Primavera P6 Vs.

Microsoft Project
by TheP6Pro
Often folks are asking about the differences between Microsoft Project and
Oracle Primavera P6. While coming up with a definitive list is more than
challenging, below highlights some of the detailed feature differences
between Primavera P6 over Microsoft Project.
Its All About The Enterprise
Its clear that Primavera P6 was designed for the enterprise from the start,
while Microsoft Project migrated from a desktop application and added
enterprise capabilities with Project Server. Now that Oracle owns
Primavera P6, this gap is accentuated with the introduction of other heavy
weight Oracle applications that support Primavera P6. Examples of these
include Primavera P6 Analytics, Business Intelligence Publisher, Workflow
and Primavera Gateway. These tools allow for integration with other
enterprise applications marrying project information with other corporate
data, applications and dashboards. Microsoft has not stood still either,
with additional offerings such as SharePoint and Dynamics.
With all these true enterprise capabilities in mind, below are some of the
more detailed features differences listed by real users. This list is not
meant to be exhaustive. It is also important to note that were not
recommending one product over the other.
Multiple User Access
Microsoft Project doesnt allow multiple users to work on a single project
at the same time, Primavera P6 does. In Primavera P6 you can specify
what features of Primavera a particular user is permitted to use. Microsoft
Project Server supports many projects at the same time, but a user locks a
project when its in use.
Baselines
In Microsoft Project, 11 baselines can be created for a project. In
Primavera P6, unlimited baselines can be created and as many as four of
these baselines can be assigned at any one time to a schedule.
Progress and Status
Primavera P6 offers a feature called Progress Spotlight. This Progress
Spotlight highlights activity table rows in yellow if they are due any
status in the next period (day, week, month, quarter or year). Microsoft
Project requires the development of filters to allow for the selection of
activities requiring status.

Issues & Risk

Microsoft Project lacks a feature for tracking project issues or risks.
Primavera P6 can record issues and risks against a project, WBS element
or activity.
Web Support
Primavera P6 plans, documents and other information can be converted to
HTML directly from the software. Microsoft Project doesnt have such
options.
Steps
The Steps feature in Primavera P6 allows you to create sub-activities
(steps) of an activity; effectively a to-do list for discrete progressing. Each
step has a weighting that can be used to drive % complete for an activity
as the steps are marked off as completed. The additional P6 Step
Template allow this feature to be used for common processes that appear
often among projects. This capability is not available in Microsoft Project.
Expenses
In addition to resource costs, Primavera P6 allows planned, remaining and
actual project expenses (training, travel, ODC) to be entered at the
activity level. Microsoft Project doesnt have this capability.
Custom Fields
Both Microsoft Project and Primavera P6 allow you to create custom fields.
Microsoft Project also allows you to define formula for custom fields and
add additional values to it. In Primavera P6 you can create a blank custom
field, but you cannot set formulas to it, so users have to manually enter
values in each field, for each column. You can use Activity Codes in P6 to
create a column that has values that can be picked from a list similar to
the Lookup feature in Microsoft Projects custom fields.
Columns
Primavera P6 is has many columns. It comes installed with over 200
columns, each giving you different information. Column categories include
EVM, Budgeting, Costs, etc. In Microsoft Project, there are only around 40
columns.
Multiple Activity Relationships
In Primavera P6, more than one type of relationship can be established
between activities, e.g. we can have FF and SS between the same two

