A lookahead filter in Primavera P6 provides us with the ability to create lookahead reports. Lookahead reports are one of the centerpieces of consistent project reporting and controlling. Lookahead reports filter and highlight upcoming activities in the project. Most common lookahead reports focus on activities scheduled for the upcoming week, next 2 weeks, next 3 weeks, next month and next 3 months. Of course there are other variations and the determining factor will be the type of project being worked. The nice thing about Primavera P6 is that you can build a custom filter that will lookahead any period that suits your needs.
The key to a lookahead report is building a proper lookahead activity Filter. Recall that an activity Filter will show only activities that meet the Filter’s criteria – all activities that don’t meet the criteria will be hidden. Knowing how to program the Filter’s criteria is essential. And in this tutorial we’ll show you how to do it. Here’s how to build a lookahead filter in Primavera P6.
Lookahead Filters in Primavera P6
Tutorial Files
Complete this tutorial by downloading the following files:
Step 1 – Finding Your Footing With Filters
Start by opening a project plan. You can’t build any filters in Primavera unless you have a project open.
Click the Filters icon on the toolbar OR goto Views -> Filters in the menus. Click New to add a new custom filter.
Step 2 – Creating A Custom Filter In P6
Name your filter “1 Month Lookahead Basic”. Now to do the programming part.
Click in the empty field in the “Parameter” column. You should get a dropdown box with a long list of field names. In this list, find the entry “Start” – which is the column that represent activity start dates.
Step 3 – Programming The Filter
Click in the “Is” column and choose “is within range of” from the dropdown list.
Step 4 – Using Primavera’s Built-In Date Variables
When building a filter that uses a range (as in our choice from Step 3), we’ll have to specify an upper value and a lower value for the range in question. Then in the next column “Value” we’ll specify the lower value of the range. Click in the “Value” column – you should see another button become available. If you click it, you’ll see the menu below. The choices in the menu represent some of Primavera ‘s built-in date variables. For example, the variable PS represents the Project’s Start Date that was specified when the project was first created. For our filter, we’ll use the variable DD – the project’s Data Date.
Now click in the “High Value” column. This type we’re going to type in a short formula. Type in “DD+1M”. This formula sets the upper range to “1 month more than our current Data Date”. For example, if our current Data Date is March 3rd, this formula would set the upper range to March 3rd + 1 month which is April 3rd.
NOTE: If you hit Enter after typing in DD+1M, you will likely have a new line added to your screen. Go ahead and delete that line by clicking the “Delete” button on the right.
Step 5 – Viewing The Filtered Results
Click OK to lock in your custom filter. You should notice that your new filter is checked on. Click OK to view your project with the filter on.
The filter should show you a short list of activities scheduled to start in the next month (assuming your Data Date is set to reflect the last status date and you are statusing on a consistent basis). In our sample project, we’re only showing 2 activities planning to get started in the next month.
A lookahead report can be essential for focusing on soon-to-be-starting activities. You could easily print this layout or create a Report from this data to discuss at your weekly project meeting.
Creating a Better Lookahead Filter in Primavera P6
The basic lookahead filter in Primavera P6 you’ve just built works well in ideal situations but it doesn’t quite meet the mark in other cases. For example, it leaves out in-progress activities which you will likely want to be aware of. In the case where activities started earlier than planned, it won’t show you those either. So let’s show you how to build a better lookahead filter.
Step 6 – Make A Copy Of The Basic Lookahead Filter
Go back to the Filters window by clicking the Filter icon on the toolbar. Highlight your “1 Month Lookahead Basic” filter, click the Copy button and then the Paste button. Highlight the new copy and click the “Modify” button.
Step 7 – Tweaking The Primavera Filter To Include In-Progress Activities
Rename the filter to “Better 1 Month Lookahead”. Start reprogramming by changing the paramete in the “Value” column (currently DD). We’ll change this to “PS” instead – the Project Start Date.
Next, click the “Add” button to add a line. Click the Parameter dropdown box and find “Activity Status” in the list. Change the “Is” column to “Is Not Equal To” and set the “Value” column to “Completed”. Click OK.
Place a checkmark next to your new filter to turn it on and uncheck any other filters to turn them off. Click OK to view the project.
As you can see, the new filter includes the original 3 activities due to start in the next month PLUS any activities are that are still in-progress. This new filter is much more complete now and will ensure you report on all planned and in-progress activities in the filtered range.
Wrap-Up
Lookahead filters in Primavera P6 are fundamental to reporting and monitoring your project on an ongoing basis. Create these lookahead filters in your Oracle Primavera database and make them Global so you can share them with your colleagues and start to set a standard for reporting in your organization.
