Kinley Toolkit Improves Deltek Cobra Integration with Primavera P6

Deltek Cobra is a leading Earned Value Management (EVM) application that can integrate with scheduling tools including Oracle Primavera P6. Deltek Cobra has an Integration Wizard to do this that can be ran unattended if necessary, lending itself to being part of an automated workflow.

When working with Primavera P6, the Deltek Cobra Integration Wizard provides the following functionality:

• Pull structures such as Activity Codes, Resource Breakdown Structure and the Work Breakdown Structure from Primavera P6.
• Create and update Control Accounts and Work Packages in Cobra from the data held in Primavera P6.
• Create and update the Cobre Baseline from the Primavera P6 data.
• Update Cobra status and estimated dates from the activities in the Primavera P6 project plan.

Integration Shortcomings

On paper the capabilities look really good, and they mostly are, but there are some challenges that mean configuring Deltek Cobra to work with Primavera P6 will usually require some compromises.

Some of the limitations that Kinley’s clients have highlighted regarding the Integration with Primavera P6 include:

• having to select a Project or Enterprise Project Structure node to pull data from Primavera P6 Activity Codes into a Deltek Cobra Structure or Code.
• only spend time processing what is needed. Choosing the option to just bring in the Control Account and Work Package structure and dates from Primavera P6 does not need to spend considerable time retrieving the budget data. Unfortunately Cobra always makes that call extending the processing time considerably.
• the routine to extract budget and forecast units and dollars takes longer than it should because it is inefficient.
• the Integration Wizard can only use the Primavera API in local mode, even though the use of the Primavera Integration Server would be faster.
• the Integration Wizard can’t handle a Primavera Project Id that contains spaces, which is what Primavera P6 Baselines are created with such as “olympics – B1”.
• the Integration Wizard can’t pull data from a Primavera P6 Baseline.

Kinley Toolkit

Kinley Consulting are pleased to announce a toolkit that improves our clients efficiency and effectiveness when using these applications to help manage their projects.

Today we have released the first part of that toolkit which addresses some of the concerns our clients have with the Integration Wizard in Deltek Cobra. It is a drop-in replacement for the Primavera API integration. Simply copying it over the existing Deltek Supplied integration will do the same as the Deltek Cobra integration, but with many improvements.

• It is faster than Deltek’s offering because it is more efficient – producing the same output in less time.
• It can handle Primavera Project Id’s that contain spaces.
• It can pull data from a Primavera Baseline.
• It can be configured to use the Primavera Integration Server and make use of the performance boost it offers as well.

To put this together, we discovered what the Deltek Integration created and also how it created it. This will be the subject of another article.

If you want to make use of our toolkit, please get in touch with us here at Kinley Consulting and we will be able to serve you here in the UK or through our partners in the USA and other countries