Is Primavera Good for Project Management?

Project Management software plays a critical role in the success of any modern-day project-based business. There are parallel activities, stakeholders, and strict timelines involved in an enterprise-grade project.

According to Project Times, Around 60% of your projects fail or run over time because of a work breakdown in communication with your team members and stakeholders. 

Primavera is a project management tool that has been providing solutions for multiple industries and offers features for various elements of project management in construction, energy, manufacturing, and IT for the last 30 years. Project management software is used for project planning, execution, tracking, and reporting to enhance the efficiency of the project and mitigate the involved risks and delays. 

Primavera P6 is the latest version of the software available that is offered by American-based multinational computer technology firm Oracle. There are 3 versions of Primavera available; Primavera P6 Professional Project Management (PPM), Primavera P6 Enterprise Professional Project Management (EPPM), and the Oracle Primavera Cloud. 

Comparing leading project management software and tools can be very advantageous and ensure that you choose the best option for your company projects and needs. Google offers some tools suitable for managing projects and apps and Google Sheets is easier than Excel and more efficient for smaller companies or shared, simple project planning. 

Primavera P6 Professional Project Management costs $3200 per application user on perpetual terms with a first-year software update license and support of $704. You can also subscribe to the free & paid, courses, training, and certifications for Primavera through Oracle University. 

Primavera P6 Enterprise Professional Project Management costs $3500 per application user on perpetual terms with a first-year software update license and support of $770. The Enterprise edition is 100% web-based and this is the major difference between the two. 

Oracle also offers Primavera Cloud which is much cheaper at a cost of $125 a month. The cloud edition has significantly fewer features as compared to the P6 and P6 Enterprise. 

Microsoft Planner is more efficient than Excel, and you can easily convert a Microsoft Project to Primavera simply by importing an MPX file of Microsoft Project to the Primavera. Below is the step-by-step guide for successfully converting a Microsoft Project to Primavera. 

• Choose a file and select Import 
• Choose Microsoft Project and select the MPX format from the drop-down menu & Click Next 
• Choose Project and Click Next 
• Select all the files you want to import; make sure you have the password for any password-protected file 
• Now click the Import Action field and choose how you want to import the data from the drop-down menu 
• Click Create a New Project 
• Now Select add into the existing project to the selected WBS 
• Select Update existing project that will delete the existing project to replace it with the project imported from the Microsoft Project file 
• Specify the field where you want to import the data by selecting Import to field 
• Add/Modify the existing template if needed and click Next 
• Review the settings of the Import 
• Finish and Close 

Primavera is advanced software that is trusted by project managers and companies from different industries globally.

Oracle Primavera has more than 5 million happy customers and 95% of users are well satisfied using Primavera, according to the Finance Online

It provides sophisticated solutions to plan, manage and execute projects of any size and scale. It increases project efficiency significantly by identifying bottlenecks and scheduler overruns.

According to Oracle, “Bombardier reduced process times by 50% with Primavera P6 EPPM.” 

The key features of Primavera, which are crucial to any project management software, include:

• Provides Multiple Project Management. Primavera P6 has the ability to simultaneously manage multiple projects, programs, and the portfolio 
• Offers a traditional Gantt chart for scheduling tasks 
• It provides multi-user access to work on a single project 
• Provides reporting, analytics, and customized reports for multiple stakeholders involved in a decision-making process 
• It offers real-time resource allocation and analyzing abilities 
• Equipped with project status email functionality 
• Supports Business process automation 
• Offers an information dashboard to keep track of the key metrics of a project 
• Improves the risk management abilities 
• Provides configurable forms and workflow models 
• Provides a calendar view of tasks and activities 

Primavera P6 is an undoubtedly powerful project management software. Now let’s discuss some of the pros and cons of Primavera P6

Pros of Primavera

• Primavera provides the flexibility of use with features like multiple project management and multi-user access 
• Realtime time reporting helps in making decisions faster and avoiding any unseen circumstances 
• Information dashboard provides easy management of single & multiple projects at once 
• It has a strong system to detect the risk of an overrun and scheduling irregularities 
• Integrates with other Oracle products and allows to Import & Export projects to the third-party software 
• Oracle provides courses training and certifications to make the learning curve easier for the new users. 
• Primavera P6 Enterprise edition is 100% web-based and can be accessed from anywhere.

Cons of Primavera

• Primavera 6 is expensive as compared to its alternatives 
• Primavera 6 needs a lot of improvement in the user interface, it has an outdated graphical interface as compared to its competitors 
• It is only available for Windows OS and not available on Mac 
• It can be too complex for smaller projects 

Microsoft Project is one of the most widely used project management software by Microsoft and Project works with MS Teams and other MS products seamlessly.

One of the key advantages over its competitor is the easy integration of the Microsoft Project with the Microsoft office 365 products. So you can use MS Planner and MS Project together for more advanced project planning, or just use features and tools from the MS product that best fits your goals. Google also offers project tools like Planner and is a good choice for low-budget or simple projects.

Both Primavera and Microsoft Project provides powerful features and abilities to handle projects of enterprise-grade size and scale. Now let’s compare the two.

• Baselines: Primavera supports unlimited baselines while Microsoft Project supports up to 11 baselines .
• Multiple User Access: Primavera supports multiple user access on a single project or a portfolio while Microsoft Project doesn’t allow multiple users on a single project. 
• Risk Tracking: Primavera has an excellent feature of tracking risks and issues while Microsoft Project lacks this feature.
• Project Website: Primavera supports the website creation with all the project details while Microsoft Project lacks this feature.
• Custom Field: Primavera allows you to create custom fields but with manual formulas while Microsoft Project supports complex formulas in the custom fields. 
• Columns: Primavera allows up to 200 columns while Microsoft Project supports only 40 columns. You can also create professional Gantt charts for comprisons and reporting.
• Subactivities: Primavera allows creating a start and end date for activities and their subactivities while Microsoft Project lacks this feature.
• Database: Primavera P6 is a database based software while Microsoft Project is based on the files system 
• Project size: Primavera can be too complex for smaller projects while Microsoft project is easier to use for smaller projects.

Both Primavera and Microsoft Project are very useful and powerful software for project management with millions of satisfied users around multiple industries.

After analyzing them both it is safe to say that Primavera is best suited for larger and complex projects with multiple users and processes while Microsoft Project is an excellent choice for a relatively smaller and single project.