How to Import & Update your P6 File into PLANNER : Smartapp.com

In addition to bringing in your CPM Schedule into PLANNER™, our New & Improved P6 File Importer also supports automatically creating your PLANNER™ High Level Plan & Work Dispatch LPS Boards from your P6 file. The new importer also allows you to auto-map the resources from your P6 file to your PLANNER™ tag; and even lets you merge Oracle P6 file updates into your active PLANNER™ boards and schedules with no loss of data!

You can now seamlessly bridge and sync your P6 CPM Schedule and our powerful Last Planner System [PLANNER], connecting the jobsite 2-week and 6-week Last Planner work assignments directly to your high level P6 CPM Schedule.

In fact, with our new importer, you will be able to not only import the CPM schedule but also automatically build both high-level and work assignment plan boards that are instantly ready to be used at the jobsite by your superintendent, project team and trades.

Let's walk you through how to get started!

Select PLANNER mode at the top left of the Mode bar
Select either the CPM or the Boards options from the PLANNER landing console
Once PLANNER is loaded you will see both the CPM Schedule and your Last Planner System High level and Work Assignment Boards.

HOW TO IMPORT YOUR P6 FILE

Click on the "File" menu at the top
Choose the "Import P6" option
You will see the P6 Importer where you can easily control all the preferences of how PLANNER will process and connect your P6 file.
Now you need to decide is this import is to do one of the following:
1. Replace (create)
2. Append to the current CPM
3. Merge (update)
  [Note: Merge is a really powerful way to get future updates from the same P6 and sync those updates to your PLANNER file. Of course, our export option sends updates to your P6 file allowing you to get the best of both worlds.]
  Here's an example of what it looks like if you select the "Merge" option:
Then select your .xer file
Once selected, if your .xer has more than one schedule - you can choose which one you would like to import.
Now you need to decide how you want to set the start date.
You can either use the file’s start date or you can adjust to any start date you prefer, turning your .xer file as a starting template for your project’s schedule.
Now set what field in your P6 file you want to use to auto-match and populate your resource assigned in PLANNER, both in the CPM Schedule and PLANNER Boards.
[Note: This will work best if you’ve already created all the Companies, Work teams or users that you expect to assign work to. This means, with no changes or updates, you can instantly start using the boards to do both your high-level planning and your daily and 2-week look-ahead trade work assignments.]

Once you set the date and resource preference you will answer a series of questions to finalize what you would like to do:
- You can choose to Import just the P6 WBS items or also your Detail Activities, which will result in the whole P6 file going into PLANNER CPM
- Next, decide if you want the importer to make a high-level PLANNER Board with your P6 WBS items
- Note that with your P6 detailed activities you can either choose to add them to either a High-level Plan Board, or a separate Work Assignment Board. In this case I am going to choose a separate Work Dispatch Board.
Now give your new High Level Plan Board and Dispatch Board names.
[Note: If you are doing a MERGE import you might prefer to NOT create new boards, but instead, sync updates to both the existing project’s PLANNER CPM Schedule and existing boards.]
Next, map the P6 resources to the correct level to best match up your P6 file resources and your PLANNER resources.
[Bonus: We even give you a Preview button to see how your resources are going to map!]
Now just tell the importer if you want a Smartapp to control processing your high-level commit tags and/or your dispatched work tags.
Or, select the work assignment app for our dispatch board to control and define the Workflow and data collection for the trade to complete when they are assigned that work tag.
Finally, set whether you want to auto setup your High-level Plan Board to Rollup Tags to be dynamic milestones. We usually recommend doing this!
The last step is to decide whether you want the importer to use the calendar and date durations from your P6 file (which is manual) or have it automatically adjust all the dates to the PLANNER calendar.
[Pro tip: For perfect fidelity with P6, we recommend the manual option]