Importing Activity data into Primavera using other tools, such as Excel or Microsoft Project, will be beneficial when you have large amounts of data (hundreds or even thousands).

By importing data in bulk, you can significantly save your time, effort, and mind.

Unlike in Microsoft Project, you cannot copy and paste data from Excel to Primavera, so you need to use the import feature to enter data or other options to enter data manually.

When importing activity data using Excel, there are limitations and things to note:

• Project, calendar, and other settings need to be defined in Primavera.
• Default settings (Calendar, Duration Type, Percent Complete Type, etc.) need to be defined first in your Project in Primavera. Activity settings will follow the default settings you define in the project.
• WBS data cannot be imported using Excel, so it needs to be defined first.
• We recommend that you create at least one activity first as dummy data (example) in the project so that the data format can be used as a reference in the Excel template.

As an example, I will use the activity data that I used as an example in my step-by-step tutorial on using Primavera in my previous articles.

The following is an example of activity data.

If in the previous article, I gave a tutorial on how to enter data manually; in this article, you don’t need to enter it manually one by one.

You can try it by importing via Excel according to the following steps:

• Create a new project in Primavera.

• Don’t forget to also include the Project Planned Start date.

• Sett in the Defaults tab on the project according to your needs. In this example, I use the default data as follows:

• We recommend that you create a WBS in Primavera first. At the time of import, you can attach activities to the corresponding WBS (WBS cannot be imported directly through Excel).

• Another option You can create WBS after importing activities and pairing them individually in Primavera.
• Create at least two related activities in the project that you have created. This data is an example of filling in data in the template that you export later.

• Export data to get templates (template and sample data for import). Click File -> Export…
• Select Spreadsheet – (XLSX). Click Next.

• Select Activities and Activity Relationships. Click Next.

• Select the project that you will export. Click Next.

• Click Modify… to modify the template.

• In the Subject Area, select Activities. Adjust the column as shown below:

• To make it easier to sort data by ascending Activity ID. Click the Sort tab, and add a sort method based on Activity ID.

• Select the Subject Area Activity Relationships. Adjust the fields as shown below (default):

• You can also sort Predecessor data in ascending order. Click the Sort tab, and add a sort method based on Predecessor ID.

• Then click OK. Then click Next.

• Determine where to save your Excel file, then click Next.

• Continue until Finish.
• Continue by opening the exported Excel file and then filling in the data in the Excel that you are using as a template.
• On the TASK sheet, for example, fill in the data as follows:

• On the TASKPRED sheet, hide the column marked with an asterisk (*).

• Next, still in TASKPRED, fill in the data as in the example:

• You can input data in the Predecessor, Successor, Relationship Type and Lag columns as shown above.
• Leave the data in the column with an asterisk (*) in the header as default. If you fill in data in a column whose header has an asterisk (*), an error will occur when importing data.
• Then close your Excel file and then import data using Excel via Primavera P6.
• In the Primavera application, click File -> Import…

• Select Spreadsheet – (XLSX). Click Next.

• On the Select Excel File page, select the Excel file in which you filled in the data previously. Then click Next.

• Select a project you have previously created. Then click Next.

• Continue to Finish.
• Here are the results:

Next, you need to execute F9 (access the Tools -> Schedule…) so that the activity shifts according to its relation to form sequential tasks.

Also, read about How to Add Activities in Primavera.

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