Automating Baselining in Primavera P5 & P6Wendy Wargnier Kaszycki, PE CCMDr. Daniel Williams

• Background Information• Manual Process• Maintain/Create Baselines• Assigning Project Baselines• Assigning Multiple User Baselines• Conclusions

Introduction

• 11,500 employees in offices worldwide • Established in 1944 with headquarters in Pasadena, CA• Ranked among the top 10 leading firms in the industry

for the last 25 years– ENR #5 in Construction Management– ENR #7 in Project / Program Management – ENR #8 in Design

Background Information – Parsons

Background Information – Aniworld

• Incorporated in 1995 in Pasadena, CA• Now a Division of IT Resources

– 250+ employees across the US– CMM Level 5 certified company– Application Hosting– Custom Software– 24/7 Help Desk Support

• Primavera Premiere Technical Partner• Leader in Integrating Financial Systems with

Primavera

• 2nd Largest School District in the US– ~700,000 students

• $20+ Billion capital improvement program– $12.6 Billion New School Construction– $ 7.7 Billion Modernization & Repair

• New Construction– Over 300 New Schools, Additions, EECs,

and playground expansions in 4 Phases– Add >165,000 new classroom seats– Program Management through Staff Augmentation

with 15 CM Firms with 40+ sub-consultants

Background Information – LAUSD

• Program Schedule– 352 Active Projects w/ 40,000+ activities– Cancelled projects– Management of Projects

• Planning• Monitoring Progress and Changes• Communication

– Analysis of projects • What-Ifs• Evaluate Time Impacts• Forecasting: Acceleration & Recovery Plans

– Historical record– Reporting

• Program Schedulers• Pre-Construction Schedulers• Construction Schedulers• Other User Groups

Manual Arts New PC #2

Photos courtesy of LAUSD

Background Information – Schedule

• Data Dates twice a month– Progress through last day of month– Progress through 15th of month

• Update cycle and validation takes 2 days– Progress entered through data date (DD) by 8 am DD +1– Recalculate at 8 am DD +1; Distribute validations by 10 am– Corrections by noon DD +2; Distribute validations by 2 pm– Final corrections by 10 am DD +3– Validations run

• Baseline/Backup consistency– Create Baselines– Create XER file– Upload schedule data to Data Warehouse

Users were restricted from making changes on last day during validations and backup process

LAUSD Baseline Process

• Manually creating over 350 baselines took 2 people 2 hours each• Assigning user baselines took each user 40 minutes for 85 projects• Consistency of naming convention for baselines • Need to reduce or eliminate time project schedulers were not allowed to make changes to schedule

Reasons to Automate

Central LA Area New HS #9

Manual Process

Manual Process – Maintain Baselines

• Could only open 15 projects at a time• Access individually• Change Baseline name and type• Can have user error/typos and get

inconsistent Baseline Names• Users can make errors by not

selecting Baseline Type

• Took 2 people 2 hours to maintain 360 project baselines

Manual Process – Maintain Baselines (cont.)

• Had to be assigned by User• Can assign Primary, Secondary

and/or Tertiary Baselines• If Primary not assigned,

defaults to <Current> schedule• If users don’t have same

baselines assigned, Reports/Layouts with User Baselines will be different!

Manual Process – Assign User Baselines

• Took a user 40 minutes to assign 85 pre-construction projects

Manual Process – Assign User Baselines

• Only 1 Project Baseline can be assigned for all users

• Assigning performed by Program Schedulers

• Typically our schedule for yearly Strategic Execution Plan (SEP) is the baseline, unless projects are re-defined during the year

Manual Process – Assign User Baselines

Central LA Area New Middle School #1

The Automated Process

• Maintain Baselines– Task performed by Program Schedulers after data date

validations– Projects selected by Program Status and Managing Region

• Assign Project Baselines– Task performed by Program Schedulers – Set after annual Strategic Execution Plan is approved– Revised if Project Redefined or new projects are approved

Automations

• Assign Multiple User Baselines– Task performed by Program Schedulers– Choose users– Select projects by Program Status and Managing Region– Assign 1, 2 or 3 User Baselines

• Assign Single User Baselines– Task performed by Project Schedulers– Select projects by Program Status and Managing Region– Assign 1, 2 or 3 User Baselines for themselves

Automations (cont.)

• View Job Logs– Program or Project Schedulers– Success, Warning or Error– Time Started and Time Ended

• View Details– Detail of Users, Projects– Warning details– Total Project/Baselines Counts– Time elapsed

Automation Logs

Maintain Baselines

Note – Standardized Extension Format

Maintain Baselines (cont.)

Assign Project Baselines

Use Dropdown to Select Standardized Extension

Assign Project Baselines (cont.)

Assign Multiple User Baselines

Assign Multiple User Baselines (cont.)

• Can assign 1, 2 or 3 User Baselines• If User Baselines are not assigned, the baseline that is

currently assigned will not be changed

Assign Multiple User Baselines (cont.)

• Use Dropdown to select Baseline extensions

Assign Multiple User Baselines (cont.)

Assign Single User Baselines

Assign Single User Baselines (cont.)

Assign Single User Baselines (cont.)

• Delete Baseline Automation in Fall 2008• Option 1

– Choose Group of Projects– Choose Baseline extension– Delete all baselines with that extension from selected projects

• Option 2– Choose Single Project– Select 1 or more baseline extensions– Delete all selected baselines from given project

• Standardized baseline extensions are consistent across projects due to automated creation

Delete Baselines

View Job Logs

View Job Log Details

• Long-term relationship with AniWorld• Integrated Expedition 8.5 with In-House financial system• Proven record of success

Central LA Area New MS #3

Automation Coding

• Time-sensitive project– Chose JNBridge for quickest turnaround– P5 uses Java-based API– AniWorld TESS Framework written in C# .NET

• Web interface for simple deployment• Use P5 security for login and integration access

Automation Coding (cont.)

.NET Platform

Communications via Communications via Shared Memory, Shared Memory, TCP/Binary, or TCP/Binary, or

HTTP/SOAPHTTP/SOAP

.NET-Side Proxies

.NET-Side Proxies

.NET-Side Runtime

.NET.NET--Side Side RuntimeRuntime

Java Virtual Machine

Proxy Generation

Tool

Proxy Generation

Tool

C#, C++, VB, etc.C#, C++, VB, etc.C#, C++, VB, etc. Java ClassesJava ClassesJava Classes

Java-Side RuntimeJava-Side Runtime

Run TimeRun Time

Development TimeDevelopment TimeGeneratesGenerates

Java Side.NET Side

Automation Coding with JNBridge(www.jnbridge.com)

Choose the JAR file Add all objects Build the .NET DLL

Automation Coding (cont.)

Automation Coding: Project Summary

• Client needed fast development using P5 API• Core code in .NET• JNBridge provided best value for time/effort• Web interface using P5 built-in security• Project completed within schedule and budget

Conclusions

East Valley Area New MS #1

ACTIVITY WAS NOW

Create Baselines 4 hours <15 minutes

Assign User Baselines 40 minutes (each)

2 minutes (for group)

Single User Baselines 40 minutes < .5 minute

Assign Project Baselines 1 hour 1.5 minutes

Time Savings

• Creating Baselines ~$900 per instance• Assigning User Baselines ~$650 per instance• Assigning Single User Baselines ~$825 per instance• Assigning User Baselines – Read Only group ~$5,990 per

instance• Assigning Project Baselines ~$300 per instance• Reduction in “lock-out” time --- Priceless!

Byrd MS Replacement (EVHS #1A)

Cost Savings

Photos courtesy of LAUSD

Central LA HS #11

Questions?