User Preferences

What a planner means

User Preferences is a per-user dialog. It is not Admin Preferences, not EPPM Application Settings, not a layout, not a filter, and not project data. Oracle Edit Menu: "Opens the User Preferences dialog box. Use the User Preferences dialog box to specify your settings and preferences, including how to display time, date, and currency information. You can also set options to send email, specify startup options, and change your password." Enabled when "All." Corresponding toolbar: Layout Toolbar (same sentence; Edit > User Preferences; icon displays by default). Layout Toolbar: "Use the Layout toolbar to customize the layout of the active window and to access user preferences."

Oracle how-to: Edit, User Preferences.

Oracle User Preferences dialog box: "Use the User Preferences dialog box to specify your settings and preferences which include how to display time, date, and currency information. You can also set options to send Email, specify startup options, and change your password."

This dialog is display and session. Remaining duration is still stored in hours (remain_drtn_hr_cnt). See P6 Remaining Duration vs Percent Complete. View currency is display only; costs stay in the base currency. See Costs Are Stored in the Base Currency. A layout/filter is a view, not this dialog. See Filters and Layouts Are a View, Not the Schedule.

Not Admin Preferences. Oracle Admin Preferences dialog (P6 Professional Only): "Use the Admin Preferences dialog box to specify default settings established by the project administrator." Administrative preferences: "application-wide parameters and values that apply to all projects." "While all users can view these settings, a user must have special security privileges to edit them." Admin Preferences tabs Oracle listed: General, Data Limits, ID Lengths, Time Periods, Earned Value, Reports, Options, Rate Types, Industry, Consent Notice, Status of User Acceptance, Exception Site List. Time Periods on Admin Preferences is not the User Preferences Time Units tab. Do not copy Admin tabs onto this dialog.

Not EPPM Application Settings. Oracle About Application Settings: "Application Settings enables your organization to define a series of application-wide parameters and values that apply globally and to all projects in an enterprise project structure (EPS)." Working with Application Settings: "Use Application Settings to specify default administrative preferences established by the P6 Administrator." That is enterprise admin, not this per-user dialog.

Professional tabs Oracle names

Oracle User Preferences dialog box lists these tabs (quote Oracle's printed names):

• Time Unit tab
• Dates tab
• Currency tab
• Email tab
• Assistance tab
• Application tab
• Password tab
• Resource Analysis tab
• Calculations tab
• Startup Filters tab

Oracle Define user preferences also names a Personal Information tab (step 12). The dialog-box tab list fetched does not print Personal Information. Do not invent that the two pages agree on the tab count.

Oracle names the first tab Time Unit on the dialog list and Time Units on the tab page and the how-to. Quote both. Do not collapse them.

Time Units — Oracle Time Unit tab: "The Time Units tab enables you to define the timescale and format you want to use when displaying small- and large-scale time units. This affects how tracking layouts, activity durations, and resource prices, availability, and work efforts display." How-to: "You can specify how to display time information, such as time units, activity durations, resource rates, and resource availability." Fields Oracle named:

• Units Format — Unit of Time ("work efforts, and resource prices and availability"); Sub-unit ("sub-units in the next smaller time increment"); Decimals; Show Unit Label ("the time unit abbreviation with the time value"); Example. Note: Show Unit Label "does not affect units/time fields."
• Durations Format — Unit of Time ("activity duration values"); Sub-unit (Oracle: "This option is disabled when Show Duration Label is not marked."); Decimals; Show Duration Label; Example. Note: Show Duration Label "does not affect units/time fields."
• Units/Time Format — Show as a percentage, or Show as units/duration.

How-to future-period tip: set Units Format and Durations Format to the periods you plan in (example: daily planning → Units Format Hour, Durations Format Day). FAQ: values typed in Budgeted or Planned Units and Remaining (Early) Units "are converted to the Unit/Time specified in the User Preferences, Time Units tab" (example: Unit/Time Hour and you enter 1d → 8h). See Future Period Buckets Are Typed Assignment Units, Not a Curve and Resource Usage Spreadsheet.

