[email protected] +1 303 779 0344

Home How-To

Gantt Chart with Cost from Primavera P6

Understand your Primavera P6 project's financial health over time with a graph of budgeted total cost, broken out by department or resource.

Most Gantt charts only show activities--when tasks and milestones start or finish. OnePager's Gantt charts can also display cost, budget, and other financial information, giving you a more thorough picture of your project.

15-Day
Free Trial

  1. In this Primavera P6 project, every activity has a value for Budgeted Total Cost and is also assigned a Resource:

    Primavera P6 schedule with financials. Budgeted Total Cost and Actual Total Cost have been assigned to each project activity.

    Each of those resources also belongs to a Department:

    Primavera P6 schedule with resource assignments. Each resource belongs to a department, which is a Global Activity Code (GAC).

    In the coming steps, we'll graph the cost, and then slice and dice it by resource and by department.

  2. Decide which activities from Primavera P6 you want to include in your OnePager Gantt chart. The easiest way to do this is to set up a user-defined field, like this::

    Select activities from Primavera P6.

  3. Export your Primavera P6 project to an XML format. You can also export to XER, but XML is better-suited to cost reporting. Once your export is complete, click the OnePager button on the desktop to start building your Gantt chart with cost:

    Launch OnePager from the desktop to import from Primavera P6.

  4. On OnePager's start screen, click NEW to begin creating your Gantt chart. The import wizard will appear. Browse for your XML or XER file from Primavera P6. Choose the Monthly Cost for Primavera template as a starting point. If you've chosen to filter your activities by a user-defined field, apply that filter in the Task Selection section:

    Template to create a Gantt chart from Primavera P6

  5. Click Create new chart OnePager will build your initial Gantt chart, showing selected activities at the bottom and a monthly line graph of Actual Total Cost at the top:

    Gantt chart created from Primavera P6 depicting activities and a monthly line graph of Actual Total Cost.

    In the next section, we'll customize the graph.

15-Day
Free Trial

Creating a Bar Graph of Project Budget by Department

In the next few steps, we'll show you how to create a column (bar) graph that looks at the Budgeted Total Cost field from Primavera P6 on a quarterly basis.

  1. Currently, our Gantt chart has a line graph that looks at the monthly values of the Actual Total Cost field. We want to change that to a column graph that looks at the quarterly values of the Budgeted Total Cost field instead. To do this, go to Home > Chart Properties > Graphs/Data Cells. Change the settings for your graph as follows:

    • Time Unit: Quarter
    • Field: Budgeted Total Cost
    • Graph Type: Column

    Settings to create a quarterly bar graph of Budgeted Total Cost from Primavera P6 above a Gantt chart.

  2. Click OK, and OnePager will update your graph to show the quarterly project budget, like this:

    OnePager Gantt chart from Primavera P6, displaying quarterly budget for a project.

15-Day
Free Trial

Slicing and Dicing Cost by Resource

OnePager can also slice and dice your column graph so that you can see how much of the quarterly project cost is allocated to each resource.

  1. Return to Home > Chart Properties > Graphs/Data Cells and click on the Pivot Series button:

    OnePager supports pivot charts from Primavera P6.

  2. Check the box to Pivot vertically, and select the Resource field from Primavera P6. OnePager will assign a different color to each resource in your schedule:

    Color-code your bar chart based on resource assignments.

  3. Click OK. Enable the Legend and then click OK a second time:

    Slice and dice your graph, and add a legend to show which resource is incurring the most cost.

  4. OnePager will update each quarterly column to a stacked column with segmented color for each resource.

    Side-by-side comparison of quarterly project financials in a bar graph along a Primavera P6 project timeline.

    In Q4 2025, the project budget is split by Amit Chopra and Robert Lincoln. In Q1 2026, Amit Chopra is responsible for the majority of the budget, with Robert Lincoln and Cindy Lee also contributing.

15-Day
Free Trial

Slicing and Dicing Budget by Department

Instead of looking at budget by resource, you can also look at budget on a departmental level, or can look at resources and departments simultaneously.

  1. Return to Home > Chart Properties > Graphs/Data Cells. Click the Pivot Series button again, but this time, navigate to the Horizontal Pivot tab. Choose the Department (Description) field, which is a global activity code from P6, assigning each resource to an overarching department:

    Pivot horizontally by department.

  2. Click OK and OnePager will update the graph again. It's still color-coded by resource, but notice that each department now has its own column, splayed left-to-right:

    Primavera P6 Gantt chart a breakdown of quarterly project budget by both resource and department.

    We can see that the Operations and IT departments represent all of the project budget until Q1 2027, when the Sales and Marketing department starts contributing to project cost.

Get started today by downloading a free trial.

15-Day
Free Trial


Steps demonstrated in this article require use of OnePager's optional graphs and data cells feature, which is purchased separately from a standard license. All trial licenses receive complimentary access to graphs and data cells for fifteen days.