Working with Primavera Formats
Overview of Primavera Format Support
Aspose.Tasks for .NET provides support for reading and analyzing project data stored in Oracle Primavera formats, including
XER and
Primavera P6 XML. These formats are widely used for enterprise-level project and resource planning, especially in construction, engineering, and large-scale industrial projects.
Although Aspose.Tasks is based on the Microsoft Project data model, it allows importing Primavera data with a high degree of accuracy, which simplifies migration, integration, or analysis of projects across platforms.
Supported Primavera Formats
Format | Description |
---|---|
XER | A proprietary plaintext export format used by Primavera P6, typically smaller and easier to process programmatically. |
P6 XML | A structured XML-based export format used for interoperability and backups in Primavera. More verbose and expressive than XER. |
Aspose.Tasks provides the ability to load both formats using the same Project
class:
1 var projectFromXer = new Project("project.xer");
2 var projectFromXml = new Project("project.xml");
Primavera-Specific Data Access
When loading a Primavera file, additional data that is not part of Microsoft Project (e.g. WBS codes, floating point totals, remaining units, etc.) is stored in special PrimaveraProperties containers for Task
, Resource
, and ResourceAssignment
entities.
This allows developers to:
- Access Primavera-specific fields without breaking Microsoft Project logic.
- Preserve the original values from the source file.
- Perform reporting or migration tasks with full data fidelity.
Known Limitations and Considerations
- Aspose.Tasks is a Microsoft Project-specific library. Some Primavera-specific constructs (e.g. UDF or EPS structure) may not be fully represented.
- Imported values in PrimaveraProperties are read-only and are not recalculated during project manipulation.
- Planning calculations follow Microsoft Project logic, not Primavera.