Operational reporting in P6 EPPM covers the day-to-day reports used by project managers, resource managers, and other tactical personnel. When using operational reporting, you must consider the scheduling and delivery of reports. The combination of the spread data persistence in the P6 EPPM schema and the reporting tool (BI Publisher) addresses the scheduling, execution, and delivery of the reports. On a day-to-day basis, the reporting load will be fairly consistent. You need to consider the following:
- When will reports run? Users may need to execute on demand or they may need reports prior to the start of the work day. These considerations will affect the timeliness of the data. You can run a report one or more times per day and limit the duration of each run (which is proportional to the data volume and date range selected by the users).
- How will reports be delivered? You must get the right reports to users at the right time. BI Publisher offers multiple ways to deliver reports from the P6 EPPM Extended Schema. These include email, HTTP, WEBDAV, and direct printing. You must consider the logistics of setting up these delivery methods during the planning process. Moreover, there are leading third-party reporting tools that can be utilized to generate and deliver the reports.
Note: The BI Server component is capable of robust caching of query results, which can mitigate performance concerns. The effectiveness of caching depends on how much users share security. If project access of every user is distinct (including the level of access to cost fields) then the cache will only be effective for each user individually.