About Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management
Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management (P6 EPPM) is a robust and easy-to-use integrated solution for globally prioritizing, planning, managing, and executing projects, programs, and portfolios. It optimizes role-specific functionality to satisfy each team member's needs, responsibilities, and skills. It provides a single solution for managing projects of any size, adapts to various levels of complexity within a project, and intelligently scales to meet the needs of various roles, functions, or skill levels in your organization and on your project team.
Thousands of companies rely on P6 EPPM to:
- Plan, schedule, and manage the right strategic mix of projects
- Make informed project, cost, and resource management decisions
- Enhance team collaboration and workflow productivity
- Maximize each project contributor's skills and responsibilities
- Track progress and optimize capacity for maximum profitability
- Deliver programs and projects on time and within budget
- Share data with human capital, financial management, and enterprise resource planning systems
Actual deployments require a variety of databases, servers, applications, and supporting technologies. P6 EPPM also integrates with many other optional solutions such as Primavera Contract Management, Oracle Primavera Prime, Primavera Unifier, Oracle Primavera Risk Analysis, Oracle PPM, and Primavera Earned Value Management.
Working with the Oracle Primavera P6 EPPM Suite
Depending on your organization's specific deployment, P6 EPPM generally consists of the applications, functions, and databases depicted below.
Applications:
P6: Most users will rely almost exclusively on the P6 web application running in a standard web browser. Simply termed P6, it is the primary interface for administering and managing projects.
P6 mobile: Allows team members to provide status on their tasks and to enter timesheets while working "on the go".
P6 Team Member Web: This web interface allows team members to provide status on their tasks and record time in timesheets using a web browser.
P6 Team Member E-mail Statusing Service: This method allows team members to provide status on their tasks using any HTML or plain text e-mail application.
P6 Professional for EPPM: The P6 web application is the main interface for all project management functionality. You can also use the P6 Professional software to take advantage of its core project planning and scheduling functionality. The P6 Professional application and its features, including P6 Visualizer, run on Microsoft Windows. P6 Professional is also available for users who need to work on their projects in an offline mode.
P6 Professional Cloud Connect: Connects P6 Professional to an EPPM Oracle database on the cloud. P6 Integration API (in remote mode) is installed by default. Using this, P6 EPPM users working on a WAN environment can achieve performance levels comparable to compression server installation. This is optional for on premises users.
P6 Integration API: A Java-based application programming interface (API) enabling your P6 EPPM deployment to interface with other components and systems.
P6 EPPM Web Services : P6 EPPM Web Services is an integration technology that extends P6 business objects and functionality. Based on open standards including SOAP, XML and WSDL, P6 EPPM Web Services enables developers to leverage standard interfaces to create integrated software solutions that interoperate with a wide variety of enterprise software applications running on a diversity of hardware and operating system platforms.
Primavera Gateway: Primavera Gateway is a highly configurable application that integrates P6 EPPM with other products for increased risk and scope management.
Functionality (included with P6 EPPM):
Core Enterprise Functionality: Use P6 for all of the following core enterprise functionality:
- Administration and Enterprise Data: Administer user accounts, preferences, views, application settings, and enterprise data.
- Project, Portfolio, and Resource Management: P6 provides an extensive array of features designed to optimize all phases of Project Management, Resource Management, and Portfolio Management. It includes full support for activities, work breakdown structures, planning and scheduling, costs, resource administration and assignment, roles, teams, portfolio analysis, capacity planning, Return on Investment (ROI), and convenient dashboards for measuring performance at every level at any moment.
- Documents: P6 includes document management support with or without the optional document repository option. Use the optional document collaboration features to conduct document reviews with key stakeholders to keep projects moving or meet regulatory compliance.
- Workflows: The workflow engine bundled with P6 EPPM provides Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) compliant graphical notation that depicts the steps in your project initiation workflows. Use the integrated Workflows portlet to coordinate the sequence of tasks that flow between different process participants in a series of stages.
- Reports: Generate and view reports using your standard web browser running P6. Reports can be generated and routed via e-mail, saved to a shared or local file, or printed to a traditional printer.
Planning and Scheduling: The P6 Professional component of the suite can be used standalone or connected to an EPPM database. It provides a robust set of features primarily for planners and schedulers, including Reflection Projects and a report designer. Use the P6 Visualizer feature to create and customize visual depictions of complex project schedule information, including Gantt charts with Grid data, Timescaled Logic Diagrams, and Schedule Comparison. Some functionality of P6 Professional is available only when connected to an EPPM database.