Don’t forget to download the Tutorial Files back at the top of this post. We’ve included a layout your can import that has all 3 Lookahead Filters.
Fantastic tutorials on filters. The way of presentation is superb, vry easy to understand
Thanks for the great feedback Adil!
You have an nice website michael. Good ideas. Can you help me? I only have three options on the filter IS parameter, equals, is not equal to and, is under. How can i get the other lines to appear, especially, “within/not within range”?
Bob
Hi Bob,
Thanks for the feedback.
What shows up in the “IS” dropdown depends on what is in the previous dropdown (parameter). It seems like you may not have a date field set or showing in the parameter dropdown. In the tutorial, we set “Start” (which is the activity start date) in the parameter field. I would check the parameter dropdown to see if a date is set there. Let us know if that helps.
Warmest regards,
Michael
Fantastic 100% tutorials on filters. The way of presentation is superb, vry easy to understand
very helpful tips
thanka alot
Great way of explaining !!
I would like to know how will we send a 3 weeks look ahead report ????I mean how do we create one ????
Thanks in advance !
Regards ,
osman
Osman,
Everything in this tutorial still applies. But where you see “DD+1M” change it to “DD+3w”. There you go!
Michael
Dear Michael,
Here’s my stupe question:
During with parallelly fitter of “status is not equal to Completed”
What is the different between “Start date whthin PS to DD+1M ” and “Start date less than DD+1M ” ?
Thanks a lot.
Regards,
Sun
Sun, it looks like both of those will work. I think you’re suggesting the 2nd one is simplier, to which I agree.
As a beginner in the use of Primavera, I really enjoyed the tutorial. Excellent presentation!
Thank you Michael.
I learn soo many things from your free tutorial
Thank You
Nice tutorial sir.. Could you please emphasize more the use of Custom Date, Custom Month…. How about I want to filter the date I prefer up to 2weeks… How to do it? Thanks and more power
Your Comments : Thanks Michael, I have two questions and appreciate of your response, 1- When i copy and paste a file in project or EPS mode, while opening the file, it seems activity code is missing? 2- Filter windows doesn’t show all data that we need to filter it.
Amir
@Amir – 1) Have you added the Activity Code your layout as a column? Check the “Codes” tab for some activities on the Activities screen – does it exist there?
2) What data is missing that you would like to filter by?
@Santhy
If you use custom dates, then you can specific a specific date range like “Jan 1” for Value and “Jan 14” for High Value. There is no formula when using custom dates in filters in P6. Hope that helps.
Michael
I am new to Primavera and working on a schedule for a project, I have completed assigning resources to the activities, but now I have a problem, the s curve is not accurate , in need to get it in proper shape i need to adjust the units distributed in the activites , but i am not able change the units , so can you help me figure out a way out of this.
@Nikhil
Thanks for reaching out. You can adjust how labor hours are spread out over the duration of each activity. By default, P6 spreads all labor hours linearly over the duration of an activity. If you want to manually set the spreads (which is called bucket planning in P6 documentation), you can do this by using the Resource Usage Spreadsheet (View -> Show on Bottom -> Resource Usage Spreadsheet). Configure the columns to show budgeted or planned labor hours. You can edit the allocations on the spreadsheet on the bottom right of the screen. This will be a topic for a future tutorial.
Hope that helps.
Warmest regards,
Michael
Mr.Micheal, Just to add a piece to your explanation, u can user the attribute “REMAINING EARLY START” to filter out all the activities in progress.
Hope it helps.
Regards,
Naveen Talla
How I can use the filter to see how many projects are in progress under each Stages ?
It’s really good to see it.
How I can get the number of Inprogress projects under each stages ?
Debasish,
This is a bit more complex and I think you are asking to see a list of projects that are currently in-progress and would like to see also what stage they are in. Start on the Projects page and build a filter there. You might filter on a range of Data Dates (DD) – where Data Date is within range of CD-1m (which is current date minus 1 month) to CD+1m (current date + 1 month). Try this to see a list of current progress in progress.
PT
Thank you for sharing.
In the interactive kindly include the final screen shot after applying the filter so that i can confirm (myself) the correctness(…i could still see the WBS summary bars!)
@K Satish – there is a final screenshot in the tutorial and yes, the WBS bars are showing – but the filter will not remove those – only the special “WBS Summary” activities if you project has any. This sample project did not have any “WBS Summary” type activities to begin with.
Warmest regards,
Michael
Good tut Michael. I made by myself another filter for 4W Lookahead that works really efficiently for me:
1) Start is less than or equals to DD+28D
2) Finish is greater than or equals to DD+1D
Kudos to you……. I really love the lesson and i learnt something from there…….. thanks BOSS!
