How to solve the problem of changing Resources units when importing Primavera P6 XER file

Introduction

Sometimes we find when importing an XER file that the resources units are different from if the XER file was imported to another computer, even though the costs remain the same. to solve this issue we must first understand the settings that impacts the resources units.

Understanding Time Units

Resources units in primavera are basically Time (Hour, Day, Week, Month, Year). for example, When we assign a labor or non labor resource to an activity with 100 Budgeted units, primavera understands that this activity needs this resource to work for 100 (Hour, Day, Week, Month, Year). The Question Here is how to specify the time unit.

Specifying the Time Unit

As Shown above, under the user preferences tab, The time units setting can be changed to Hour, Day, Week, Month, or Year. So if the time unit is hour then the 100 budgeted units are 100 hour and if the time unit is day then the 100 budgeted units are 100 day.

Understanding the Behavior

Now lets talk about a certain situation, the contractor completed the schedule update and send it to the engineer. The Engineer noticed that the budgeted units are wrong yet the contractor confirms that its correct. Most Probably the time unit on the engineer computer is different than the contractor (See Example below).

Activity A budgeted units (Contractor) = 100

Activity A budgeted units (Engineer) = 12.5

The above issue occurred because the contractor's time unit setting is hour while the engineer is day (100 hour / 8 hours/day = 12.5 days)