Oracle Releases Version 20.6 to Its P6 Cloud Users

On Tuesday, July 7th, 2020 Oracle released version 20.6 to P6 for it's cloud users.

With many updates and enhancements, some of the noteworthy items are listed below.

Feature Area

Costs

• Users can define curve profiles at the workspace level to customize the distribution of scope, resource, and budget figures over time. 
• There are new profiles, including double bell and delayed double bell options now available by default.

Files

• File associations are now available when copying a file 
  • The relationship of the files that are associated with a project is maintained when copied 
• You can group files by codes
• The 'Files' tab has been removed from the News Feed page

Lean

• Notifications have been added for Lean tasks
• Notifications go out to stakeholders when Lean tasks have new proposed due dates, or become overdue

Portfolios

• Formulas for measures that use existing measures can now be based on target or actual values. In previous versions of the product, only actual values were used in calculations.
• Budget Planning page updates:
  • Grid, Chart and Funds views are now available in the Layout drop down list.
  • Toggle buttons are added at the bottom of page to display the Waterline View or Show Unmet Dependencies.
  • The toolbar for the Charts view has changed to improve spacing of options for the All and Project views.
    • Incremental and Cumulative curves are now check boxes.
  • A Legend button is added in the Funds view when displaying the Surplus/Deficit or the Stacked Histogram

Programs

• Three new widgets have been added to Program dashboards:
  1. Program Budget
  2. Top 10 Projects
  3. External URL

Reports

• Users can use Evaluation Categories to filter data in reports for projects, portfolios, and strategies.
  • Evaluation categories are available as filters for the following report table configurations:
    • Projects as the Main Subject Area.
    • Portfolios as the Main Subject Area; Projects as the Supporting Subject Area.
    • Strategies as the Main Subject Area; Projects as the Supporting Subject Area.

    Evaluation category filters include:

    • Availability of Financing
    • Benefit-to-Cost Ratio
    • Economic Development
    • Energy/Water Consumption
    • Environmental Quality
    • External Requirements
    • Health and Safety
    • Life Expectancy of Project
    • Operating Budget
    • Prerequisite
    • Protection of Capital Facilities
    • Public Support
    • Relation to Adopted Plans
    • Timeliness/External
• Object Context is now automatically assigned to reports when creating a report from the Run Report quick navigation menu. 
  • Report context is now determined based on where you are working.

Schedule

• Users can share global changes between projects.
• Update a project's schedule data with global changes created in other projects.
• Use the Get Global Changes button to find changes, and copy them to the current project.

WebDav Removal

• WebDAV (Web-Based Distributed Authoring and Versioning) support for working with files in Oracle Primavera Cloud has been removed.
  • Note: Use the Files App to manage files.

Global Administration

• The following changes have been made to the licenses for Oracle Primavera Cloud. The changes can be viewed in the Global Admin app on the Licenses page.
  • Progress Cloud Service: A new license providing access to My Activities and Timesheet pages.
  • Lean Cloud Service: A new license providing access to the Lean app.
  • Portfolios Cloud Service: This license now includes access for users to add ideas, replacing the Ideas Cloud Service.
  • Schedule Cloud Service: This license will no longer provide access to Lean app or My Activities and Timesheet pages.
    • Existing users will be upgraded to have Progress, Lean, and Schedule Cloud Service licenses.
  • Field Cloud Service: No longer available for new users.
  • Ideas Cloud Service: No longer available for users. 
    • This functionality is now a part of the Portfolios Cloud Service.
      • A new user type, Idea Submitter Only, has been added and does not require a license.

Deprecated Apps - no longer available for purchase

• Contracts and Commitments
• Field
• Submittals

Project Collections Deprecation

• Programs is replacing Project Collections
  • The goal is to simplify the choices when selecting a context to manage multiple projects.
• Changes which will take place over the next several releases:
  • Providing Programs with the same functionality as Project Collections 
    • Programs will allow projects to be available in multiple Programs. Dashboards will also be available.
      • All other Project Collections functionality is supported in Programs
  • Project Collections Removal.
    •  Access to the Project Collection context will be removed. Links to Create a Project Collection, View a Project Collection, and View all Project Collections will be removed.
    • Project Collections Migration to Programs
      • Existing Project Collections will automatically be recreated in Programs with the same name and group of projects.
        • Users can go to Programs to view and access the migrated collections.

• It includes a much richer feature set than Project Collections, including:
  • View WBS and activities across all projects.
  • Manage program level costs and budget.
  • Identify risks and response for projects and programs. 
  • Programs can be viewed by multiple users. 

Note: Oracle recommends that Administrators review Program permissions to allow creation or visibility of Programs when necessary.

A full list of update and enhancements included in this release can be found here - https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E80480_01/English/whats_new/index.html

While you're there, check out their 'Feature Spotlight' videos.

Interested in learning more about P6? Here is a great product brochure. 

Existing cloud users will see these enhancements upon using the system. This release will be available to on premise users at a later date.

Questions about upgrading your system? Comments? or .