Importing your Master Schedule (XML)

Things to know before you start:

• Aphex supports .XML formatting for your Master Schedule

• You must be a Project Admin to run an import

• Your Organisation must be on the Pro, Pro+ or Enterprise Plan

If you’d like to connect your Master Schedule in P6 or MS Project to your Aphex project, then this guide is for you!

We'll cover what file you'll need, how to get your data into Aphex, and how to allocate the imported tasks to your team. We also have an example import file if you'd like to do a dummy run first.

Preparing your Master Schedule

Importing your Master Schedule

Distributing Work to the Team

Preparing your Master Schedule

Before importing your Master Schedule, you’ll need to create your .XML file first. To save time, you can pre-assign some information to tasks in your Master Schedule, such as Location, Owner and Subcontractor. You can also choose what activities you'd like to bring in by creating a UDF. These are optional steps.

Filter (Optional)

UDFs allow you to filter to the specific data you want to import into Aphex:

• In your master schedule, create a User Defined Field (you might want to name this something straightforward: Aphex Filter)

• In this UDF assign a consistent value against the activities you would like to import and ones you would not (this could simply be "Yes" and "No")

Project Assets (Optional)

Save time during your import by including Owners and Project Assets in your import file.

You can add the email address of the user’s you’d like to assign imported work to automatically, and the subcontractor and location of each task.

• Create a UDF for each attribute (i.e. Subcontractor, Location and Owner) you wish to pre-populate.

• Name each UDF something memorable, like “Aphex Subcontractor”.

• In each UDF (eg. Subcontractor or Location), insert the field (Subcontractor, location etc.) for each activity. This should be consistent with the name in your Aphex project (if not, Aphex will create a new one)

• In the Owner UDF, insert the email address of the activity’s owner. Check that this matches the email address the team member uses for Aphex. If not, the address entered will receive an invite to join the project.

Create your Import File

Your .xml file will need to be formatted correctly to be imported into Aphex. Our supported tools each have guides on how to do this if you get stuck:

• Primavera P6
• Microsoft Project
• Asta Powerproject

Importing your Master Schedule

Great! You've exported your .XML import file. Let's begin the import process.

Please note that you will only see the steps that apply to your Import. If your Import doesn't contain Unsupported Task Types, Driving Predecessors, Actual Dates or Milestones, it will skip these steps.

1

Upload

• Click the Aphex icon in the top left, above the Gantt

• Click Master Schedule Imports

• From the Master Schedule Imports page, click Import and select the .XML file you'd like to upload

2

Filter [Optional]

If you created a UDF filter in your master schedule, select the UDF and value from the two drop-down lists.

3

Timeframe

Select the timeframe of data that you’d like to import. You can see the number of tasks each timeframe will import from your .XML file.

4

Check Unsupported Task Types

If your Import file contains WBS Summaries or Level of Effort (LoE) Tasks, you can choose how to handle these tasks.

For WBS Summaries, you can choose to:

• Ignore them from the import so they will be excluded.

• Import as Tasks. If imported, WBS summaries will convert to Task Dependant types.

For Level of Effort (LoE) Tasks you can select from:

• Ignore all LoE tasks and these will not be imported (this is the recommended option)

• Import LoE tasks as task dependant types without links

• Import LoE tasks as task dependant types with links - Selecting this option may cause variance in your import

5

Check Driving Predecessors

There may be some Tasks that are being driven by Tasks outside of your import dates. This can sometimes result in variance. The decisions for this step include:

For Driving Predecessor Tasks, you can choose to:

• Add missing Tasks to the import scope (this is the recommended option)

• Remove non-driving Links between selected Tasks.

• Do nothing

For Driving Predecessors Level of Effort Tasks you can select from:

• Remove non-driving Links between selected Tasks (this is the recommended option)

• Add missing Tasks to the import scope

• Do nothing

6

Handle Actual Dates

Aphex uses Task Status to define a Task state & scheduling behaviour. Decide how you would like to handle tasks with Actual Dates.

For Actual Starts, you can choose to:

• Import without Predecessor Links (this is the recommended option)

• Import with Predecessor Links

For Actual Finishes you can select from:

• Set Task Status to Done (this is the recommended option)

• Do nothing

7

Set Target Dates from Milestones

Choose whether to set Target Dates when importing Milestones in Aphex. Options include:

• Set Milestone Target Date from the imported Dates

• Do nothing

Target Dates will be automatically set as the date of the Milestone when it is imported. This can be changed once the Milestone has been imported.

8

Map Task Properties [Optional]

• To import your current WBS into your Project's Folder tree, select the WBS option from the Folder Code drop-down list.

• If you've chosen to pre-assign project assets, you’ll need to select the correct field on each drop-down list so that Aphex can correctly map your UDFs to your imported activities.

Only data associated with activities you are importing will be included. i.e Folder codes unrelated to any imported activities will not be brought into Aphex.

9

Review and Import

The final import page summarises the data you will be importing, including the number of tasks, Folder codes, Owner, Subcontractors, Locations, Notes and Calendars.

This will also be where you can see if there were any Tasks or Properties that were skipped.

Once you’re happy with your options, click Finish Import to import your Master Schedule.

Distributing Work to the Team

Before your newly imported work appears on the Gantt, your next step is to distribute tasks to the team. Then, once tasks have been assigned to an owner, the user will be notified that they have newly imported work waiting for them to add to the plan.

Here's how to allocate activities to the users responsible:

• Click the Aphex icon in the top left, above the Gantt

• Click Master Schedule Imports, then navigate to the Project Data page using the side-menu

• Open the Unassigned tab

• Select an owner for each task with the drop-down menu

• Click Move Tasks to Backlog

You can bulk assign Tasks to one user by selecting multiple Tasks, then using the multi-select menu to assign a User to the selected Tasks

Adding Imported Tasks to the Gantt

If you're a user who has been assigned new tasks from an import, they'll appear in your Backlog. All you need to do is pull them onto the Gantt:

• Click the Aphex icon in the top left, above the Gantt

• Click Master Schedule Imports, then navigate to the Project Data page using the side-menu

• Open the Backlog tab

• Click Move Tasks to Gantt

Running a Test Import

If this is your first time running an import, we'd recommend running a test import using our example file on a sandpit project to help you get the hang of things.

Example XML File

Example Location