Retained Logic Option

Advantages
1. It produces the most realistic schedule if the levels of detailed information are available and
schedule logic were design appropriately. It maintains all predecessor relationship and will not allow the
remaining portion of an in-progress task to resume until its predecessor complete.Fig-1 (Foundation work
begins as the work front available, but it is not allowed to start remaining work until piling work complete on
the remaining piles).
2. Industry standard specification most often required the “Retained Logic” option and considered as
best practice.
3. Owner organization favors “Retained Logic” as this option produce the worst case scenario forecast
completion date which signals early warning that help to expedite Contractors to catch up the plan.
4. It signals the Scheduler to be aware of what is happening on the ground rather than sitting in front
of desk. Therefore, Scheduler has an opportunity to find out why the agreed logic are not being followed.

Disadvantages
1. This can sometimes produce unrealistic schedule when out of sequence progress occurs and result
in inaccurate information and artificially delayed the project. This could mislead to send the wrong message
to the project team that forecast project completion date is far behind the baseline if the
Scheduler isn't aware the changes of critical path activities and/or due to out of sequence activities.
2. As Primavera respect CPM (Critical Path Method) rule that require the correct information and the
appropriate logic to forecast a realistic completion date, it may be difficult to use in the generic activity of
works. It requires lot of experiences and knowledge, the details information of scope and time in order to
design the schedule activity and logical sequences.
3. Scheduler will be busy with fixing logic to reflect the actual sequence in the field or contractor’s
current activity sequence, seeking stakeholders’ agreement and documenting the changes. However, this
could be on the advantage side if the effort spent is worth. For example, correct the logic of the critical and
high risk activities (if they became out of sequence activities) that have been agreed in the estimated
schedule assurance review and schedule risk assessment.

Progress Override Option

Advantages
1. It is advantageous to run what if scenario especially when total float is analysed.
2. It is a quick way to check for Out-of-Sequence activity. The changes made in the field can be
observed. That means if the project end date is shorten significantly when scheduling option is switched to
Progress Override, you may have a lot of work to do. It indicates there is a lot of critical out of sequence
works to be corrected.
 3. It might be advantageous to use this option as it will more accurately reflect actual work done if a
sufficient detailed schedule is being used. However, this may be highly risky as generating perfect logic is
very difficult to achieve in real world.
4. It will be advantageous to use progress override for the Contractor which they can try to present the
Client that project is in good shape by hiding delays.
5. It also acts as a good comparison tools to identity the individual out of sequence activity against the
Retained Logic option. That means you can compare the individual activity that shows as continuity (not
showing non-working duration) while using progress override against the activity which is shown as the split
activity (showing non-working duration) while using Retained Logic. See Fig.1 as above and Fig.2as below.

Disadvantages
1. The expected forecast completion will be more optimistic and hide delays more often as this
method ignores predecessor relationships and allow the progressed activity that can be forecasted to be
completed before its predecessor finish (See Fig.2). It may never be shown up on the critical path or nearly
critical path as there is no relationship linked to identify its criticality. This is risky as this could mislead to
send the wrong message that project could finish earlier than possible completion date if scheduler isn't
aware this is due to out of sequences activities.
2. It is also essential to revisit the logic and correct as necessary if the unrealistic result is shown. For
example; the “Excessive Free Floats” are found or project completion date is shorten significantly. This could
also be on the advantage side if the effort spent in fixing the logic is worth as the changes made in schedule
that project team believes that is achievable and make sense to them.

Tips for beginners

How to change schedule calculation setting to Retained Logic or Progress Override??

Step-1 Go to Tools on the menu bar, click “Schedule” or Press F9.

Step-2 When Schedule window box appear, click Options…

Step-3 Choose the prefer option either Retained Logic or Progress Override.

Why Out of seq

1) How to allocate overall resources and cost?

a) Go to Enterprise > Resource >
Note: When you are at Resource, you will see the filter name “Current Project Resources” If you have already opened a
resource loaded project. See figure below
A blank project resource dictionary only will be displayed if no resource has been added to current project. See below
image.

b) Add New Resource (Note : If the existing resources are not applicable for a specific project or no resource has been assigned
to current project.You can skip this step if the required resources are available in resource dictionary.)