Dates — Oracle Dates tab: "The Dates tab enables you to specify how you want dates to display." Fields Oracle named:

• Date Format — Month, Day, Year; Day, Month, Year; Year, Month, Day.
• Time — 12 hour ("3:30 PM"); 24 hour ("15:30"); Do not show time; Show minutes ("10:15 rather than 10").
• Options — 4-digit year; Month name; Leading zeroes ("all months and days as 2-digit numbers"); Separator ("The character used to separate a date's day, month, and year. You can select a character.").
• Sample — "An example of the date format options you select."

Currency — Oracle Currency tab: "The Currency tab enables you to specify how you want currency amounts displayed." Fields Oracle named: Select a currency for viewing monetary values; Show currency symbol; Show decimal digits. How-to Select a view currency: "Select the currency in which to view cost data." How-to Specify a format: Show Currency Symbol "before currency values"; Show Decimal Digits "to display decimals for currency values." That is the view currency. It is not the base currency and not CURRTYPE as stored cost. See Costs Are Stored in the Base Currency.

Other tabs — quote Oracle's purpose sentence. Do not invent a checkbox catalog.

• Email — "The email tab enables you to enter your personal email settings." Define: "If P6 Professional is connected to a SQL Lite database, the Email tab is not available."
• Assistance — "The Assistance tab enables you to specify whether you want to use wizards, rather than standard dialog boxes."
• Application — Define: "set your startup options. You can also select how you want labels on grouping bands to display and define the range of financial periods that are available for display as columns. In addition, you can set the time interval that P6 Professional polls the database for job alerts, which are created every time a job you submit completes or fails." Financial-period column range is a display range, not FINDATES. See Columns and Financial Periods Are Named Buckets, Not the Data Date.
• Password — "The Password tab enables you to change your password." "Passwords must contain at least one character." Hidden when LDAP ("password management is handled through the directory server") or Cloud Connect ("password management is handled through P6").
• Resource Analysis — "The Resource Analysis tab enables you to specify which projects are included in remaining value calculations and which dates and time interval are used to calculate time-distributed data for resource spreadsheets and profiles." Interval for time-distributed resource calculations is the minimum editable timescale for future-period typing. See Resource Usage Profile and Resource Usage Spreadsheet.
• Calculations — "The Calculations tab enables you to specify how to calculate remaining values when new resource assignments are added to or removed from activities. You can also choose the default behavior when replacing a resource on an existing activity assignment and when both a resource and role share an activity assignment." Dissolving Activities Regain lag ("retain the lag") lives here; it is not an XER column. See Dissolve Removes an Activity and Joins Its Predecessors to Its Successors.
• Startup Filters — "The Startup Filters tab enables you to choose the data filters you want to run when starting the module. These filters can reduce the time it takes for your projects to open." "Startup filters are available for Oracle and SQL Server installations."
• Personal Information — Define: "enter your contact details. You can withdraw your acceptance for your details to be kept in the system ny clicking Forget User Acceptance." (Oracle's "ny" as printed.) LDAP: contact details "are managed through the directory server and you cannot change your contact details in the module." Viewing Your PI: "You can withdraw your previously given consent at any time by clicking Forget User Acceptance." About Consent Notices also prints Forget All User Acceptance on this tab. Do not invent which button label wins.

EPPM — My Preferences, not Edit > User Preferences

Oracle EPPM: User menu → My Preferences. Customizing My Preferences Global Preferences: "The global preferences you select affect only your interaction with the application; other users are not affected by your changes."

Oracle Global Tab of the My Preferences Page: "Use this tab to customize data display formats for all sections of the application." Sections Oracle named on that page: General, Display Format, Resources, Email Notifications, Project Score, Performance Thresholds.

Display Format (quote the customize pages, not a Professional tab list):

• Currency — "Customize currency preferences to determine how currency is displayed in the application." Currency field / Select Currency; Show decimal places; Show currency symbol.
• Date format — "Customize date format preferences to determine how dates are displayed in the application." Date format list; Four digit year, Month name, Leading zeros, Separator; Time format list; Show minutes.
• Time units — "Customize time units format preferences to determine how time will be displayed in the application." Duration Format (unit, duration labels, sub units, decimal places); Time Units Format (unit, unit labels, sub units, decimal places); "show units/time as a percentage or as units/duration." Tip: "You must select Show duration label or Show unit label to select the corresponding Show sub units option."

