Though not a widely recommended practice, there are times when one might want to de-progress or remove actuals from a Primavera P6 schedule. Some reasons for wanting to return a schedule after weeks or months of progress updates to its state at Project Start are:
- Baseline not being set before applying actuals
- Wrong or no resource assignments applied when baseline was set
- Wrong logic relationships in schedule when baseline was set?
A downside to removing actuals from a schedule is that the “new” schedule will need to be progressed again to the last reporting date. This means all periodic updates carried out on the last schedule have to be repeated with same data as before.
Here’s How to Remove Actuals from a P6 Schedule
This quick tip will show how to remove actuals from a Primavera P6 schedule, returning the project to its planned values at project start in 7 steps. It shouldn’t matter what version of P6 you have. We assume prior knowledge of how to use P6’s Global Change facility. Assuming we have the schedule in figure below from which we want to remove all traces of actuals with the following additional columns visible in the layout aside the usual suspects: Performance % Complete, Original Duration, Actual Duration, Remaining Duration, Actual Labor Units, Actual Nonlabor Units & Actual Total Cost.
All the columns listed above will be used to confirm at the end of the tutorial if we have returned our schedule to its original state at project start.
STEP 1 – Project Calculation Tab Setting
In the Projects view, select the open project and click on the Calculations tab.
In the calculation tab, ensure that the Link Budget and At Completion for not started activities checkbox is ticked and then select the Reset Remaining Duration and Units to Original option button.
This step is required so that when we change the status of all our activities to Not Started, the Remaining Duration for our activities will be changed to same values as Original Duration.
In the next 2 steps, we need to change all Actual Labor Units & Actual Nonlabor Units to 0. One way of doing this is to use the Fill Down facility, but imagine if you have a schedule of thousands of activities, then the use of Fill Down will be tedious. My preferred method is the use of Global Change as this enables one to save and reuse the Global Change in other schedules if required.
STEP 2 – Global Change Actual Labor Units & Cost
Run the Global Change shown in the figure below to change all Actual Labor Units & Actual Labor Cost to 0.
STEP 3 – Global Change Actual Nonlabor Units & Cost
Run the Global Change shown in the figure below to change all Actual Nonlabor Units & Actual Nonlabor Cost to 0.
STEP 4 – Global Change Actual Material Units
Run the Global Change shown in the figure below to change all Actual Material Units to 0.
STEP 5 – Global Change Expense Cost % Complete
Run the Global Change shown in the figure below to change all Actual Expense Cost to 0 by changing Expense Cost % Complete to 0.
STEP 6 – Global Change Activity Status
Run the Global Change shown in the figure below to change Activity Status for all activities to Not Started.
STEP 7 – Schedule as at Planned Start
Run Time Analysis (F9) as at project start by setting the Data Date to Project Planned Start. You can get the Project Planned Start from the Dates tab of the Projects view.
RESULT
Our schedule should now have the following for all activities as shown in figure below:
- Performance % Complete = 0
- Original Duration = Remaining Duration
- Actual Labor Units = 0
- Actual Non-labor Units =0
- Actual Total Cost= 0
The schedule has no actuals and is now ready to readdress the reason for removing all actuals. Use these steps and save the Global Change scripts so you can have the ability to remove actuals at your fingertips.
Your Turn
Have you ever had to remove actuals from a schedule? Why? What approach did you take?
Dear Jerome,
This info is helpful, thanks,
Now, I removed all the progress did my changes and assigned baseline again.
Now i have thousand of activities to progress, can you guide how to progress those activities faster? If i progress those manually it may take weeks.
Regards,
AB
Hi AB,
Unfortunately, I don’t know of a fast way of assigning progress. As mentioned in the blog post, this is the downside of removing actuals from a schedule.
Maybe you should explore the use of SDK and see if it will help speed things up.
=jerome
Export the Progress in excel before removing the actual and then you can import it back after you removed Actual and done with your changes
Jerome, I noticed that you didn’t include Equipment in your Global Change report. Were you assuming that equipment was in the Expense field? Also I have had bad experiences with the budgets not being restored properly by P6 as well as the units/time. This may be different in the latest version of P6 but I’ve always stayed away from reusing ant activity that has been actualized. You also don’t mention unchecking the actuals boxes. How is that accomplished?
Thanks for the input. Jay Bergstrom
Hi Jay,
My understanding is that “Equipment” is of Material Resource Type and Step 4 takes care of this Resource Type.
On Budgeted Units. You’ll notice that my Global Change only affects Actual Units, so your Budgeted Units should the same as you had it before assigning actuals based on your Duration Type definition.
Step 6 unchecks the actual boxes for you, so you do not need to do it manually.