I found this tutorial a helpful one. I am preparing high level programme. Project duration is 4 year. My client is insisting me to give the duration in months. Say for example if give the duration as 2 months for an activity starting on 1/1/2014 it should show finish date 1/3/2013. If successor activity is starting on 5/3/2014 with 3 months duration, it should show finish date as 5/6/2014 irrespective of number of days in the month. Please help me to solve this issue.
You are great, the tutorial was superb, please keep it up
Thank you Femi! Your feedback is much appreciated.
Dear Mr. Michael,
I’d like to thank you so much for your great job, I have one question, since I have some activities has been delayed for more than one month, let say started on June 25th, 2013 but still not close and we update the progress in weekly basis, how we can show this activity in our current moth schedule for Aug.2013. Usually I use filter: start before DD & the activity status not complete; which bring alot of delayed activities from the beginning of project, but I need to show only the on going activities within Aug.2013.
One more thing, can I use the spotlight feature to show the on going activity for specific period.
Thank you for your very informative tutorials. I have a lot a lot from your lesson. I appreciate you.
Dear Mike, can I get a copy of tutorials on the followings Primavera P6 8.2 topics:
1. Spending plan
2. Cost account
3. Top-down budgeting
4. Top-down Estimating
5. Resources Leveling
Thanks so much for the great work you are doing
Thumb-up for you
Dear Sir,
For a 3 week look ahead with data date say 17 OCT, i am using filter parameter as mentioned below.
// Where Start is within range of 10-Oct-13 07-Nov-13
And (Any of the following)
Or Activity Status equals In Progress
Or Activity Status equals Completed
Or Activity Status equals Not Started //
But my filter is not giving an activity which starts on 02-OCT-13 and having duration 30 days. I have tried giving the activity id also, neither it works. Could you please sort out the problem for me please.
@Rahul,
I would try remove all 3 Activity Status lines – essentially you are including all activities with any status, so those lines are not necessary.
Try this:
// Where Start is within range of 10-Oct-13 07-Nov-13
OR
Activity Status equals In Progress //
This says show me the activities that are starting between Oct10 and Nov 7 + include any activities that are in progress.
M
Hi Michael,
Gone through all the post, you have explained really well.However am facing a problem creating filter for activities occuring in a speciific time frame.
The conditions which i want to satisfy are as below
1) Activities which are incomplete
2) Activities occuring in a specific timeframe eg:Between January 14 to March 14
3) It should include activities which have started before Jan 14 and ending after Mar 14 and they pass though the above mentioned timeframe.
What am trying to do is I have got a baseline schedule with baseline resource plan and budget.However in the exisiting baseline i want to see if i change the cost of resources for a specific time frame what will be the impact on the overall project costing
The ideal 3 weeks look ahead is as follow:
Where Remaining early start is within range of DD to DD+3w
The advantage of this filter is:
it will include the activities which will start or in progress during the 3 weeks period
HI,
I am trying to see all the activities coming within a certain time frame say from 11th Aug to 27 Aug. The data date is 31 July so cannnot take DD as reference. If I apply in progress filter it will take activities from 31 july to 11 aug which I dont want. So how to see all the activities whether starting, finishing or in progress during specific dates as mentioned above?
The approach I am using is
All of the following
Start is less than or equal to 27 Aug
Finsh greater than or equal to 11 Aug
Please tell me if that is right and captures everything becuase my programme is very big and I could not verify everything line by line.
Thanks
I am having a problem in p6 ver 6.2 i have created wbs and assigned to all activities. But when i go to group and sort and choose wbs i am not able to uncheck hide if empty as it is displayed in a not editable way. I just cannot check or u check. Also indent is not working. When i select level in the drop down it is not appearing.
please help
regards
victor
Hi,
Plz let me know for three months look ahead schedule whether we should use the baseline for predicting the 3 months look ahead or we should use updated schedule as on date
kindly advice
regards
prashant
Pashant, typically, you would not use the baseline, but rather the updated schedule. Since the updated schedule provides a forecast based on what actually happened, then you’ll want to report on anything that is starting late or early in the lookahead report.
Michael
Dear Sir,
Sorry for the late reply. Thanks for your insight . Your articles & comments always plays a big role in better understanding of Primavera
Regards
Prashant
Many thanks Prashant!
Dear Gentlemen
Please can you help me, I want to create one week lookahead filter.
Thanks!
Dhyaa Jibber
Follow the step above. Replace 3w with 1w.
