With the ramp resource feature, users can accurately model the availability of resources across the duration of a project to create more realistic schedules. Read on to learn how this feature can be used on your projects.
Use Cases
Exporting Schedules back to P6
Use Cases
While similar functionality exists in P6 and MSP, there are important differences in the types of resources each platform supports. The table below provides a comparison of ramp resource functionality across ALICE, P6, and MSP:
| Resource Type | ALICE | P6 | MSP |
| Crews | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Equipment | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Material | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Workforce | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
Importing and Adjusting from P6/MSP
If time-varying capacity data for crews and equipment is already defined in a P6 or MSP schedule, it will be automatically imported into ALICE along with the schedule. Users can then adjust this data if necessary and use it to model realistic scenarios without duplicating effort.
Defining directly in ALICE or via Excel
If such data is not set up in P6 or MSP, users can define and adjust resource capacities over different time periods directly in ALICE or via Excel.
Extended Functionality in ALICE
In addition to crews and equipment, ALICE uniquely allows users to ramp capacity for the workforce, expanding modeling capabilities beyond what P6 and MSP offer.
Exporting to P6/MSP
All time-varying resource capacity information for crews and equipment can be exported back to P6 or MSP. Please note that ramped workforce capacity data will not be exported, as this feature is specific to ALICE and not supported on other platforms. Additionally, since P6 doesn’t have saturated capacity, such capacity will have value 99999.99 upon export to P6.
How to use Ramp Resources
Importing and Adjusting from P6/MSP
During import, ALICE detects whether ramped resource data exists in the schedule. If more than one resource availability is found, ALICE automatically enables the ramp resource toggle for the relevant crews and equipment. This information can be reviewed and edited as needed under the Crews or Equipment tab in Project Resources on the Plan page.
Resource ramping is defined with the two main fields:
- From: The date from which the specified resource ramping becomes effective. (In P6, this is referred to as the Effective Date.)
- Max. Units / Time: The maximum available units of the resource per time period.
Defining directly in ALICE
Time-varying data can be set up directly in ALICE by enabling the ramp resource toggle for the relevant crews and equipment. Additionally, resource ramping can also be applied for the workforce.
Workforce
After enabling the workforce toggle, set up the dates and workforce limit for each period. The first date is automatically predefined based on the project start date. Keep the limit empty in order to define a saturated resource limit.
Crews
After enabling the crew toggle, specify the dates and max. units / time for each time period. The first date is automatically predefined based on the project start date. Keep the limit empty in order to define a saturated resource limit.
Equipment
After enabling the equipment toggle, specify the dates and quantity for each time period. The first date is automatically predefined based on the project start date. Keep the limit empty in order to define a saturated resource limit.
Defining via Excel
Users can ramp resources via Excel in the Ramp Resource tab. Following fields should be populated via Excel:
- Resource Name
- Mandatory field
- Resource name for crew/equipment
- For the workforce resource name should be defined as “project”
- Type
- Mandatory field
- Can be either crew, equipment or workforce type
- From
- Mandatory field
- The date from which the specified resource ramping becomes effective.
- Format example: 2025-01-01T00:00
- Capacity
- Optional
- Define limited capacity or keep the field empty to model saturated capacity
Technical Details
- ALICE will automatically sort the dates, even when new ones are added.
- Once resource ramping is applied to a specific resource, the 'Max. Units / Time' field for the overall resource at the top will be deactivated (grayed out) and automatically updated to the maximum value among the time-varying values. This behavior applies to crews, equipment, and workforce.
Optimize Page
On the Optimize page, users can run scenarios either with or without ramping resources by toggling the Yes/No setting. If the time-varying toggle is enabled on the Plan page, the setting on the Optimize page will be set to 'Yes' by default, and vice versa.
Analyze Page
During the schedule generation with Resource Ramp enabled, ALICE will create a new milestone called “Ramp Resources“ and will be connected with FS + Lag with all activities impacted by the Resource Ramp.
The milestones will have the following settings:
Start Milestones
Completed
24/7 Calendar
These details will be stored in the Task Relationship Details and will be exported to P6 and MSP.
On the Analyze page, users can review solutions and related analytics that take resource ramping into account, as shown in the attached screenshot where the ramp-up of resource at the beginning is visible.
When exporting the solution back to P6 or MSP, resource ramping information will be exported as well.
Exporting Schedules back to P6
Even though it is possible to export the solution with resource ramping data, it is important to note that if specific changes were made to the time-varying information in ALICE, when importing the solution back into P6 where the original schedule exists, the 'Insert New' action must be selected for resources in the Modify Import Configuration settings.
This ensures the updated resource ramping information is inserted. Otherwise, only the previously existing resource ramping data will be visible in the Resource tab.
ALICE will export the “Ramp Resources“ milestone and all links associated with it, and Primavera P6 will consider these as standard precedences with lags. This will ensure that after hitting F9 in P6, activities will maintain their positions, and no activity will move to the left.
If there are excessive lag times due to this configuration, users can easily identify every activity impacted by the Ramp, delete the relationship from the milestone, and connect it to other activities.
If the same schedule is imported back to ALICE, the Ramp Resource milestone will be imported as well, but the relationships from it will be treated as resource logic.
If the user tries to save the Plan page as CPM or generate a new schedule without the Ramp up feature, the milestone will still remain in the schedule, but the links will disappear.
Nuances and Edge Cases
Lag Calendars
It is important to know that both P6 and ALICE have specific settings that control which calendars are used for lag calculations.
-
When LagCalendarType is PROJECT_DEFAULT (typically a 9-to-5 calendar), a mismatch can occur:
Example: a task is delayed 3 calendar days by a ramp-up and follows a 24x7 calendar.
The lag must be expressed in the 9-to-5 default calendar, producing 24 working hours (3 days x 8h).
P6 interprets 24 working hours as ending at 5 pm on day 3, not midnight — allowing P6 to left-shift the task by 7 hours.
It is uncommon for PROJECT_DEFAULT to be used as the lag calendar type, so this is not expected to be an issue for most users, but it is documented here as an edge case.
Importing the schedule back to ALICE
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When importing an ALICE generated schedule back to ALICE, the following points must be paid attention to:
Ramp Resource Milestone will be imported back and visible on the Plan Page
The precedences generated by the Ramp Resource will be treated as Resource Logic
If the user “Adds Scenarios” or generates a schedule, the Resource Logic will be ignored, but the Ramp Resource milestone will still remain in the schedule. It will be an empty milestone without any predecessors
Interaction with the Schedule Sync
If the resource ramping information has been updated in P6 and a new schedule is uploaded to ALICE using schedule sync, ALICE will continue to use the initial resource ramping information because there is currently no option to override resource data in the Project Resources.