Graphing a P6 Resource S-Curve in Excel
In myprevious tutorial in this series, I described the procedure
to export resource assignment data from P6 to Excel.Most of us have
worked with Excel charts in our job or during our study in college
or university. What we all know is that they are really helpful
when you want to demonstrate some analytical information without
technical terms. In this tutorial, I am going to tell you how to
develop a resource S-curve in Excel with P6 data.Tutorial Files
Excel Spreadsheet (Excel 2007+):P6_Scurve_Example.xlsx- 1.5MbStep 1
Export Primavera P6 Resource Assignmentsto Excel
Following the steps from our previous tutoril, you now have all
the resources and assignments in an Excel sheet. You can modify the
primary sheet for better graphical features.Step 2 How to Use the
Data
To draw resource curves, what we need is the two highlighted
rows which are the cumulative total and the incremental total. They
have the information needed for each month. So we just copy and
paste these two rows and the date row to another sheet to have more
space doing our job.Step 3 Copy and paste the needed data in
separate sheet
Copy the data to separate worksheet. Now we have all the tools
to paint a perfect picture of our project resources. All we need is
to use some formula to calculate the percentage progress for each
month in our table.Step 4 Calculate theProgressPercentage
To calculate interval progress and cumulative progress, just
divide the value for each month (man hour needed for each month) by
the total value (the summation of all man hours). You can see the
formula in the Excel file attached to this tutorial.Step 5 Graphing
the S-Curves
To graph any curve we should go to Insert Section of Excel and
then choose a chart type in charts tab. For this tutorial purpose
well select theLine chart.Step 6 Defining the S-Curves
Resources
Right-click on the curves that Excel generated by default, which
is not the curve that we want, and choose Select Data.
Remove all the predefined sources and then hit theAddbutton.
In this box define all the sources one by one. We should do it 3
times to define all the sources for our final S-curve. I define all
the series below:Series NameSeries ValuesFormula
Monthly Man HourThe row that shows interval man hour for each
month=Sheet5!$C$3:$X$3
Cumulative ProgressThe row that shows cum. %
prog=Sheet5!$C$4:$X$4
The last source definition is for the dates which result in our
X axis. To do that on the select source data box and under the
Horizontal Axis label, hit the edit button and you will see a
similar dialogue box as the above dialogue boxes:
Select all the dates as the label range for the horizontal axis
and hit OK on dialogue box and then on the select Data Source box.
Now you have the following chart
Now we should modify this s-curve, so we go step by step:Step 7
Select a Primary and Secondary S-CurveRight-click on the curves and
select Format Data Series. In the format Data series box select the
Cum Progress as the secondary curve (it means that this s-curve
values are shown on the right hand axis)
Step 8 Change the data type to a 2-D Column chartRight-click on
the monthly interval man hour curve (ie:the blue curve) and then
select the change series chart type. In the change series chart
type box, select 2-D Column chart.
Step 9 Adjust the Right-hand Vertical AxisRight-click on the
right-hand vertical axis and select Format Axis in the dialogue box
go to Axis options and change the second value from the top of form
to1.00.
Now you have a resource S-curve which still needs some
modification:
Step 10 The Final TouchesIn Excel 2007, when you select a chart,
a chart tool tab will appear on the top right hand side of toolbar.
In that chart you can change the color of curves, add title to
curve, add table to curve. The following curve which is the final
curve is the result of doing some exercises with those
features:
Wrap UpWith this new P6 Resource S-curve, now your project
manager can easily tell you there is something wrong with resource
assignment and some leveling should be done on resources to achieve
a better distributed resource S-curve.There are different ways of
developing S-curves in Excel but this method works well in many
project circumstances.