Primavera P6 Cloud Hosting: 3 Advantages That Actually Make Your Job Easier

Most companies don’t decide to move Primavera P6 to the cloud because they’re excited about cloud technology.

Usually, something happens first.

P6 starts out on one person’s computer. Then another scheduler needs access. Someone sends an XER file. Someone else makes an update. A project manager wants to see the schedule. Before long, there are several versions of the same schedule floating around.

Then, inevitably, someone asks:

“Which one is the current schedule?”

That’s when companies start looking at hosting.

And while backups and disaster recovery are certainly important, they aren’t the only reasons to consider hosting P6. In many cases, the biggest benefits are much more practical: less file swapping, less IT work, and easier access to the schedule.

Here are three advantages that can make a real difference.

1. Everyone Works From the Same Database

This is probably the biggest advantage of hosting P6.

With a traditional desktop setup, schedules often get passed around as XER files. One person exports the schedule, sends it to someone else, they make changes, and then send another version back.

It works—until it doesn’t.

Figure 1: Standalone manual XER file sharing compared to a centralized cloud database.

With a hosted P6 environment, the database is in one central location. Your schedulers and project team members are working from the same project data.

That means fewer duplicate files and much less confusion about which schedule is the latest version.

It also makes it easier for people in different locations to work together. Your superintendent can access the environment from the field trailer, the project manager can access it from the office, and an outside consultant can access the project when needed.

Everyone is working in the same environment instead of passing files back and forth.

2. You Don’t Have to Manage the Server

P6 Professional isn't just a program you install on a computer and forget about.

A properly configured P6 environment requires a database, updates, maintenance, backups, and someone who knows how to keep everything running.

For a company with a dedicated IT department, that may not be a big deal.

But what if you have two or three schedulers and don't have anyone dedicated to supporting P6?

Now you're asking your IT staff—or your schedulers—to deal with database issues, Windows updates, patches, connectivity problems, and upgrades.

And those problems have a habit of showing up at the worst possible time.

With a hosted environment, much of that responsibility is handled by the hosting provider. Updates and patches can be managed for you, and organizations with an active Oracle maintenance agreement can have access to version upgrades without having to make the upgrade itself another project.

There’s also a financial advantage.

Instead of purchasing and maintaining server infrastructure, you pay a predictable monthly fee based on the number of users. That can make sense for companies whose P6 requirements change from project to project.

3. Your Schedule Data Is Backed Up

Ask a scheduler what would happen if their computer stopped working tomorrow.

There’s usually a long pause before they answer.

That's because a P6 schedule isn't just another computer file.

Your baseline can represent the contractual plan for the project. Your monthly updates document what actually happened. And if you ever have a delay claim or schedule dispute, that historical schedule data can become very important.

Losing that information can create a much bigger problem than simply losing a computer.

A properly hosted environment provides regular backups so the schedule data isn't dependent on one person's desktop computer or someone's memory to make a backup.

For example, our hosted environment is backed up daily from U.S.-based Microsoft data centers.

That means you don't have to depend on someone remembering to export an XER file at the end of the day.

A Few Things to Consider Before You Move to the Cloud

Cloud hosting isn't automatically the right answer for every company. Here are a few things I'd recommend looking at before making the move:

• Don't automatically pay for P6 EPPM. If your team primarily uses the P6 Professional desktop client and doesn't need browser or Team Member access, hosted P6 Professional may be the simpler and less expensive option.
• Ask about a test database. Having a separate environment where you can test changes, experiment with a baseline, or try an upgrade without affecting the live project can be extremely useful.
• Understand your Oracle maintenance agreement. If you're expecting annual version upgrades to be included, find out whether your Oracle maintenance agreement is active and what it covers.
• Ask how you get your data back. This is an important question that sometimes gets overlooked. You should always know how your P6 data can be exported or retrieved if you ever decide to change hosting providers.

The Bottom Line

The biggest benefit of hosting Primavera P6 isn't really the cloud itself.

It's what the cloud eliminates.

You have one shared database instead of a collection of XER files. You don't have to maintain the server yourself. And your schedule data is backed up without someone having to remember to do it.

For some companies, keeping P6 in-house makes perfect sense. If you have strong internal IT support and a small team working from one location, your existing setup may work just fine.

But if your schedulers, project managers, and consultants are spread across different locations—and your schedule data is important to the project—hosting can make the entire P6 environment easier to manage.