A relatively new feature was added in Primavera P6 Professional release 19. A User Defined Field (UDF) tab was added for the bottom Details tabs.
What are UDFs?
Often times project managers need additional column headings that are not the standard columns included in Primavera. P6 Administrators or P6 Users with the proper security access are able to create custom columns headings called User Defined Fields in the Enterprise section of the Menu Bar.
Custom User Defined Fields are created by P6 Users to enhance their reports and analysis of their Primavera projects. UDFs are available for Activities, Activity Resource Assignments, Activity Steps, Issues, Project Expenses, Projects, Resources, Risks, WBS and Work Products and Documents. The Data Type selection for the UDFs are: Cost, Finish Date, Indicator, Integer, Number, Start Date, or Text as shown in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1: Primavera P6 – User Defined Fields
Normally, a UDF can only be assigned by adding it as a column. In the Columns dialog box, the User Defined category can be expanded to show all of the UDFs available. Figure 2 shows selecting “A Test UDF” to show as a column in the Activities Window. The Data Type of “A Test UDF” is “Text”, so you can type directly in the column. In versions of Primavera P6 earlier than release 19, columns were the only way to assign UDFs.
Figure 2: Primavera P6 – UDF Columns
In Primavera P6 release 19, a new details tab for UDFs was added to numerous areas of P6. To show the UDF tab, simply right-click the mouse on the top of the details tabs then click “Customize Activity Details”, see Figure 3 below.
Figure 3: Primavera P6 – Customizing Activity Details
In the Activity Details dialog box, move “User Defined Fields” from the left “Available Options” pane to the right “Selected Options” pane. Figure 4 shows the UDF details tab in the bottom layout of the Activities Window.
Figure 4: Primavera P6 – UDF tab
The User Defined Fields Tab does not show any information yet, you must select which UDFs to show in the tab. Click the “Customize User Defined Fields” button at the bottom left corner to open the UDFs dialog box. As with the typical pop-up boxes in Primavera, the ‘Available’ options are on the left and you choose the ‘Selected’ options to be moved over to the right.
In Figure 5, a few UDFs were moved over to the right “Selected UDFs” pane. Notice how Activity EC1000’s “Test UDF” shows the “example text” Value. The other two UDFs of Deadline and Gate Status don’t have any values assigned, but you can easily click the Browse buttons to allocate values.
Figure 5: Primavera P6 – Customize User Defined Fields
Summary
The User Defined Fields tabs are available in the Activities, WBS, Projects, Resource Assignments, WPs & Docs, Expenses, Issues, and Resources Windows. Primavera P6 project users no longer need to add each UDF as a column in order to assign a value to it. Now the ability to assign UDFs to specific activities or other aspects of the project can easily be managed in the UDF tab.
To learn more about other advanced topics of the Primavera P6 software, visit our Training Courses page.
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