If you have ever attempted to bring together project Schedules from multiple groups into one cohesive Master Schedule then you understand what is meant by the term “Herding Cats”.  Consider a scenario where you are utilizing multiple independent professional groups to submit Engineering/Procurement schedules that will ultimately link up with a construction schedule to form a Master Project Schedule.  Even the best laid plans will require utilizing that cat corral in full action to be successful.  Communication, planning and key project coding will be the required tools to build the foundation of your cat corral.

Conditions for Successful Integration:

• Start off by developing  a written Integration Plan:  Clearly define key events with the associated accomplishments and criteria detailed out
• Create a project template that contains a common WBS format
• Designate what engineering review/procurement activities and workflow  are required to be captured
• Develop common activity coding for the integration of the activities (Utilize secure codes once assigned to activities)
• Clearly identify the activities that are to be linked to other schedules
• Create common naming conventions for activity names and Id’s (Smart code activity ID’s)
• Create an Integration manual with all guidelines and procedures
• Communicate clearly and often.  Review schedule development and provide target milestones of development completion

How do the schedules actually get combined from the Remote Sites…???

Aaaaahhh…Another topic another day..Until next time

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How to Find Answers on the New Oracle/Primavera Support Site

I feel like I’ve lost something.  Something dear to me.  Something I counted on and was always there.  Some things you lose and you’re happy – like weight or an old boyfriend.   Others, like your wallet or your retainer, cause total devastation.  That’s how I feel about losing Primavera POINT.  The first time I went out to the new Oracle/Primavera support site it was like starting middle school all over again.  With your big Aquanet® teased bangs, new stirrup pants and coolest leg warmers, you bravely walk up to this huge new building like you own it.  Then you actually walk through the doors.  Now you feel it.  A little scared, a little helpless and a little intimidated.  You stand there paralyzed until you finally summon all your pre-teen internal stores of strength and determination.  You take your first step, then your next, and your next.  Before you know it you’re cruising down the hall now at a substantial pace.  A swift pace actually.  Running really – directly into the girl’s bathroom.  You lock yourself into the heavily graphitized stall and sob.  Not only because you just want things to be like what you’re used to, but because “Jenny hearts Bobby forever” and you don’t even know who Jenny and Bobby are in this place! 

Admittedly, that’s how I’ve felt about the new Oracle/Primavera support site.  I was so used to my trusty, reliable Primavera POINT support site.  I muse sometimes over how easy it was to just pick my product, type in my question and miraculously there it would sit – my solution, my answer right at my finger tips, right when I needed it.  I reminisce too about my good friends in Primavera Chat.  My Primavera OnStar® as I once referred to it with affection.  So knowledgeable, so willing, so there when I needed them.   Well, flashback to reality.  Things change.  I’ve come to realize that I don’t have to like it, but I do have to accept it and move forward.  Really, I ask myself, would I still wear leg warmers today?  Well, maybe tomorrow if they came back in style, but you get the point.  Sometimes change is good.  (If you’re not convinced I’ve got some middle school pictures to show you that would surely make you a believer!)

Moving forward, I personally resolved to leave my beloved POINT behind and learn to do things a new way.  I also had to humble myself and get a little educated.  You see, when I first went out to the site I felt like “I got this.  I’ve been working with Primavera and project management for a good number of years now and I figured out how to navigate POINT in no time.”  Found the “Knowledgebase” link.  Awesome!  Went to look for my product.  What the heck is this?!  I soon realized that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.  Remember, it’s not just Primavera, but Oracle/Primavera.  On the off chance that you weren’t aware of it, did you know that Oracle has roughly a godzillian (as in zilla, the giant monster) number of products!  There are also quite a number of just Primavera products to sift through.  Humbled.  I had gone out to the site in the first place because during an installation of P6 Web I had an MBean problem.  Sounds bad I know.  With all my experience, I’ve never had an MBean problem before and I have to admit I don’t know my MBeans from my RPotatos.  I had been trying to resolve this on my own for a couple of days now.  I needed to get this thing installed and I needed support.  Ultimately, I was able to find a documented solution concerning my MBean problem on the new Knowledgebase.  Yeah!  It didn’t resolve my issue however.  Are you kidding me?!  Now, it was time.  I had to go back to middle school and actually ask someone, a real live person for help to find my way.  It would have been nice if I could have just walked out of the stall (still in there) and gone up to someone, but in our Oracle/Primavera cyber school they call this an SR or Service Request.   Here we are escorted through several windows being prompted for configuration settings and asked several times to summarize, describe, categorize and detail the problem.  So, muttering while harking back to Live Chat in an undertone, I complete the request and send it off.  Within 15 minutes it happens.  I get a phone call direct from Oracle/Primavera.  A real live person!  Taylor was his name, and it’s all a blur now, but I believe I may have actually confessed my love for him for fixing so quickly what I had been wrestling with for two days!  I’ll never forget him.  He resolved my MBean problem in less than 20 minutes (which by the way had nothing to do with Mexican cuisine as you might have imagined.)  Since, I have also had numerous other Service Requests that were responded to via email within 15- 20 minutes of my post.  Not bad and it beats waiting on the phone for a half hour or more. 

So, the new Oracle/Primavera support site does work.  There, I’ve admitted it.  I’d be remiss to say that it couldn’t use a little tweaking here and there, but it is still a useful tool to resolve your Primavera issues.  To save you a little pain while getting better acquainted with the site, here are a few suggestions.   

• Use the Help Option
• Watch the Video Training
• Get Support for Support

Use The Help Option On The Top Right Of The Screen.  (Remember, humble thyself.)  Don’t waste any more time trying to figure it out by clicking around.  Before you know it, a quick ten minutes can turn into over an hour.  Save time and use this Help option.  The shot below shows Help as it pertains to the creation of a Service Request.  There are other great topics in there too like search tips and how to create and save a Power View so you can quickly filter by only the product(s) you use.  There’s a video on this too.  Watch the Video Training.  Also found in Help is a Video Training tool to guide you through site navigation.  The training is broken out into multiple topics that you can select in any order and view at your own convenience.  Each topic can last anywhere from 3 to 93 minutes.   Trust me, it is time well spent and it’ll save you a lot of aggravation – especially for those still longing for POINT.

Get Support For Support.  Sometimes, even knowing how to navigate the site is not enough.  You may still need to devote time to research, testing and dealing with the Oracle/Primavera Service Rep.   Because of the multitude of other fires you’re trying to put out, you may just not have the time to “dig” for an answer even if you know how.  As a value added option, Critical Business Analysis, Inc. can manage all or some of your support for you.  We arrange service contracts with our clients where we act as the support liaison between them and Oracle/Primavera to help them resolve problems more quickly.  Let us know if this support solution is right for you.  I just may be the CBA rep you’ll work with.  If so, I’ll keep my hairspray, leg warmers, MBeans and longing for POINT in my locker where they belong, promise.

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