By Darko Atanasov

If you manage your construction & engineering projects with Oracle® Primavera P6, you may want to know about a software that goes hand in hand with P6, and how you can benefit by utilizing the features this simple to use viewer provides.

I’m writing about ScheduleReader™, which is a .xer viewer in its nature, able to perform a wide variety of project scheduling functions, beneficial for your team and organization.

ScheduleReader™ enables users to view Oracle® Primavera P6 Schedules in .xer or xls. format.

Project stakeholders like project managers, contractors, and subcontractors can take advantage of the software and gain greater visibility over the project progress by utilizing the following views:

• Activities
• WBS – Work Breakdown Structure
• Projects which represents the Enterprise Project Structure (EPS)
• Resource assignments
• Detail view of selected item in current view
• OBS – Organizational Breakdown Structure
• Roles view

Benefits of ScheduleReader™

The benefits of using ScheduleReader™ are huge for project teams of any size. I’ll highlight some of the most important:

• Save time and share plans in XER format without exporting to PDF.
• Greater control over team members and reduce the risk of having unclear tasks.
• Reduce manual workload and avoid mistakes when receiving progress updates.
• Worry-free sharing of the project details without the risk of unwanted changes.

Why reader for .xer files instead of sharing .pdf files?

ScheduleReader™ as .xer file reader provides an interactive overview of the project with personalized view. Moreover, users can use custom and auto filters with flexibility when viewing a file as well as navigate through predecessors and successors with complete overview.

With .xer reader, you can also work with custom layouts imported from .plf files, and take advantage of visual baselines comparison on the activity updates from previous .xer file versions.

Cutting costs on software licensing

Nowadays, as a consequence of the global economic crisis and slow recovery from it, companies are trying to tighten up their spending and budgets on costly software technologies and services.

Moreover, if we consider a project where most of the people work on their assignments, while only project managers, executives, and coordinators make changes on the schedule, then a lightweight application to display project views could dramatically reduce costs for software licensing.

ОOne of the most eminent attributes of ScheduleReader™ is its speed. Anyone having issues with importing large .xer files knows how important is the speed. It takes minutes, and some managers even reported hours to open a large .xer files in P6.

But that’s not the case with ScheduleReader™, as it will open .xer files in a matter of seconds.

Progress Update

The Progress Update functionality at ScheduleReader™ allows team members to propose assignment progress and activity status in their respective views. The Project Scheduler then decides whether to accept or reject the updates proposed by the team members.

Project Baselines

Baselines functionality allows comparison of up to four updated versions of a project schedule. Users can view precise graphical presentation of what has been changed from the original schedule in the Gantt preview. 

It’s an easy visual comparison utility, helping you to keep track on the project progress.

Search, Filters & Groups

Searching within the project data is also a feature to be highlighted and useful when you need to find a specific item from the current view.

With ScheduleReader™, users can also filter project data that meets certain criteria, such as milestones, completed activities, in progress or critical activities. User can pick between User Defined and Default Filters to be applied to the current view.

Groups can help users to arrange the activities’ order according the current needs. Users can create Custom Groups which is saved in a layout, meaning that groups, together with the layouts, are saved on application level. 

User can open any project file and through the layout, ScheduleReader™ will apply the group.

Reports and Dashboard

In ScheduleReader™, users can choose between the option to use a predefined report or create a custom report. The set of predefined graphical reports will allow even less experienced users to create a graphical report and dashboards, to present the current status of the project in front of management.

Moreover, advanced users can create complex graphical reports with ScheduleReader™. This kind of graphical report can compare different project categories into a one page dashboard, which will contain key performance indicators (KPI) and key data points, which will give users a tool to monitor the health and status of a specific process. 

Standard and PRO version

ScheduleReader™is available in 2 versions, ScheduleReader™Standard and PRO. 

ScheduleReader™PRO version comes with built-in Reports and Dashboard, a feature which allows users to create custom graphical reports, import/export the generated custom report and later share it with all project stakeholders. 

Thanks to this powerful reader for Oracle® Primavera P6 files, you have an affordable, user friendly, and comprehensive addition to Primavera P6. If you want a tool that you can use to view .xer files, you’re very well advised to get ScheduleReader™.

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About Seavus: Seavus is an international software development and consultancy company that enables organizations to achieve superior business performance by implementing high-quality, enterprise-ready software products, services and solutions.