Monthly update checklist
Last reviewed 9 September 20262,028 words9 min read
The printable one-pager
🟩 In one line Everything on the statusing-a-schedule page, boiled down to a list you can tick. Print it, pin it above the desk, and don't submit until every box is done. Most rejected updates fail on something in the first ten lines.
👤 Who this is for Everyone who issues a monthly update. Junior planners as a process. Mid-level planners as a safety net on the day the PM is standing behind you. Senior planners and reviewers as the list of things to check on someone else's file.
Why a checklist, when there's a whole page on the process
Because the process page is for understanding, and understanding doesn't help at 6pm on submission day when the PM wants the report and you can't remember whether you checked the scheduling options.
Checklists work because they don't depend on you being sharp. The same fifteen things go wrong on every project, in every country, at every level of experience. The list catches them mechanically. It's not there because you're junior. It's there because you're human and it's the 25th.
Adapt it. Add the client's specific requirements. Delete what doesn't apply. But don't skip lines because they seem obvious — the obvious ones are the ones that get missed.
🟨 The checklist
Split into the same four phases as the statusing page. Right-hand column tells you where in P6 or what to look at, so a new planner can run it unaided.
Phase 1 — Before opening the file
| ✓ | Check | Where / how |
|---|---|---|
| ☐ | Last month's file saved as a separate copy, named with its data date | File → Export → XER; e.g. Proj_2025-02-25.xer |
| ☐ | This month's cut-off date and time confirmed against the spec | Contract / client schedule specification |
| ☐ | Progress sheets received from every discipline and subcontractor | Progress tracker — one line per open activity |
| ☐ | Progress sheets ask for dates and remaining days, not just % | Check the template before it goes out |
| ☐ | Optimistic entries challenged with the person who gave them | Anything unchanged from last month; anything >90% |
| ☐ | Procurement and engineering statuses collected, not just site | PO log, submittal log, drawing register |
| ☐ | Any variations, instructions or delay events this period listed | Correspondence log — these need fragnets or a note |
Phase 2 — Entering progress (data date still the old one)
| ✓ | Check | Where / how |
|---|---|---|
| ☐ | Actual starts entered for everything that started | Activity → Status tab |
| ☐ | Actual finishes entered for everything that finished | Activity → Status tab |
| ☐ | Remaining duration set to 0 on every finished activity | Filter: Actual Finish not blank AND Remaining Duration > 0 |
| ☐ | Remaining durations entered for all in-progress work | From the progress sheet — days, not % |
| ☐ | Physical % entered separately where % type is Physical | Activity → Status tab |
| ☐ | No actual dates later than the cut-off | Filter: Actual Start or Actual Finish > cut-off |
| ☐ | No unstarted activity left with an early start before the cut-off | These will move when you schedule — know which ones |
| ☐ | Out-of-sequence activities identified and each one decided: fix logic or leave and note | Filter after a trial F9, or Schedule Log |
| ☐ | Every logic change, duration change, added or deleted activity written in the change log with a reason | Change log — spreadsheet or Notebook topic |
Phase 3 — Schedule and verify
| ✓ | Check | Where / how |
|---|---|---|
| ☐ | Scheduling options unchanged from last month: Retained Logic, float definition, lag calendar | Tools → Schedule → Options |
| ☐ | Data date set to the cut-off, correct time of day | Tools → Schedule, Data Date field |
| ☐ | F9 run | — |
| ☐ | Schedule log read: no actual dates after data date | Tools → Schedule → View Log |
| ☐ | Schedule log read: no new open ends | Same |
| ☐ | Schedule log read: out-of-sequence list matches what you decided in Phase 2 | Same |
| ☐ | Schedule log read: constraints — none added or removed without a logged reason | Same; compare count to last month |
| ☐ | No activity with remaining duration scheduled before the data date | Filter: Early Start < data date AND Remaining Duration > 0 — should be empty |
| ☐ | Schedule Comparison run against last month's file | Tools → Schedule Comparison |
| ☐ | Every non-progress difference in the comparison appears in the change log | Comparison report vs change log — they should match |
| ☐ | Calendars unchanged (or change logged and explained) | Enterprise → Calendars; comparison report |
| ☐ | Baseline assignment still correct — comparing to the approved baseline | Project → Assign Baselines |
Phase 4 — Read, write, issue
| ✓ | Check | Where / how |
|---|---|---|
| ☐ | Forecast finish noted, and the change from last month explained by named activities | Milestone layout; comparison report |
| ☐ | Every contractual milestone: forecast vs contract date, variance, direction of travel | Milestone table for the report |
| ☐ | Longest path reviewed — has it moved to a different chain? Why? | Filter: Longest Path; compare to last month |
| ☐ | Near-critical paths (float ≤ 10 days) reviewed for next month's risks | Filter: TF between 0 and 10, not on longest path |
| ☐ | Negative float — every instance explained, with the driving constraint identified | Filter: TF < 0; note which constraint |
| ☐ | Delay events this period reflected — fragnet, note, or at minimum a narrative line with the notice reference | Correspondence log |
| ☐ | S-curves and histograms regenerated from this file, not last month's | Export → Excel / reporting tool |
| ☐ | Narrative written: progress, forecast, drivers, changes to the file, decisions needed | schedule-narrative page |
| ☐ | Layouts printed match the spec — Level 1 summary, milestones, critical path, 3-month look-ahead as required | Client specification |
| ☐ | XER exported from the final scheduled file, opened once to confirm it imports cleanly | File → Export; test import to a blank EPS node |
| ☐ | Submission package named with data date and revision | e.g. Proj_Update_2025-03-25_R0 |
| ☐ | Final file saved and locked; working copy separated for next month | Never update over the submitted file |
🟥 The lines most often skipped — and what it costs
"Scheduling options unchanged." Skipped because it's never changed before. The one month someone ran a what-if, the forecast moves three weeks and nobody can say why. Ten seconds to check.