I truly appreciate the effort, the way of tutorial, specially the interactive one.
i thank you for good work.
Dear Sir,
How to get a 3M look ahead Schedule 1 month before the DATA DATE.
Please help me… I am very new to primavera.
Thank you very much in advance.
Go to the filter, CLICK on add, then rename your filter as LOOK AHEAD 3M FROM DD & LOOK BACK 1M FROM DD.
Click on Add, and select All the Following.
Under the Parameter Add, “Start”, under IS, add “is within range of”, under value add “DD-1M”, under High Value add “DD+3M”
Add another row, under Parameter Add, “Activity Status”, under IS add “is not equal to”, under value add “completed”.
Then click Ok and you have your result.
I hope this help.
Thanks.
If you want the screen shots, you can send me an e-mail
Dear Sir,
Thank you very much for your instant reply.
I would really appreciate if you can send me the screenshots.
Thank you very much again.
Saeed,
My E-MAIL is phemmywuyi07@yahoo.com
Thanks
Dear Sir,
Thank you very much for your help.
My company has won a contract of a shopping mall & I am asked to prepare the master schedule.
Can you help me sending some example program’s with some set of activities.
Thank you in advance.
Regards,
saeed
I’m sorry Sayeed, I have no project schedule that I can share. Most of the time, the schedule belongs to a client, and it’s not usually in their best interest to share a schedule that cost them a lot of time and money to create. However, ask around on LinkedIn and you might get a different response, but ensure you are gracious in asking.
Sayeed,
I think you really need to follw a complete Primavera P6 course/training to be able to prpare a master schedule for a project that big.
Read this an an advise.
Ako
Hi Michael,
I got the same message from Saeed, and I told him the best thing he can do. No Planner will like to release his schedule just like that.
Planning profession is not a day work. To become a Competent or Outstanding Planner, many years must have been spent in the field of planning.
Femi,
You are very correct. I do hope he reads and understands that training is very important.
Regards,
Ako
Michael Lepage,
Your tutorial is great! It helped me a lot. However I was hoping you could help with something else. The client for our project also likes to know what activities were completed within a month of the data date.
I can create a filter that shows all the completed activities but not one that will only show activities that were completed within a month. Do you know how to create this?
Andrew. For this you could create a filter like: where Actual Finish is within range of (DD-1m to DD). This will show all activities that finished in the month before the Data Date. It’s a dynamic filter as well. Try that.
Thank you so much! This is very helpful, am new into project scheduling and I hope to learn more as I progress. Once again, Thank you.
This is a very useful article.
Rolling 5 week schedule
Thanks for the tutorial it is very easy to learn from your screenshots.
1) I would like to know how can we develop 5 weeks rolling schedule?
2) It will be very grateful if you also teach how to develop a manpower report based on activity codes. (meaning I have zonal split in activity code and would like to get a report based on zone)
Thanks in advance
Dear Mr. Michel,
Please help me create a Look Ahead Filter that can also include IN PROGRESS activities, which are planned beyond DD+1M. I mean there are some activities in the schedule which are planned let’s say DD+3M but started earlier.
I hope my question is clear.
Thank you for the tutorial
HI MICHAEL,
I have updated my programme for this week’s progress update, please let me know how i can filter the activities that I have touched or updated within this period only. Thanks a lot
Elgart
That’s a tough one. There’s no easy way that comes to mind. Once you update a bunch of activities and then reschedule, the entire schedule is different. So going back to uncover activities that were updated is difficult. My recommendation here would be to
1) Ensure you make a backup copy of your schedule before you perform an update.
2) Use a tool like Change Inspector to compare the updated schedule to previous version to see the difference. Claim Digger (now called Schedule Comparison) could also work. But I very much like Change Inspector.
Dear i want to know that..i was working with time schedule without updating..project start is 7 nov-17 and now current date is 13-jan -17 ..how i get the 2 week look ahead without keeping DD+2w…any other solution to get the look ahead program from 13 jan 18??
Where Start is within Range of “13-Jan-18” and “26-jan-18”. You could also try to use the current date (CD) (today’s date), which would be:
Where Start is within Range of “CD” and “CD+2w”.
Dear My project start from 6 january-18 and finished in 16May-18, I wana make 3weeks lookahead and now is 10 february-18
the first its necessary for me at which date I update my schedule (my update must be 10 february or no up to DD+3w)
I deeply appreciate your support.
with warm regards,
Well, we recommend you update your project regularly, but how often is up to you. If you update to Feb 10 and move the data date to Feb 10, then your 3 week lookahead will start from Feb 10. If you want to build the lookahead from today’s date, just change DD to CD in the filter equations.