=jerome
Reply
Hi AB,
Unfortunately, I don’t know of a fast way of assigning progress. As mentioned in the blog post, this is the downside of removing actuals from a schedule.
Maybe you should explore the use of SDK and see if it will help speed things up.
=jerome
Hi Jay,
My understanding is that “Equipment” is of Material Resource Type and Step 4 takes care of this Resource Type.
On Budgeted Units. You’ll notice that my Global Change only affects Actual Units, so your Budgeted Units should the same as you had it before assigning actuals based on your Duration Type definition.
Step 6 unchecks the actual boxes for you, so you do not need to do it manually.
=jerome
how to change actual finish start and actual finish dates, back to orgininal
Following the steps outlined in the tutorial should return Actual Start & Actual Finish Dates to the Start & Finish Dates before progress update provided the logic relationships are still the same as they were at Project Start.
Thanks as I have tried doing this before in a different way and it messed my programme up.
AB you can progress all activities by the following,
Reflect actual dates using the logic ( relationships), or with constrains
Remember that every time you change logic you need to do F9 to recalculate but without changing data date
Then once you are sure all dates are correct you can run the progress update to the desire new data date and P6 will progress all activities like if everything happened without deviations ( of course any deviation were already reflected on step one before the progress update)
Hi Jerome,
Your information is very helpful.
I am stuck up in a situation.I have to find the longest path taken by a project schedule which is already completed. All the dates are actual. Can it be solved in some way by using global change by “removing actual dates”?
Thnx
Sonali Nair
Hi Sonali,
Suggest you take a copy of your schedule and try the steps below (I’ll also try these steps myself tonight & see if it works, I’ll do a blog post for it).
– Ensure that the schedule is fully logic linked. I know some people don’t worry about logic links for completed activities, but to achieve what you are after, you need to ensure proper logic are in place and that includes resolving any out of sequence activities
– Run a Global Change to make Original Duration = Actual Duration
– Run a 2nd Global Change to change Activity Status to “Not Started”
– Run a Time Analysis (F9) with data date set at Project Actual Start (remember to set your definition of critical activities to Longest Path in Scheduling Options)
– Run a filter for critical activities and fingers crossed, voila you should have your longest path
=jerome
Hopefully,
HI Mr. JEROME
EVERY THING IS OK BUT WHAT ABOUT THE LOGIC BEING CHANGED BECAUSE OF THE OUT-OF-SEQUENCE ACTIVITIES LEADS TO CHANGE THE RELATIONSHIPS WHEN THE PROGRESS RUNS OUT OF SCHEDULE
how to correct out of sequence activities in a fatser way. Appreciate a feed back
I’ve noticed that if you’ve stored period performance and then try to remove actuals they delta will show for that period. My work-around is to display all used period columns and zero fill-down the last period, store, then repeat for each previous period until I get to the start date. It’s tedious but I’d love to hear if anyone has a better idea.
Very high Values in Actual Cost!!!
In Primavera P6 after partial planning and trying to enter Actual units for cost/time control i found that the resultant Actual Cost very high!!! where could be the problem?…
i would like to remove actual duration to change the activity status from completed to not started, but i havn’t in the second parameter (after “then”).Please advise.
Dear Sir,
I need to know, How to evaluate the progress % complete by using phyiscal perentage complete foe each wbs.
Awaitng your respond.
BR.
Thank you. It was useful.
I did the same as explained & it worked for Procurement & Engineering activities. But the thing is that, it is not working for the Construction activities. The same message “Cannot set status to Not Started if activity has actuals”. is displayed.
Can some help please…..
Asif,
You still have some actual resource units or cost for construction activities. Ensure that you have followed the steps outlined for removing resource or expense actuals.
Kind regards,
=jerome
Thanks alot. It worked & Saved lot of my time.
Very Informative and easy to understand and implement
I followed the method you mentioned point by point, however, I was left with some Activities still ‘Actualised’, they all had Activity Type = ‘Task Dependent’. When I tried to create a new Global Change for Activity Type = ‘Task Dependant’ I couldn’t find ‘Activity Type’ in the list of parameters. Please can you help in this regard. Thanks,
Syed,
Make sure you have picked “Activities” from the “Select Subject Area” dropdown box as activity type is associated with Activities and not Activity Resource Assignment.
=jerome
Thanks for the explanation. I am unable to upload a screenshot here. Just to let you know that, you could easily add in parameters for all type of resources, excluding expenses, under just one global change, saving you time and hassle.
Sir,
I followed the steps but when i commit changes on step number 6, Error were prompted :
” Error(s) occurred while processing the global change. Please review the report before committing the changes”
And when i click OK and click on commit changes, some activities that are completed not replaced by not started. However some items changes to not started. Can anyone help me on how to resolve this issue. I am using p6 r8.3.
Thank you and good day