotlight. This Progress Spotlight highlights
activity table rows in yellow if they are due any status in the next period (day, week, month,
quarter or year). Microsoft Project requires the development of filters to allow for the
selection of activities requiring status.
Issues & Risk

Microsoft Project lacks a feature for tracking project issues or risks. Primavera P6 can record
issues and risks against a project, WBS element or activity.

Web Support

Primavera P6 plans, documents and other information can be converted to HTML directly
from the software. Microsoft Project doesnt have such options.

Steps

The Steps feature in Primavera P6 allows you to create sub-activities (steps) of an activity;
effectively a to-do list for discrete progressing. Each step has a weighting that can be used to
drive % complete for an activity as the steps are marked off as completed. The additional P6
Step Template allow this feature to be used for common processes that appear often among
projects. This capability is not available in Microsoft Project.

Expenses

In addition to resource costs, Primavera P6 allows planned, remaining and actual project
expenses (training, travel, ODC) to be entered at the activity level. Microsoft Project doesnt
have this capability.

Custom Fields

Both Microsoft Project and Primavera P6 allow you to create custom fields. Microsoft Project
also allows you to define formula for custom fields and add additional values to it. In
Primavera P6 you can create a blank custom field, but you cannot set formulas to it, so users
have to manually enter values in each field, for each column. You can use Activity Codes in
P6 to create a column that has values that can be picked from a list similar to the Lookup
feature in Microsoft Projects custom fields.

Columns

Primavera P6 is has many columns. It comes installed with over 200 columns, each giving
you different information. Column categories include EVM, Budgeting, Costs, etc. In
Microsoft Project, there are only around 40 columns.

Multiple Activity Relationships

In Primavera P6, more than one type of relationship can be established between activities,
e.g. we can have FF and SS between the same two activities. In Microsoft Project only one
relationship can be made between two activities.
External Relationships

In Primavera P6, multiple projects can be opened at one time for editing. This allows for
relationships to be established between activities in different projects when inter-
dependencies exist using identical techniques to assign the relationships. Microsoft Project
uses a special feature called Links Between Projects to achieve inter-project dependency
modeling.

Project Website

Primavera P6 can create a comprehensive website comprising of all the project details
including activities, resources, reports, risks, issues, WBS, and anything else that a user can
define. This website feature is not present in Microsoft Project.

Multiple Project Creation and Tracking

Both Microsoft Project and Primavera P6 allow for multiple projects to be created and
viewed. However, Primavera P6 capabilities extend beyond this to include multiple project
tracking, multiple project or WBS comparisons, cost and units calculations.

Discussions

Primavera P6 has the ability to have threaded discussions with other team members from
within the tool.

Hint Help

To help new and experienced users alike, P6 Professional offers a Hint Help toggle feature
that explains the values and calculations for a column when the cursor is placed on the field.
No equivalent feature exists in Microsoft Project.

Summary

There are many more minor differences between Primavera P6 and Microsoft Project but
above list attempts to highlight seem of the more commonly referred differences between the
two tools. We are well aware of folks that favor one system over the other and Im sure this
list will spark much conversation, debate and disagreement.

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