Other EPPM My Preferences surfaces Oracle named (do not copy Professional menus onto them): View tab (which Dashboards / Portfolios / Projects / Resources / Administration / Approvals items appear); Password tab (Changing Your Own Password; not when LDAP or SSO); Personal Information tab ("see the personal information stored about you in P6 EPPM. You cannot edit this information." Forget User Acceptance; Reset User Preferences).

Do not copy Professional Edit > User Preferences, Layout Toolbar, Time Unit / Assistance / Resource Analysis / Calculations / Startup Filters tab names, SQL Lite Email-hidden, or Cloud Connect Password-hidden onto EPPM. EPPM Global Display Format is one tab section, not three Professional tabs. Dissolve Retain lag on EPPM is "in the General section in the Global tab of the My Preferences page" — see Dissolve Removes an Activity and Joins Its Predecessors to Its Successors. Do not invent an EPPM Edit menu.

XER

User Preferences is a per-user / session dialog. It is not an XER table.

Oracle's project XER data map TOC lists no USERPREF, USERPREFERENCES, USERDATA, or USERS table. Do not invent a USERPREF / USERPREFERENCES / USERDATA %T or columns for Time Units, Dates, view currency, Regain lag, financial-period column range, or Resource Analysis interval.

CURRTYPE is the currency-types dictionary (base / view currency definitions). It is not "this user's Currency tab selection." See Costs Are Stored in the Base Currency.

A Viewer parse of one project XER cannot reconstruct the planner's User Preferences (time-unit labels, date format, view currency, startup window, password, email, wizards, Resource Analysis interval, Calculations, Startup Filters, Personal Information).

Oracle's Professional Importing and Exporting Guide (XLS notes) says: "To successfully import data, do not edit the USERDATA sheet in the export file. Use this sheet as a reference for the user preference settings (Edit, User Preferences)." That is an XLS sheet, not a project XER table. Do not treat USERDATA as an XER %T.

Microsoft Project

Desktop Project has File > Options, not Edit > User Preferences.

Microsoft Change the date format in Project desktop: "Project has 21 different date formats for wherever they show up in your project (columns, calendars, timelines, Gantt bars, reports)." File > Options → General → Project view → Date format. A table can override: View > Tables > More Tables → Edit → Date format. Regional pattern is Windows Clock, Language, and Region, not a P6 Dates tab.

Microsoft Change the currency settings for your project: File > Options > Display — Symbol, Placement, Decimal digits. "You cannot use more than one currency per project." "Changing the currency settings only affect the current project." That is one currency per project file, not a P6 base/view pair. See Costs Are Stored in the Base Currency.

Microsoft Change the default task duration unit: File > Options → Schedule → Duration is entered in (default days; minutes, hours, weeks, or months). Change the default time unit for work: same Schedule tab, Work is entered in (default hours). Those are Project entry defaults for this project (or All New Projects). They are not P6 Units Format / Durations Format / Units/Time Format display.

They are not the same dialog. P6 User Preferences is per-user display and session (time/date/currency format, wizards, startup, Resource Analysis interval, assignment-calculation defaults). Project Options splits date, currency, and duration/work across General / Display / Schedule, and currency is per file. Do not map them as the same setting list. Do not claim MPXJ can write a real MPP.

Don't

• Treat User Preferences as Admin Preferences, as EPPM Application Settings, as a layout/filter, or as project XER data.
• Invent a USERPREF / USERPREFERENCES / USERDATA XER table, or treat CURRTYPE as "the user's Currency tab."
• Claim a Viewer reconstructed User Preferences from a project XER.
• Treat view-currency amounts as stored costs, or Time Units labels as stored remaining-duration hours.
• Invent checkbox lists Oracle did not print on Assistance / Application / Email / Password / Resource Analysis / Calculations / Startup Filters / Personal Information.
• Collapse Oracle's Time Unit (dialog list) and Time Units (tab page / how-to) into one invented name, or copy Admin Time Periods onto this Time Units tab.
• Copy Professional Edit > User Preferences / tab list / Layout Toolbar onto EPPM My Preferences, or copy EPPM Global / View / Password / Personal Information onto Professional.
• Map P6 User Preferences to MSP File > Options (General date / Display currency / Schedule duration-or-work) as the same dialog.
• Claim MPXJ writes a real MPP.