Time Reporting: P6 EPPM includes timesheet entry in P6 Team Member Web, P6 for Android, and P6 for iOS with review and approval support in P6.
Integrated Solutions: Build or deploy other systems and use the P6 Integration API, P6 EPPM Web Services, or Primavera Gateway to integrate them with P6 EPPM. Integrate Risk and Scope functionality from Oracle Primavera Prime with P6 EPPM via Primavera Gateway. Leverage P6 EPPM's project planning and scheduling system against Primavera Unifier's cost control system via integration with Primavera Gateway.
Technology:
The P6 EPPM Database: The main database for all your P6 EPPM data. The EPPM database includes the P6 Extended Schema optimized for reporting.
BPM Workflow: The separate workflow engine bundled with P6 EPPM.
Oracle BI Publisher: The reporting tool that reports on the data that is exposed in the database reporting views.
The Content Repository: Use an Oracle content repository or any CMIS-compliant repository to host documents in a shared repository enabling collaborative functionality such as document check-in/check-out and versioning.
Related Topics
For More Information
Where to Get Documentation
Complete documentation libraries for P6 EPPM releases are available on the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) at:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/documentation/primavera-093289.html
From this location you can either view libraries online or download them to have local copies. We recommend viewing them from OTN to ensure you always access the latest versions, including critical corrections and enhancements.
The documentation assumes a standard setup of the product, with full access rights to all features and functions.
Help System Access
P6 EPPM is configured to access its help systems on OTN. However, downloadable versions of the help systems are also available on OTN if you need to download, deploy, and access a local copy.
Documentation Accessibility
For information about Oracle's commitment to accessibility, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program website at http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=docacc.
Access to Oracle Support
Oracle customers that have purchased support have access to electronic support through My Oracle Support. For information, visit http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=info or visit http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=trs if you are hearing impaired.
Where to Get Training
To access comprehensive training for all Primavera products, go to:
Oracle Learning Library
The Oracle Learning Library (OLL) provides online learning content covering Primavera products. Content includes whitepapers, videos, tutorials, articles, demos, step-by-step instructions to accomplish specific tasks, and self-paced interactive learning modules.
To access the learning library’s Primavera content, go to:
http://www.oracle.com/oll/primavera
Where to Get Support
If you have a question about using Oracle products that you or your network administrator cannot resolve with information in the documentation or help, clickhttp://support.oracle.com. This page provides the latest information on contacting Oracle Global Customer Support, knowledge articles, and the support renewals process. For more information about working with Support, visit https://support.oracle.com/epmos/faces/DocumentDisplay?id=888813.2 to view Support Tools & Tips.
Using Primavera's Support Resource Centers
Primavera’s Support Resource Center provides links to important support and product information. Primavera's Product Information Centers (PICs) organize documents found on My Oracle Support (MOS), providing quick access to product and version specific information such as important knowledge documents, Release Value Propositions, and Oracle University training. PICs also offer documentation on Lifetime Management, from planning to installs, upgrades, and maintenance.
Visit https://support.oracle.com/epmos/faces/DocumentDisplay?id=1486951.1 to access links to all of the current PICs.
PICs also provide access to:
- § § Education via a list of available Primavera product trainings through Oracle University. The Oracle Advisor Webcast program brings interactive expertise straight to the desktop using Oracle Web Conferencing technology. This capability brings you and Oracle experts together to access information about support services, products, technologies, best practices, and more.
Creating a Service Request
P6 EPPM integrates with different Oracle applications; when you create a Service Request, be sure to open the request with the proper Support team. To ensure you reach the proper Support team, enter the correct product information when you create the Service Request. Each product has its own support line.
- Use the § Use one of the following support lines when you are having installation or configuration issues that do not relate to P6 EPPM.
- Oracle WebLogic Server
- Oracle Database Server
- BI Publisher
- BPM
- Oracle WebCenter Content Core Capabilities (formerly Universal Content Management)
- Oracle Enterprise Manager
- Oracle Access Manager
- Oracle AutoVue
Keeping Your Software Up to Date
To ensure you have the latest versions of your products, be sure to download and install all available patch sets from http://support.oracle.com.
Finding Security-related Patches
To get the latest information about Critical Patch Updates, visit http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/alerts-086861.html.