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The following discusses each of these activity duration types in more depth:

1‐Fixed Duration & Units: This type of activity duration is used in Primavera P6 when the
duration and the amount of the resources are known and supposed to remain fixed in the
schedule. It is recommended that project planning and scheduling professionals use this duration
type for time‐ and budget‐ constrained projects prior to making schedule updates. The two
possibilities include the following:

 Option 1: Duration does not change when resources are added or removed, or if the user
changes Units/Time.
 Option 2: A change to the Duration will change the Units/Time; however, Units remains
unchanged.
2‐Fixed Duration & Units/Time: This type of activity duration is used in Primavera P6 when the
duration and resource performance are known and are supposed to remain fixed (i.e., unchanged)
in the schedule. In other words, activity durations remain unchanged in the schedule; however,
the remaining units change. If an activity is supposed to be completed within a certain, fixed time
frame irrespective of the number or amount of resources being assigned to the activity, this
activity duration type is the right choice that needs to be used for that activity. This activity
duration type is most often used if the user uses task dependent activities (not resource
dependent activities). The two possibilities include the following:
 Option 1: Duration does not change when resources are added or removed, or when
Units/Time changes.
 Option 2: A change to the Duration will change the Units; however, Units/Time remains
unchanged.
The use of this activity duration type locks the duration, and the default Units/Time (productivity)
values for each resource added. Nevertheless, this activity duration types allows the overall Unit
cost to increase when resources are assigned to the activity. It is recommended that project
planning and scheduling professionals use this duration type during the planning phase because
doing so will force Primavera P6 to honor activity duration estimates and increase the work (Units)
and, therefore, the budget, based on additional quantities of work performed (Units/Time).
It is important to note that this duration type disables the User Preferences, Calculations tab
option Recalculate the Units, Duration, and Units/Time for existing assignments based on the
activity types.
3‐Fixed Units: Primavera P6 users need to use this type of activity duration if the amount of work
needed to complete an activity (e.g., 8,000 bricks to be laid) is fixed. If this type of activity duration
is used, decreasing units per time causes the activity duration to increase; however, if the user
updates the duration or units per time, the Units remain unchanged. Increasing the resources
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Eng. Hussien Mostafa Ahmed

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