How to Use Filter Option to Prepare Look Ahead Schedule

Before proceeding further with the FILTER option, we will look into LOOK AHEAD SCHEDULE which is a common report required in planning.

LOOK AHEAD SCHEDULE is the list of activities in a schedule which will take place in the near future say one week, two weeks, one month or so. The time period varies from project to project and cleint to client. But the idea in creating look ahead schedule is same whatever be the time contraint.

Let’s understand the conditions that should be considered while preparing a 2 week look ahead schedule one by one.

1. Activity shouldn’t be completed – Normally, completed activities are not shown on the look ahead schedule since it has less significance in forecast.


2. Start date of the activity should be within the range of 2 weeks from the Data date. (Data date is the current date or the last updated date of the schedule)


3. Finish date of the activity should be within the range of 2 weeks from the Data date.


4. Activity should be in progress.

Please go through the above conditions once again before we proceed how to enter them in Primavera P6.

If look into the below slide you can see there are some activities which are 100% completed, some of them 0% and some other are in progress.

Now let’ s apply the look ahead conditions which were mentioned above.

Step 1 – Go to filter option and click on ‘ NEW’ tab

Step 2 – Name the filter. In this case, let’s put it 2 week look ahead. Make sure that the parameter (which is highlighted in blue in the below slide) be ‘ All of the following’

Step 3 – Select ‘Activity status’ in the ‘parameter’ column, ‘is not equal to’ in the ‘is’ column, ‘Completed’ in the ‘Value’ column. Now we have completed the first condition ie activity shouldn’t be a completed one

Step 4 – Click on ‘ADD’ tab and this time give ‘Any of the following’ in the ‘Parameter’ column. Click on ‘ADD’ tab again and enter the other conditions also. Select ‘Start’ & ‘is within the range of’ in the ‘Parameter’ and ‘ Is’ column respectively and type ‘DD-1W’ and ‘DD+2W’ in the ‘Value’ and ‘High Value’ columns. Here DD stands for Data Date and 1W stands for 1 Week; which means we are taking the selecting the activities whose start dates are in the range of 1 week behind the Data Date and 2 weeks ahead of Data Date.

Click again on ‘ADD’ tab and provide the following conditions.

1. ‘Finish’ in ‘Parameter’ column , ‘ is within range of’ in ‘is’ column, ‘DD-1W’ in ‘Value column’ & ‘DD+2W’ in ‘ High Value’ column.


2. ‘Activity Status’ in ‘Parameter’ column, ‘equals’ in ‘Is’ column, ‘In progress’ in Value column.

Hope you would be thinking why we gave ‘Any of the following’ condition here. The reason is, if any of the activity whose start date or finish date is within the range of DD-1W and DD+2W will fall into our look ahead schedule.

Step 5 – Click ‘OK’ tab and see the new filter has been made as 2 week look ahead and it is marked.

Step 6 – Click ‘Apply’ tab. Now you can see that the activities which were 100% completed have been removed and all the activities listed are within the range of 2 weeks time. Please note the activity ‘ Multipurpose hall’ is still in the list since it is not yet completed even though the start date was 2^nd July 2013.

Thanks to paul zacharia who prepared this article.

How to Use Filter Option to Prepare Look Ahead Schedule