Creation - Relationships

OVERVIEW - A relationship defines how an activity relates to the start or finish of another activity or assignment. Add relationships between activities to create a path through your schedule from the first activity to the last activity. These relationships, which form the logic of the project network, are used together with activity durations to determine schedule dates. An activity can have as many relationships as necessary to model the work that must be done. You can also identify relationships between activities that are in different projects; this type of relationship is referred to as an external relationship. - Primavera

1. Before we start adding relationships between the activities that we just created, go to the Project View.  Let’s create a copy of the project ACT in order to archive it as well as to get experience with having multiple projects within a database.   Highlight the project ACT and right-click.  Click Copy.
   
   
2. Right-click again and select Paste.
   
   
3. The Copy Project Options window appears asking what aspects of the project you would like to copy.  All options should be checked.  Click Ok.
   
   
4. Now, the Copy WBS Options window appears asking what aspects of  the WBS structure you would like to copy.  All options should be checked here as well.  Click Ok.
   
   
5. Finally, the Copy Activity Options window appears asking what aspects of the activities you would like to copy.  All options should be checked here as well.  Click Ok.  (Primavera will be unresponsive for a couple of moments as it copies the project.)
   
   Note – Be careful when copying a project that has relationship ties with another project.  The check box, Only between copied activities, should be unchecked so that no ties are broken.
   
   
6. An identical copy of the ACT project appears with a –1 next to its ID.
   
   
7. Rename the project, Relationships, and give it an ID of REL.
   
   
8. Open the new project, REL.  Please note that you do not have to worry about closing the currently open project ACT since this will be done automatically when you open REL.
   
   Note – An open project is denoted by an open file icon.
   
   
9. In the activity view, highlight activity L2-1000 – Concrete Pour Wall Curb Rm 201.  Go down to the activity details panel and click on the Relationships tab.  This tab shows both predecessors and successors for the highlighted activity.  Currently, we have none and both are blank.
   
   
10. Click on the Assign button at the bottom of the successor panel.
    
    
11. The Assign Successor window pops-up.  Move your cursor to the any one of corners of the window in order to resize it.
    
    
12. Now, find and highlight activity L2-1010 – Install Steel Stud Framing Rm 201.  Click the Assign button.
    
    
13. You have just made that activity the successor to L2-1000 – Concrete Pour Wall Curb Rm 201.  Notice that the successor activity now appears in the successor panel.
    
    
14. Instead of closing the Assign Successor window, move it over to the right to get it out of the way.  Now, in the activity table, highlight L2-1010 – Install Steel Stud Framing Rm 201.
    
    
15. You can now go ahead and use the Assign Successor window to add a successor to this activity.  Make L2-1020 – Install Door Frames Rm 201 its successor.
    
    
16. Once you have done so, go down to the successor panel and change the Relationship Type from Finish-to-Start (FS) to Start-to-Start (SS).
    
    
17. Click the GoTo button in the successor panel to make L2-1020 highlighted.
    
    
18. Close the Assign Successor window.  Now, let’s link the remaining activities together.  But this time let’s use a special feature new to P6.  With L2-1020 highlighted, hold down the CTRL on your keyboard while clicking the remaining activities, one-by-one, sequentially all the way down to L2-1140.  All of the activities between L2-1020 & L2-1140 should be selected.
    
    
19. Right-click and select Link Activities.  All of the activities we highlighted will now be linked in the order that we clicked them that in this case was sequentially by Activity ID.
    
    
20. To actually see that we have linked all of these activities, click on the Relationship Lines button found on the toolbar directly below the menu bar.
    
    
21. If you look at the Gantt Chart, you’ll see that each activity now has a relationship line leading to each succeeding activity.

NEXT - Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)