P6 Keyboard and Speed
Last reviewed 16 September 20267 min read
Doing the monthly update in half the time — the dozen habits that separate a two-day update from a four-day one
🟩 In one line: Speed in P6 comes from six things — saved layouts, Fill Down, pasting columns from Excel, Global Change on a copy, keyboard scheduling and never touching the mouse for navigation — not from typing faster; a planner who uses them does a 3,000-activity monthly update in two days with time left for the narrative.
👤 Who this is for: J. Prerequisites: p6-layouts-and-filters, statusing-a-schedule, quantity-tracking-and-physical-progress.
First, let's be honest about why this page exists
The monthly update has a hard deadline — data date plus 3–5 working days to submission. A planner who spends three of those days keying actual dates and percents one activity at a time has no time left to check the logic, write the narrative or look at the float trend. The update goes out on time and unread by its own author.
None of the techniques here are clever. Together they roughly halve the keying time, and the half that is saved is the half that makes the update worth reading.
🟨 The standard — what "good" looks like
| Source | What it asks for (paraphrased) | Why speed matters to it |
|---|---|---|
| Convention (monthly-update-checklist) | Full status, reschedule, review, narrative in 3–5 working days from DD | Keying must take ≤ 1 day of that |
| Convention (quantity-tracking-and-physical-progress) | Sheet is the source; P6 copies from it | Copying is a paste, not a retype |
| DCMA 14-Point | Checks on every update | Time must remain to run them |
| AACE RP 53R-06 | Update review compares to baseline and previous update | Same |
| GAO Schedule Assessment Guide, BP 9 | Updates reflect actual progress and are checked | Same |
🟢 Rule: status from the quantity sheet by paste, not by keyboard; every repeated view is a saved layout; every repeated edit is a Global Change on a copy; and the mouse is for bars, not for moving between cells.
How it actually works
1. Keys that are used every day
| Key | Does | Note |
|---|---|---|
| F9 | Schedule | Options dialog first; tick Log to file |
| Shift+F9 | Level resources | Rarely — never on a contractual update |
| F5 | Refresh | After Global Change or a colleague's edit on a shared DB |
| Insert | New activity below the selected one | Inherits WBS and defaults |
| Delete | Delete activity (with confirmation) | Dissolve is Edit → Dissolve — keeps the logic chain intact |
| Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V | Copy / paste activities, or cell values between rows | Copy carries logic, codes, resources |
| Ctrl+E | Fill Down — copies the top cell of a selection into the cells below | Calendar, code, % type, duration type, constraint clear — the biggest single saver |
| Ctrl+F / F3 | Find / find next | By ID or name |
| Ctrl+Z | Undo (limited depth; not after schedule) | Don't rely on it — work on a copy |
| Ctrl+A | Select all activities in view | Then Fill Down or Global Change |
| Arrow keys / Tab / Enter | Move between cells; Enter commits and moves down | Typing RDs down a column without the mouse |
| Ctrl+numpad +/− | Expand / collapse all groups | |
| Alt + letter | Menu access | Alt+T, S = Tools → Schedule |
Shortcuts vary slightly by version; check Help → Keyboard Shortcuts on the installed build.
2. Paste from Excel — the update in an hour
The activity table accepts pasted values into editable columns when the row order matches. Method:
- Layout 01 Update, sorted by Activity ID; export to Excel (File → Export → Spreadsheet, or copy the columns).
- The quantity sheet already carries Activity ID; VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP Physical %, Remaining Duration, Actual Start, Actual Finish onto the exported list in the same row order.
- Paste each column back into P6 (select the top cell of the column, Ctrl+V). Dates paste in the display format; set User Preferences date format to match the sheet.
- Spot-check ten activities against the sheet; F9; Schedule Comparison against last month.
Alternatively File → Import → Spreadsheet (XLS/XLSX) with the same columns — safer for large sets, and it reports rejected rows. Either way, actuals never get typed twice.
3. Fill Down — the second saver
Any column you would otherwise type the same value into repeatedly: select the range, Ctrl+E. Calendar on all curing activities; Physical % type on a received file; Subcontractor code on a package; clearing Expected Finish after completion. Sort or filter first so the range is contiguous and correct.
4. Global Change — for rules, on a copy
Global Change (Tools → Global Change) applies If/Then/Else rules across the project: set Area code from WBS, set duration type by activity type, clear constraints of a given type, copy Original to Remaining Duration on not-started activities after a baseline draft. Always: run on a Reflection or copy, review the report it produces, Schedule Comparison, then repeat on the live project only if clean. Save the specification (user-level) so next month it is one click.
