This course equips planning engineers with the skills to transform project schedules, progress updates, cost records, and resource data into interactive Power BI reports. Participants learn to prepare project data, build reliable data models, develop calculations, and visualize information that supports project monitoring and decision-making.

The course covers planned versus actual progress, S-curves, milestone tracking, earned value indicators, resource utilization, and management reporting. It uses structured Excel and CSV exports from planning tools such as Primavera P6 and Microsoft Project. Power BI supports analysis and reporting, while schedule development and critical path calculations remain within the scheduling application.

 

Duration 5 Days – 35 hrs.

 

Objectives

• Import and consolidate schedule, progress, cost, and resource data from structured project exports.
• Clean and transform project information using Power Query.
• Build data models that connect projects, activities, work breakdown structures, dates, and reporting periods.
• Create DAX calculations for progress, variances, cumulative trends, and project performance indicators.
• Develop interactive reports for schedule, cost, resource, and milestone monitoring.
• Produce planned versus actual progress curves using consistent reporting dates and weighting rules.
• Calculate and interpret earned value indicators using suitable project data.
• Configure report navigation, filters, and drill-through pages for different stakeholders.
• Prepare reports for publishing, controlled sharing, and repeatable data refresh.
• Build an integrated project controls report through a capstone project.

  

Target Audience 

• Planning engineers and scheduling engineers.
• Project controls engineers and analysts.
• Project engineers and project coordinators.
• Cost engineers and cost controllers.
• Construction managers and project managers.
• PMO staff and project reporting specialists.
• Engineering professionals responsible for progress monitoring and performance reporting.

 

Prerequisites

• Basic understanding of project planning, scheduling, and progress reporting.
• Familiarity with work breakdown structures, activities, milestones, baselines, and reporting dates.
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Excel, including tables, formulas, sorting, and filtering.
• Basic awareness of project budgets, actual costs, and resource records.
• Familiarity with Primavera P6 or Microsoft Project is helpful but not mandatory.
• No previous Power BI or programming experience is required.
• Access to a Windows computer with Power BI Desktop installed.
• Access to a suitable Power BI service account and workspace permissions for publishing and sharing activities.

Course Outline 

Day 1: Power BI Foundations and Project Data Preparation

Module 1: Power BI for Planning and Project Controls

• Power BI Desktop and the Power BI service.
• Reports, dashboards, and semantic models.
• Planning and project controls reporting requirements.
• Translating stakeholder questions into reporting indicators.
• Understanding the relationship between scheduling tools and Power BI.

 Module 2: Understanding and Importing Project Data

• Schedule, progress, cost, and resource data sources.
• Preparing Excel and CSV exports from Primavera P6 and Microsoft Project.
• Identifying project IDs, activity IDs, WBS codes, and reporting dates.
• Distinguishing baseline, current, and historical records.
• Importing individual files and combining periodic files from folders.

 Module 3: Cleaning and Transforming Data with Power Query

• Setting data types and standardizing field names.
• Handling missing values, errors, and duplicate records.
• Splitting, merging, pivoting, and unpivoting columns.
• Appending progress updates and merging reference tables.
• Building repeatable transformations for future reporting cycles.

 

Day 2: Data Modeling and DAX for Project Reporting

Module 4: Building a Reliable Project Data Model

• Fact tables, dimension tables, and star schema principles.
• Defining the level of detail for each data table.
• Creating project, activity, WBS, resource, and date dimensions.
• Establishing relationships and appropriate filter directions.
• Modeling historical reporting snapshots without double counting.
• Handling baseline, planned, actual, and forecast dates.

 Module 5: DAX Fundamentals for Planning Engineers

• Measures and calculated columns.
• Aggregation functions and safe division.
• Row context and filter context.
• Using CALCULATE to modify calculation context.
• Applying conditional logic to project indicators.
• Handling blanks, missing data, and zero denominators.

 Module 6: Progress and Reporting Period Calculations

• Planned and actual progress measures.
• Quantity-based and weighted progress calculations.
• Distinguishing physical progress from duration-based completion.
• Periodic and cumulative calculations.
• Applying reporting cut-off dates.
• Checking totals against source records.

  

Day 3: Schedule and Progress Reporting

Module 7: Designing Interactive Project Reports

• Selecting visuals for project controls information.
• KPI cards, matrices, trend charts, and comparison charts.
• Slicers and filters for projects, WBS, disciplines, and contractors.
• Drill-through pages, tooltips, and navigation.
• Conditional formatting for exceptions and status indicators.
• Clear layouts, consistent units, and accessible color choices.

 Module 8: Planned Versus Actual Progress and S-Curves

• Preparing time-phased progress data.
• Building baseline and actual cumulative progress curves.
• Displaying forecast progress where forecast data is available.
• Comparing periodic and cumulative performance.
• Identifying progress gaps by work package and discipline.
• Maintaining consistent weighting and reporting periods.

 Module 9: Schedule and Milestone Monitoring

• Comparing baseline, current, and actual milestone dates.
• Reporting finish-date variance and overdue activities.
• Monitoring upcoming activities and look-ahead windows.
• Using exported critical activity and total float information.
• Displaying activity status and schedule exceptions.
• Tracking changes across reporting periods.

  

Day 4: Cost, Earned Value, and Resource Reporting

Module 10: Cost and Earned Value Analysis

• Structuring budget, actual cost, and earned value data.
• Understanding Planned Value, Earned Value, and Actual Cost.
• Calculating Schedule Variance and Cost Variance.
• Calculating Schedule Performance Index and Cost Performance Index.
• Understanding why earned value schedule variance is not a delay in days.
• Introducing Estimate at Completion and Estimate to Complete.
• Documenting forecasting assumptions and interpreting limitations.

 Module 11: Resource and Productivity Analysis

• Preparing labor, equipment, and quantity records.
• Comparing planned and actual work hours.
• Building resource histograms and utilization reports.
• Calculating productivity using quantities and work hours.
• Analyzing performance by discipline, contractor, and work package.
• Identifying resource imbalances and productivity exceptions.

 Module 12: Integrated Management Reporting

• Combining schedule, progress, cost, and resource indicators.
• Building executive summaries and detailed project views.
• Defining consistent KPI thresholds.
• Highlighting exceptions that require management attention.
• Displaying reporting dates, data freshness, and assumptions.
• Improving report usability and basic performance.

 

 Day 5: Publishing and Capstone Project

Module 13: Publishing, Sharing, and Refreshing Reports

• Publishing reports to Power BI workspaces.
• Understanding access permissions and sharing requirements.
• Introducing row-level security for project-specific access.
• Configuring source credentials and scheduled refresh.
• Understanding when a data gateway is required.
• Maintaining file locations, source structures, and reporting updates.

Module 14: Capstone—Integrated Project Controls Report

• Define reporting requirements for a sample engineering or construction project.
• Import baseline schedules, progress updates, costs, and resource records.
• Prepare a consistent data model with reporting period controls.
• Create measures for progress, milestones, costs, and earned value.
• Build an executive overview, S-curve page, schedule page, and cost and resource page.
• Add filters, drill-through navigation, and exception indicators.
• Reconcile key report figures with the supplied source data.
• Prepare the completed report for publication and subsequent reporting cycles.

 Capstone Output: A reusable Power BI project controls report supported by a data model, documented KPI definitions, and refresh instructions.