activities. In Microsoft Project only one relationship can be made between

two activities.
External Relationships
In Primavera P6, multiple projects can be opened at one time for editing.
This allows for relationships to be established between activities in
different projects when inter-dependencies exist using identical
techniques to assign the relationships. Microsoft Project uses a special
feature called Links Between Projects to achieve inter-project dependency
modeling.
Project Website
Primavera P6 can create a comprehensive website comprising of all the
project details including activities, resources, reports, risks, issues, WBS,
and anything else that a user can define. This website feature is not
present in Microsoft Project.
Multiple Project Creation and Tracking
Both Microsoft Project and Primavera P6 allow for multiple projects to be
created and viewed. However, Primavera P6 capabilities extend beyond
this to include multiple project tracking, multiple project or WBS
comparisons, cost and units calculations.
Discussions
Primavera P6 has the ability to have threaded discussions with other team
members from within the tool.
Hint Help
To help new and experienced users alike, P6 Professional offers a Hint Help
toggle feature that explains the values and calculations for a column when
the cursor is placed on the field. No equivalent feature exists in Microsoft
Project.
Summary
There are many more minor differences between Primavera P6 and
Microsoft Project but above list attempts to highlight seem of the more
commonly referred differences between the two tools. We are well aware
of folks that favor one system over the other and Im sure this list will
spark much conversation, debate and disagreement.
Using this list to support a decision to buy one product over the other
would not be a wise idea. Choosing an enterprise project management

system should be based on your organizational requirements which would

be at a much higher level than a few detailed features listed here.
Finally, enterprise deployments often involve integration and information
sharing with other corporate applications, must run on a particular IT
infrastructure and support existing processes. All of these requirements
can have an effect on your decision which way to go.

Differences Between Primavera P6 and MS Project

MS Project and Primavera are both reputed software for project planning, reporting and

updating, tracking. Both the software are used worldwide and they have their own bene
There are several differences between MS Project and Primavera P6.
The following are the differences between Primavera P6 and MS Project:
Baselines

In MS Project only 11 baselines can be created. In Primavera unlimited baselines can be

Multiple User Access
MS Project doesn't allow multiple users to work on a single project at the same time,
Primvera allows you to do that.

In Primavera you can even specify what features of Primavera a particular user can use
and which he can not.
Issues & Risks
MS Project lacks the feature of tracking project issues or risks.
In Primavera, we can record issues and risks.
Web Support

Primavera plan, documents and other information can be converted to HTML directly fr
MS Project doesn't have such option.
Steps
Steps in Primavera allows you to create sub-activities (steps) of an activity.
Each step can have its own start and finish date, and a completed step can be marked
This useful feature is missing in MS Project.
Expenses

Besides Costs, in Primavera project expenses e.g training, travel, etc can also be added
in MS Project we can not.
Custom Fields

Both MS Project and Primavera allows us to create custom fields. But MS Project even a

complex formulas or use fields and add additional values to it, to use in the custom fiel
In Primavera we can create a blank custom field, but can not set formulas to it,
so users have to manually enter values in each in the field, for each column.
Columns
Primavera P6 has many useful columns.
It comes installed with over 200 columns, each giving you different information.
Some column category to name include EVM, Budgeting, Costs, etc.
On the other hand in MS Project, there are only around 40 columns.
Multiple Activity Relationships

In Primavera P6, more than one type of relationship can be established between activit
we can have FF and SS between the same two activities.
In MS Project only one relationship can be made between two activities.
Project Website

The Primavera P6 software can create a comprehensive website comprising of complet

including activities, resources, reports, risks, issues, WBS, and
everything that has been entered in the software.
This website is very valuable feature and is not present in MS Project.
Multiple Project Creation, View and Tracking
In Primavera multiple projects can be created and viewed.

This can be done in MS Project too but since MS Project is not intended for multiple proj
it doesn't allow us to do things like we can do in
Primavera like multiple project tracking,
Multiple project or WBS
comparisons, cost
and

units
There are many more minor differences between Primavera P6 and and MS Project but
above list is of major and prominent differences between the two software.
WBS
In Primavera P6 WBS is created separated from activities.
Once WBS has been created, then we can add activities with each WBS element.
Whereas in MS Project, activities are indented to make them look like WBS.
Which one You Should Learn?

If you are heavily involved in a project or multiple projects, and you are requiring to com
every detail of your project you should go for Primavera P6.

Or if you are working on a single project that doesnt require you record details other th
activity schedule, resource list, and assignment details, use MS Project as it is simpler

See
more
at:
http://www.scientificera.com/business/52-projectmanagement/312-primaverap6-vs-msproject.html#sthash.NSw1mRgZ.dpuf