5. Layouts and filters
Six layouts (p6-layouts-and-filters). Relative data-date filters so the look-ahead never needs editing. Layout 01 Update with the columns in the same order as the quantity sheet export — the paste then lines up without rearranging.
6. Renumbering, dissolving, moving
| Task | Fast way |
|---|---|
| Renumber IDs after a WBS change | Select activities → Edit → Renumber Activity IDs (prefix / increment / auto-number) — never by hand |
| Remove an activity but keep the chain | Edit → Dissolve — joins its predecessors to its successors |
| Move activities between WBS nodes | Cut/paste, or drag in the WBS column; Schedule Comparison after |
| Assign the same predecessor to many activities | Predecessors tab supports multi-select via Assign; or paste the relationship table from Excel through the import |
| Copy an activity chain to another floor | Copy the block, paste under the new node, Renumber, edit the floor code with Fill Down, re-point the inter-floor links |
7. Habits that save more than keys
- Data date and Schedule Options checked before the first F9, not after the third.
- Log to file on every schedule; read the log for loops and open ends before looking at dates.
- Reflection for anything you are not sure about; Merge only what you meant.
- Last month's narrative table pasted into this month's file on day one, then edited — the structure never changes.
- The Code QA layout run before every export, not after the client complains.
🟥 Where people go wrong
- Typing actuals one activity at a time. Three days of keying, no time to check. Quantity sheet → paste or spreadsheet import; an hour.
- Global Change straight on the live project. One wrong Else clause and every remaining duration is zero. Copy first, report, comparison, then live.
- Rebuilding the update view monthly. Saved layout 01, same column order as the sheet.
- Deleting instead of dissolving. Delete leaves the predecessors and successors unconnected — an open end each side. Dissolve keeps the chain.
- Relying on Undo. It is shallow, and it is unavailable after a schedule run. Copies and Reflections are the real undo.
- Renumbering IDs by hand. Typos, duplicates, an hour lost. Edit → Renumber Activity IDs.
⚖️ When you're challenged
"The update takes you four days. The last planner did it in two." The keying is the difference. Statusing from the quantity sheet by paste is about an hour for three thousand activities; the rest of day one is checking. That leaves days two and three for logic review, comparison and the narrative — which is where the two extra days used to go.
"You changed 400 calendars in one go. How do you know nothing else moved?" Global Change on a Reflection, its own report showing exactly the 400 rows, then Schedule Comparison against the live project showing zero date change before I merged. Both are archived with the update.
📄 Related pages
- P6 Layouts and Filters — the six layouts this page assumes
- Statusing a schedule — the entry sequence
- Quantity tracking and physical progress — the sheet that gets pasted
- P6 Global Change — the safe procedure in full
- P6 Reflections and What-If — the real undo
- Monthly update checklist — where the saved days go
✏️ Worked example
Monthly update, 3,100 activities, mid-rise in Dubai, before and after the habits above:
| Task | Before | After | Method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enter actual dates, Physical %, RDs (410 in-progress/completed activities) | 2.5 days | 1.5 hours | Sheet → XLOOKUP onto layout 01 export → paste / spreadsheet import |
| Clear Expected Finish on 38 completed activities | 30 min | 2 min | Filter, Fill Down |
| Correct calendar on 26 curing activities added by the site team | 40 min | 5 min | Filter, Fill Down, F9, comparison |
| Assign Change Ref and Subcontractor codes on 22 new VO activities | 45 min | 5 min | Fill Down |
| Build float, constraint, code-QA tables for the narrative | 3 hours | 20 min | Layouts 04, 05, 06; export |
| Total keying and table-building | ≈ 3.5 days | ≈ 0.5 day | — |
Time released: three days — spent on the logic review, the three-way forecast check and a narrative that was actually read.
📖 References
- AACE International RP 53R-06, Schedule Update Review – As Applied in Engineering, Procurement and Construction
- GAO Schedule Assessment Guide (GAO-16-89G), Best Practice 9
- DCMA 14-Point Schedule Assessment
- Oracle Primavera P6 Professional User Guide — Keyboard Shortcuts; Fill Down; Global Change; Renumber Activity IDs; Dissolve; Import/Export Spreadsheet (field labels and shortcuts per P6 Professional ~v20; verify against version in use)
From the field
Notes, corrections and additions from people who've done this on a real job. Everything is checked before it appears here.
Loading notes…
Checked before it appears. No client, project or employer names. Your name is shown; your email never is. Terms.