Create a project and project settings

A P6 project is more than a list of activities. Each project carries its own dates, defaults, calculation rules and scheduling options, and those settings decide what the dates mean. An owner rarely builds a construction schedule from scratch, but every owner who receives a contractor's file needs to know where these settings live, because two schedules with identical logic can show different finish dates if their settings differ.

Learning outcomes

• Create a project in Oracle Primavera P6 Professional with the Create a New Project wizard.
• Find the Project Details tabs and explain what the General, Dates, Defaults, Settings and Calculations tabs control.
• Name the Schedule Options that change calculated dates and float.
• Record a contractor baseline's project settings as part of an owner review, without changing the evidence copy.

The lesson

What belongs to a project

In Lesson 3 we built the enterprise structures: the EPS that files every project and the OBS that says who is responsible. Those belong to the whole database. A project sits inside that structure and holds its own settings: its planned start and data date, the default calendar and activity type for new activities, how critical activities are defined, how actuals affect remaining values, and how the scheduler treats progressed work. When a contractor exports a project, its settings travel with it. When you open that project in your own database, you are looking at the contractor's choices, not yours.

The Create a New Project wizard

In P6 Professional (version 26), a new project starts from File, New, which opens the Create a New Project wizard [1]. The wizard asks for very little:

1. EPS. Choose the EPS node the project belongs under. Every project must sit under one.
2. Project ID and Project Name. The ID must be unique in the database [3], so a naming rule matters from day one.
3. Project planned start and, if needed, a Must finish by date [1].
4. Responsible manager. Pick an OBS element. It becomes the top of the new project's OBS, which ties the project into the access rules from Lesson 3 [1].
5. Rate type. The rate P6 uses by default for new resource and role assignments [1].
6. Click Finish.

That is the whole wizard. Oracle's help then points you to Enterprise, Projects and the Project Details panel to set everything else [1]. In other words, the wizard creates the record; the real set-up happens afterwards.

Screenshot to come

Project Details: the tabs

Open Enterprise, Projects, select a project and show Project Details at the bottom of the window. Oracle's help lists these tabs: General, Dates, Notebook, Budget Log, Spending Plan, Budget Summary, Funding, Codes, Defaults, Resources, Settings, Calculations and UDFs, plus Planning Resources when you are connected to a P6 EPPM database [2]. For schedule review, five matter most.

General. Holds the Project ID and name, the Responsible Manager and the project Status [3]. Status separates live work from drafts: Oracle describes What If as a status for analysis before a permanent schedule exists, and Planned for the planning phase [3]. Changing a project's Responsible Manager needs Project Superuser rights [3].

Dates. The scheduling anchor. It shows Project Planned Start, Must Finish By, the Data Date (the point from which the schedule is calculated) and Finish, which is the latest early finish from the last time the project was scheduled [4]. It also shows actual start and finish, plus optional anticipated dates used during planning [4]. If Finish looks wrong, remember it only reflects the last schedule run.

Defaults. Sets what new activities get: Duration Type, Percent Complete Type, Activity Type, Cost Account and Calendar, plus auto-numbering for Activity IDs (prefix, suffix, increment) [5]. Two traps here. First, these are defaults for new activities only: changing them does nothing to activities already in the project [5]. Second, the default for Activity Type on a new project is Task Dependent [5]. Lessons 7 and 8 cover activity types and duration types properly.

Settings. Holds the character that separates WBS code segments, the fiscal year start, which baseline earned value uses, and the rule for Define critical activities: either total float at or below a value you enter, or Longest Path [6]. Oracle recommends Longest Path for projects that use more than one calendar, because float on activities with different calendars can mislead [6]. A contractor who uses a 5-day calendar for most work and a 7-day calendar for curing has exactly that kind of project.

Calculations. Controls how P6 handles costs and units: a default price per unit for activities without resources, whether percent complete follows activity steps, whether planned and at-completion values stay linked for activities not started, and how actuals update remaining values [7]. Oracle pairs the option to add actuals to remaining with cost-plus work, and subtracting actuals from at-completion with fixed-price work [7]. On a schedule with no resources or costs loaded these settings have little effect, so record them and move on.

Schedule Options: the settings people forget

Some of the settings that move dates most are not on Project Details at all. They sit in Tools, Schedule, Options, on the General tab of the Schedule Options dialog [8]. In our experience they are the least-checked settings in contractor reviews. The ones that matter most:

• When scheduling progressed activities use: Retained Logic (the remaining work waits for unfinished predecessors), Progress Override (logic is ignored for the progressed activity) or Actual Dates [8]. This changes every update forecast once work is out of sequence.
• Level resources during scheduling. If on, P6 levels every time it schedules, so dates move for resource reasons that the logic does not show [8].
• Make open-ended activities critical and Ignore relationships to and from other projects [8].
• Compute Total Float as start float, finish float or the smaller of the two [8].
• Calendar for scheduling Relationship Lag: successor, predecessor, 24-hour or project default calendar [8]. A 5-day lag on a 24-hour calendar is a lot shorter than five working days.
• Define critical activities as total float at or below a value, or Longest Path, which mirrors the Settings tab [6][8].

Northgate worked example

Northgate Distribution Centre (fictional) is a 12,000 m² tilt-up warehouse in Vaughan, Ontario, built by Halvorsen Builders Ltd. (fictional) for Northgate Logistics Inc. (fictional) under CCDC 2-2020. See the Northgate fact sheet. Should the owner create its own P6 project here? No. The owner's master schedule lives in Microsoft Project, and the owner's P6 database exists to receive, store and review Halvorsen's files under the naming rule from Lesson 3. So the owner's scheduler does not run the wizard for Northgate. The only time the owner uses it is for a training sandbox under the WIF root, which never rolls up into live totals.

