The Activity Usage Profile

Use the Activity Usage Profile to view cost or unit values for activities in the open project over time according to a timescale you specify. The Activity Usage Profile displays resource allocations for all activities or for the activities you select in the Activity Table, Activity Usage Spreadsheet, Gantt Chart, or the Activity Network.

The Activity Usage Profile can display labor, nonlabor, material, and expense costs and labor and nonlabor units allocated to the activities in your project over time. Costs and units allocated to activities for each period in the timescale are represented as vertical bars. You can also display curves for charting cumulative costs or units over time.

You can customize the Activity Usage Profile to:

Specify the type of information you want to display, including showing labels with the values of each bar.
Change the timescale.
Customize the bars and background.
Display past period actual or actual to date values.
Display unit and cost values by both remaining early and remaining late dates.
Save any of these changes so that you can always access the same set of activity information, or share your Activity Usage Profile with someone else.

You can filter the Activity Usage Profile to include all activities displayed in the top layout, or to include only the activities you select in the top layout. You can also filter the top layout to display only those activities that correspond to the timeperiod you select in the bottom layout.

Tip

If you apply activity filters to the Activity Table, Gantt Chart, Activity Usage Spreadsheet, or the Activity Network, these filters also apply to the Activity Usage Profile.
When you display a financial period timescale and display data for all projects (rather than for open projects only), activity and resource data must be summarized by financial period to accurately display data for closed projects.
When connected to a P6 Professional database: If you have administrator rights, to ensure that activity and resource data is summarized by financial period when you summarize projects, choose Admin, Admin Preferences, select the Options tab, then mark the 'By financial periods' checkbox.
When connected to a P6 EPPM database: If you have administrator rights, to ensure that activity and resource data is summarized by financial period when you summarize projects, use the Application Settings, General link in P6, then mark the 'By financial periods' checkbox.
The Planned Value Cost and Earned Value Cost curves may display different values in the profile, even if the total Planned Value Cost and Earned Value Cost values are the same in Activity Table columns. This occurs when an activity has an expense with an Accrual Type of Start of Activity or End of Activity (rather than Uniform over Activity). Since these are one-time expenses, and the planned value and earned value curves are cumulative (representing total values spread over time), the planned value spread is different than the earned value spread, even though the total values are the same.

Last Published Thursday, October 9, 2025