"Remaining duration zero on finished activities." Skipped because entering an actual finish feels like it should do this. It doesn't always, depending on % type and what order you typed things in. A finished activity with 3 days remaining will push its successors forward and show as in-progress on the look-ahead.
"Comparison report matches the change log." Skipped because the change log is honest and you know what you changed. Then the comparison shows a duration change you don't remember — because a colleague opened the file for five minutes. This line is how you find out before the client does.
"XER opened once to confirm it imports." Skipped because export always works. Until the month it doesn't — a corrupted calendar reference, a global code that doesn't exist on the client's database — and the client can't open your submission on the due date. Two minutes.
"Baseline assignment still correct." Skipped because it was set at approval. Then someone assigns a what-if as the project baseline, every variance in the report is measured against the wrong thing, and the client's reviewer notices the baseline dates don't match the approved programme.
⚖️ When you're challenged
"Do you really need to do all this every month?" "The first three phases, yes — that's the update. Phase 4 is the report, and the spec requires it anyway. Skipping lines is how updates get rejected, and a rejected update takes longer than the checklist."
"The client only looks at the milestone table. Why the comparison report?" "Because the client's planner runs their own comparison on our XER every month, and if they find changes we haven't explained, the milestone table stops being believed."
"I don't have time. The PM wants it now." "I can give the PM the milestone table and forecast finish from the scheduled file in ten minutes — that's the answer they need. The full package follows once the checks are done. What I won't do is submit to the client unchecked, because a rejection costs us a week."
📄 Related pages
- Statusing a schedule — the long version of Phases 1–4
- Data date — why it's the last thing you set in Phase 3
- Retained logic vs progress override — the first line of Phase 3
- Out-of-sequence progress — the decision in Phase 2
- P6 Schedule Comparison — how to run and read the comparison report
- Schedule Narrative — what goes in the write-up
- Monthly Progress Report — the full package
- Template monthly update checklist — this list as a downloadable sheet
✏️ Worked example — what the checklist caught
A real pattern, anonymised. Mid-size building project, Abu Dhabi, month 9.
The update was done, the forecast looked stable, and the planner was about to export. Running Phase 3:
- Scheduling options — fine.
- Schedule log, actual dates after data date — one. A subcontractor had reported a finish on the 26th; the cut-off was the 25th. Corrected to a remaining duration of 1 day.
- Schedule log, open ends — two new ones. Two activities added for a variation the week before had been given predecessors but no successors. Both showed 140 days float. Linked to the relevant handover milestone; float dropped to 11 days. Both now appeared on the near-critical list.
- Comparison report vs change log — one unexplained item. An activity's original duration had gone from 15 to 10 days. Nobody had logged it. Turned out the project engineer had opened the file to "check something" and changed it, believing the activity was over-estimated. Reverted; conversation had; access reviewed.
- Baseline assignment — correct.
Three problems, none of them visible in the forecast finish, all of them things the client's reviewer would have found. Total time to run the phase: about forty minutes. Time saved: a rejected submission and a difficult call.
The variation activities, incidentally, went on to drive the critical path two months later. Because they'd been linked properly in month 9, the change was visible coming — and the notice went in on time.
📖 References
- AACE International, RP 53R-06, Schedule Update Review
- DCMA, 14-Point Schedule Assessment — Metrics 1, 3, 4, 8, 10, 11
- NEC4 ECC — Cl. 32.1 (contents of a revised programme)
- FIDIC Red Book 2017 — Cl. 8.3 (revised programme and supporting report)
- Oracle, P6 Professional User's Guide — "Schedule Log"; "Schedule Comparison"
From the field
Experience from working planners. Unreviewed — read it as experience, not guidance.
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