The real task is the reverse: Halvorsen's baseline, due Wed Feb 10, 2027 under the owner's Supplementary Conditions, has been imported untouched into NDC.SUB as NDC-BL00. Before anyone reviews logic, the scheduler records the project's settings, because they explain the dates.

Step 1: record Project Details on the evidence copy

With NDC-BL00 open Read Only (as in Lesson 2), the scheduler goes to Enterprise, Projects, selects NDC-BL00 and works through the five tabs, filling in Northgate's record sheet.

Screenshot to come

Screenshot to come

Step 2: test the settings on a copy

The scheduler copies NDC-BL00 into NDC.REV as NDC-BL00-R, extending Lesson 3's "-R" suffix for review copies. On the copy only, the scheduler opens Tools, Schedule, Options, records each General tab setting, then schedules the copy at the same data date without changing any option. If the finish date and float match the file as submitted, the settings explain the dates and the logic review can begin. If they do not, the schedule was not recalculated after its last edits, or something else is going on, and the question goes to Halvorsen before the review continues.

Screenshot to come

Owner's move

• Ask for the settings in writing. Have the schedule specification require the contractor's narrative to state its scheduling options, critical path definition and calendars with every baseline and update. A setting the contractor had to write down is one it had to think about.
• Fix the critical path definition up front. Say in the specification whether "critical" means Longest Path or total float at or below a stated value. Without that, contractor and owner can argue past each other about which activities are critical.
• Ban silent leveling. Require that resource leveling during scheduling is off unless the contractor discloses it and explains it.
• Keep the record sheet with the file. Store the settings record for each submission with the review comments. When the settings change between updates, you will see it at once.
• Do not "fix" a submission. If a setting is wrong, ask for a resubmission. Changing it in your copy creates a schedule nobody agreed to.

Common mistakes

1. Treating the wizard as the set-up. It only creates the record. Calendar, defaults and critical path rules come afterwards in Project Details.
2. Changing Defaults and expecting existing activities to change. Defaults apply only to activities added afterwards [5].
3. Trusting the Finish date on the Dates tab. It is the result of the last schedule run, which may predate the last edits [4].
4. Reviewing logic before settings. Retained Logic versus Progress Override, leveling and lag calendars can explain a "logic problem" in minutes.
5. Using total float alone on a multi-calendar schedule. Oracle recommends Longest Path in that case [6].

Quick quiz

1. How do you start the Create a New Project wizard in P6 Professional?

   1. Enterprise, Projects, Add
   2. File, New
   3. Project, WBS, Add
   4. Tools, Schedule

2. The Responsible manager chosen in the wizard is:

   1. A resource
   2. A user login
   3. An OBS element
   4. A calendar

3. A scheduler changes the default Duration Type on the Defaults tab. What happens to the 400 existing activities?

   1. All change at once
   2. Only not-started activities change
   3. Nothing; the default applies to new activities only
   4. They change at the next F9

4. What does the Finish field on the Dates tab show?

   1. The Must Finish By date
   2. The latest early finish from the last schedule run
   3. The contract completion date
   4. The baseline finish

5. Where is the option that decides whether progressed activities use Retained Logic or Progress Override?

   1. Project Details, Settings tab
   2. Project Details, Calculations tab
   3. Schedule Options, General tab
   4. Admin Preferences

Show answers and explanations

1. B. File, New opens the Create a New Project wizard [1].
2. C. It is an OBS element, and it becomes the top of the project's OBS [1].
3. C. Defaults tab values apply only to activities added afterwards [5].
4. B. Finish is the latest early finish calculated the last time the project was scheduled [4].
5. C. It is on the General tab of the Schedule Options dialog (Tools, Schedule, Options) [8].

Key terms

Create a New Project wizard

The short wizard (File, New) that creates a project under an EPS node with an ID, name, planned start, responsible manager and rate type.

Project Details

The tabbed panel in the Projects window that holds a project's settings.

Project Planned Start

The project's start date, used when scheduling begins.

Must Finish By

An optional constraint on the project's end date.

Data date

The date from which P6 calculates the schedule.

Defaults for new activities

Duration type, percent complete type, activity type, cost account and calendar given to activities added from then on.

Longest Path

A way of defining critical activities by tracing the driving path to the project's finish, rather than by a float value.

Schedule Options

The scheduling rules (Tools, Schedule, Options) for progressed activities, float, leveling and lag calendars.

References

1. Oracle. Create a project. Primavera P6 Professional Help, Version 26.
2. Oracle. Project Details. Primavera P6 Professional Help, Version 24.
3. Oracle. General tab - Project Details. Primavera P6 Professional Help, Version 26.
4. Oracle. Dates tab - Project Details. Primavera P6 Professional Help, Version 26.
5. Oracle. Defaults tab - Project Details. Primavera P6 Professional Help, Version 26.
6. Oracle. Settings tab - Project Details. Primavera P6 Professional Help, Version 26.
7. Oracle. Calculations tab - Project Details. Primavera P6 Professional Help, Version 26.
8. Oracle. General tab - Schedule Options dialog box. Primavera P6 Professional Help, Version 26.

Verified on November 4, 2026.

Next lesson in this trackCalendars: global, project, resource