Articles
Guides and how-tos for XER Reader: opening Primavera P6 and Microsoft Project schedules, customising columns and the Gantt chart, filtering and grouping activities, reading the resource and analysis views, checking schedule quality, and exporting or sharing a schedule. The application works the same on Windows, macOS and in the browser, so every article applies wherever you use it.
Getting Started & Core Fundamentals
- How to Open Primavera P6 (.xer, .xml) and MS Project (.mpp) Files: Step-by-step instructions to open schedules via the File menu, drag-and-drop, and Recent Files list in XER Reader.
- How to Navigate the Primary Interface: Toolbars, Panels, and Schedule Views: A visual guide to XER Reader navigation: the top Ribbon toolbar, 6 core schedule views, contextual view tools, and collapsible dock panels.
- How to Open and Switch Between Multiple Schedule Files: Instructions on using the Recent Files menu and switching projects between XER, MPP, and XML files.
- How to Open an XER File That Contains Multiple Projects: Handle a multi project XER file with the Project Options dialog, including loading only the activities that link to another project.
- How to Find Activities in Large Schedules (Find & Search): Learn how to locate activities instantly by ID, Name, or date across schedules with tens of thousands of tasks using XER Reader native Find tool.
Layouts, Gantt Customization & Views
- How to Customize Activity Columns and Data Fields: Step-by-step guide to adding, removing, and reordering data columns in the XER Reader activity table.
- How to Adjust Gantt Timescales, Zoom Levels, and Timeline Units: Learn how to configure Gantt chart timescale tiers, adjust zoom levels, and customize timeline units from multi-year overviews down to daily and hourly granularity in XER Reader.
- How to Configure Gantt Bar Styles, Progress Fills, and Activity Labels: A complete guide to configuring Gantt bar styles, progress completion fills, and activity text labels in XER Reader.
- How to Configure Gantt Display Settings, Relationship Lines, and Link Highlighting: A complete guide to configuring Gantt display options, non-working day highlighting, relationship line visibility rules, link colors, and interactive hover tracing in XER Reader.
- How to Create, Save, and Export Workspace Layouts: Learn how to save custom column configurations, filters, and Gantt settings into reusable layout files.
Filtering, Grouping & Organising Data
- How to Filter a Schedule by WBS: The WBS Filter restricts the activity table and the Gantt chart to one branch of the Work Breakdown Structure.
- How to Apply Built-in Activity Filters: Four supplied filters are available on the Filter button of the Views tab.
- How to Save and Manage Custom Filters: An expression filter built on the activity table can be named and reused.
- How to Filter and Sort on a Column: Every column header carries its own filter and sort, applied to that column only.
- How to Group Activities by WBS, Activity Codes and Dates: Grouping gathers activities into collapsible group rows.
- How to Expand and Collapse Grouped Activities: The Tree button expands and collapses the grouped hierarchy across the whole schedule.
- How to Copy Schedule Data to a Spreadsheet: Copy places the selected activities on the clipboard in a form that pastes into a spreadsheet.
The Activity Details Panel
- How to Open the Activity Details Panel and View General Details: Learn how to open the Activity Details panel in XER Reader and inspect key properties on the General tab, including activity name, schedule dates, and activity type.
- How to Trace Predecessors and Successors: The Relationship tab shows the logic around the selected activity in two tables.
- How to See an Activity's Assigned Resources: The Resources tab lists the resources assigned to the selected activity. The Resources tab covers one activity at a time.
- How to Read Activity Code Values: The Codes tab lists the activity code values assigned to the selected activity.
Resource & Analysis Views
- How to Use the Resource Assignment View: See activities grouped by the resource assigned to them, with budgeted and remaining units spread across a time scale you control.
- How to Read the Resource Usage Spreadsheet: The units grid beside the activity table: what each cell means, how to select a block across periods, and how to get the numbers into a spreadsheet.
- How to Read the Network Diagram: See the schedule as a logic network: early and late dates on every box, the critical path as a red run, and one click to trace what drives an activity.
- How to Read the S-Curve: Cumulative planned against actual progress, weighted by planned hours. What the Planned, Actual and SV figures are measured at, and what the curves leave out.
- How to Use the Activity and Resource Calendars: Put the schedule on a calendar in day, week or month form, and use the unlabelled per resource day layout that answers who is committed when.
Schedule Quality & Data Tools
- How to Run the Schedule Analyzer: Run 19 schedule quality checks against an open project, read the score and the cards behind it, tune the thresholds, and export the report that names the failing activities.
- How to Query a Schedule with SQL: Run SQL against the converted P6 tables, join and group the data, chart the result, and understand which tables refuse to be written.
- How to Assign and Manage Baselines: Assign one project as another's baseline, understand which of the four slots the Schedule Analyzer actually reads, and how baseline activities are matched.
Export, Sharing & BI
- How to Export Schedule Data: On the Share tab, Export writes schedule data to a file.
- How to Export a Schedule to PDF: Export to Pdf on the Views tab opens a print preview rather than writing a file immediately.
- How to Share a Schedule as a Link: On the Share tab, Share publishes a schedule as a link that opens in a browser with nothing installed.
- How to Connect a BI Tool with BI Connect: Expose a project database as a REST API, query it with SQL from Power BI or Google Sheets, and manage the token that authenticates every connection.
Preferences & Account
- How to Set Date, Number and Code Format Preferences: Compose the date format from its parts, choose the decimal symbol, and decide whether activity codes read as short or long values.
- How to Change the Theme and Interface Scale: Set the application to follow the system theme or force light or dark, and scale the whole interface between 80 and 170 percent.
- How to Set the Time Unit and Duration Abbreviations: Choose the unit durations and units are reported in, decide whether the calendar or a fixed conversion supplies the hours, and set the abbreviations.
- How to Set the Columns, Grouping and Baseline Tags a File Opens With: Decide which columns and which grouping every new file opens with, per file format, and rename the four baseline tags.