What's new in P6 Release 8

Many changes were made between P6 Version 7 and release 8. Here we highlight the ones we view as most pertinent:

• Reporting through Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher.

  The reporting engine of P6 Enterprise is now Oracle BI Publisher. This is the same reporting application used across a range of Oracle products. This means that there are many people already skilled in its use and many references available, including Oracle BI Publisher 11g: A Practical Guide to Enterprise Reporting, Packt Publishing. See also Appendix B, Integrations.

• JBoss Application Server no longer supported.

  P6 version 7 was supported on Oracle Weblogic, IBM WebSphere, and JBoss, an open source application server. With Version 8, JBoss is no longer supported. Across many products, Oracle is standardizing on WebLogic. An excellent introduction to WebLogic is Oracle Weblogic Server 11gR1 PS2: Administration Essentials, Packt Publishing.

• Project Templates replace Methodology Manager.

  In prior versions there were two separate programs and two separate databases: Project Management and Methodology Management. Templates are now part of the main P6 database, and can be managed and secured from the web interface (Note that P6 Professional does not support templates).

• Integration with Oracle Business Process Management (BPM).

  Oracle's BPM Suite is a set of tools for allowing products to communicate with each other. Part of this functionality allows for the development of customized workflows which can interact with different products. Business Process Management and workflows are part of this set of products. Like BI Publisher, BPM is a well-documented technology which is explained on many websites as well as in books such as Getting Started with Oracle BPM Suite 11gR1 – A Hands-On Tutorial, Packt Publishing.

• Enhanced risk management.

  A risk register and risk scoring matrix provide a system for monitoring and tracking risks. This is shown in Chapter 8, Issues and Risks.

• EPPM is one hundred percent web-based.

  With prior versions, certain scheduling abilities were only available in the Windows Client. With the EPPM release of Version 8, users can completely create and manage their project schedules through the web, using Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox.

• Tabbed views and configurable toolbars.

  Tabs and customizable toolbars make for overall easier navigation.

• Timescaled Logic Diagrams.

  Timescaled Logic Diagrams is a tool for viewing schedules in a time-driven chart which emphasizes the logical connections between activities in the project network.

New in Release 8.2

There are several new features which have been added to release 8.2:

• The installer has been made easier. The installer will walk you through setting up not only P6 but also many other applications that had to be installed separately before. This includes P6 Help, UPK, OCM, Progress Reporter, Integration API, Web Services, and Team Member.

  

• User Management: When copying users, all of their current toolbars and preferences are copied over. You can take advantage of this by configuring one account with standard settings, and then create new users based on this account. It is now also easy to create a new resource directly from a user account.

• Location: Oracle Locator is a new technology that is being implemented in many of Oracle's products. This gives you the ability to associate data with physical locations. Project, activities, and resources can be given locations. These locations can then be used in other applications such as P6 Analytics.

  

• Searching columns: P6 is notorious for containing dozens of fields: dates, properties, codes, variances, percentages, and so on. It can be a challenge sometimes to find the exact column you need when customizing your layouts. In 8.2 each of the Customize Column screens includes a search text box. If you want to see all the fields called "Actual", simply search for it.

  

• Exclusive mode: Before 8.2 you could not check out a project in P6 Web. In 8.2, users can now check out a project. This is called exclusive mode. While a project is in exclusive mode, it will be tagged with a lock icon, and only the user who locked it may use it.

  

• Is Under filter: This is a new property used in filtering data which lets you filter by location of an item within a hierarchy. For example, you can filter for activities only under a certain WBS node.

  

• Microsoft Project 2010 is now supported. You can use MSP projects to update P6, which allows you to retain support for MSP users, yet still be able to take advantage of managing all of your enterprise data in P6.

• P6 Professional unified: There are no longer two separate Windows desktop clients. With 8.1, there was P6 Professional, which is purely a Windows Client, and P6 Optional Client, which was like Professional but with certain administrative features stripped away. Now there is one and only one P6 Professional client and it will support running stand-alone as well as running connected to your Enterprise system.

• Line numbering: You can now choose to display line numbers on the screen in P6 Professional. These numbers can be very helpful when you create screenshots of your projects and want to talk about items on specific lines without ambiguity.

  

• Mobile support has been advanced. The Progress Reporter has been optimized to function on tablets as well. The iPhone application has gotten new features, and e-mail-based status is supported.

There are many more features in 8.2, such as the ability to group data by UDF. With this and so much more, it is an easy decision to use 8.2 to take advantage of these features.