When you try to add new resource, you will get the message like “In order to add resource, the filter will be changed to
display all resources” and you will see all resources for all the projects. New Resource Wizard will be prompted, and follow
the wizard. You will be asked to enter the following,
 Resource ID,
 Resource Name,
 Allocate Resource Type (Labor, Non labor and material),
 Rate (Price/Unit), Default Units/Time and Max Units/Time,
 Contact address if applicable
 Resource roles which describes their skills
 Resource Calendar
 Select “Auto- compute if you want actual units are updated by Primavera or select “Do not auto-compute
actual” if you can update manually for actual man hours spent.
 Timesheets set up and log in
After entering of all data, you will notice that the newly added resources are not in the desired location. Therefore, allocate those
resources according to their resource level. For example, Pipe fitter, Rigger/Signaler, General worker, Fire watches man,
Workshop labor, Painter, etc are allocated under construction department of Petrochemical Projects. See figure below.

2) How to assign resources in activity detail section?

Go to Activities page > Select the activity > Go to Resource tab which is next to Relationships tab > Add Resource which is
located near the bottom of activity detail box > Select required resource and assign it. You may also assign resource details such ;
resource curve, budgeted units and actual units.
 3) How to view and print resource histogram and S curve?

(a) Go to Activities page > Select Resource usage profile, and then you will see “Current Project’s Resources” Column on the left
and histogram and bar chart on the right side of the layout. The individual loading chart, for instance, welder’s resource profile is
shown in the following figure.

Remember that you are not able to view both materials and labor or non labor histogram bar chart at the same time as they do not
have the same unit of measure. You will be able to view material resource curve, both labor and non labor curve , labor or non
labor curve each time individually.
b) You can customize the appearance of bar chart by the Resource Usage Profile Options. Right Clickon the bar chart area to
find Resource Usage Profile Options. You can select “By date” to see interval data (Histogram Chart) and select “Cumulative
(S Curve) to see total manpower unit in the following check box below.
c) The following check box is used when you want to show manpower resource profile instead of man hour unit. P6 will calculate
total men per period (interval) based on working hrs per period (interval) and total man hours per period. For example, total men
per week would be 10 when total man hours for a week are 400 and 40 working hrs per week.
d) And then, select all resources in resource column to view overall man power allocation. To print the bar chart, Go to print
preview > page set up > Options > Select “Profile” and unselect Activity Table, All columns, Grid lines and Gantt chart. Set the
time scale start from “PS-Earliest Project Start” to “PF-Latest Project Finish”. Finally you will see the bar chart as below.
e) According to above bar chart, the weekly interval manpower is shown on the left side and total manpower
allocation is on the right side.

f) One of the reason for viewing resource histogram is to identify overallocated resources against the available
resources. To view any overallocated resources in your project, go to Data tag on "Resource Usage Profile
Options" window, then select Show Limit and Show Overallocation. Any resource unit above the limit line (black
line) is over allocated. Normally, overallocated resource is shown in red bar. see below snapshots.
How to view "Stacked Histogram?
You can also see “Stacked Histogram” for this manpower allocation. Right Click on the bar chart area to find “Stacked
Histogram”. Firstly, click on "Stacked Histogram" tag, and then you can go to "Resource Usage Profile Options" to get screen
shot in step-g. See figure below.
Go to Resource Profile options > Assign Resource Filter/Group Name > Select Total cumulative curve as shown in Figure
below.
Finally, you will get Stacked Histogram as shown in below. The stacked histogram represents the manpower allocation by
individual trade/discipline for a particular period as well as total manpower allocation (total manpower = 200 men, see the
following figure) for all time . It can be printed the same way done on item 3, d.
When Stacked histogram is viewed, one thing to take note is "Overallocated Resource" can't be identified on that
view. Switch back to normal histogram by deselecting "Stacked Histogram" so as to analyse overallocated

resources.

Are you working on multiple projects environment ?

Go to "Open" select all projects that you wish to view resource profile by pressing and holding control key if you are handling
multiple projects.
There are the related posts (1) Tutorial-How to generate S curve/histogram from Primavera, P6 which describes how the progress
(histogram curve/S curve) are produced using P6 export excel data (2) Creating discipline wise manpower histogram using
Primavera P6 export data .