XER stands for nothing in particular — it's the file extension Primavera chose in Oracle P6. What it contains is everything: activities, relationships, constraints, calendars, resources, WBS structure and project metadata, packed into a series of tab-delimited tables that any text editor can open. Knowing what lives where makes every import, export and audit faster.
The structure: tables, not rows
An XER file is a flat text file divided into named sections by a %T marker, with column headers on the next line and data rows following. The key tables are:
| Table | What it contains | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| PROJECT | Project metadata — name, data date, must-finish date | The data date tells you how current the schedule is |
| PROJWBS | WBS hierarchy | Structural problems here break everything downstream |
| TASK | Every activity — ID, name, type, start, finish, duration, % complete, constraints | The core of the schedule; most issues live here |
| TASKPRED | All relationships (predecessor → successor, type, lag) | Logic quality — missing, excess or wrong relationships |
| CALENDAR | Working calendars and exceptions | Wrong calendar = wrong float everywhere |
| RSRC | Resource library | Missing resources mean no cost or resource loading |
| TASKRSRC | Resource assignments per activity | Required for EV — empty if no resource loading exists |
Five things to check before you trust the schedule
Before running any analysis on an imported XER file, run these five checks. They catch the problems that cause every downstream calculation — float, critical path, EV — to be wrong.
Upload an XER file and OPTEAM checks data date, open ends, constraints, leads and resource loading — flagging issues before any analysis starts.
Importing into OPTEAM
OPTEAM reads XER files natively — drag the file in and the engine parses every table, reconstructs the logic network and computes float, critical path, DCMA metrics and earned value in one pass. No reformatting, no column mapping, no P6 licence required on the receiving end.
The import also preserves the original activity IDs and WBS codes — essential for delay analysis, where everything must be traceable back to the baseline file.
Handling multiple baselines
A project may have a contract baseline, a revised baseline and a current schedule — each a separate XER file. OPTEAM can hold all of them, align them on the same WBS and show slip from any baseline, which is exactly what a delay analysis requires. The history is there; you don't have to rebuild it.
- An XER file is a flat text file of tab-delimited tables — TASK, TASKPRED, CALENDAR are the most important.
- Always check the data date before trusting any float or critical-path calculation.
- Open ends, hard constraints and negative lags are the three logic problems that corrupt everything else.
- Empty TASKRSRC means no resource loading — EV metrics will be unavailable or wrong.
- OPTEAM parses XER natively and runs all five checks automatically on import.
Upload your XER file and see what's inside.
OPTEAM parses your P6 file, runs the checks and shows you what to fix — in minutes, no P6 licence needed.