Import export

Import/export

Open Planner Studio stores a project as IFC by default — no separate project file alongside it. But sometimes a schedule also needs to live outside the app: in Primavera P6, in Microsoft Project, or as a flat table for a spreadsheet. This guide explains what the native IFC format really means, what each export format does and doesn't carry, and where importing/exporting lives in the app.

What you'll learn here

• What "IFC is the native format" precisely means for opening and saving.
• What does and doesn't come along when exporting to MS Project (MSPDI) and Primavera P6 XML.
• What the CSV export contains — and what is deliberately left out.
• Where to import and export: Backstage → Export and Backstage → Import.
• How extensions can add extra import formats.

IFC: the native format

An Open Planner Studio project is an IFC 4x3 file (the buildingSMART standard). There is no separate JSON or project file alongside it: Save and Open (Backstage, or Ctrl+S/Ctrl+O) read and write IFC directly. That means everything you do in the app — tasks, WBS, relations with constraints, resources and assignments, calendars (both the project calendar and resource calendars), baselines, progress, notes, activity codes and custom fields, external links between projects — ends up in the same file and comes back in full the next time you Open it. If you run into a new kind of project data in the app, you can assume it round-trips through IFC; if something does not round-trip, that's called out explicitly below.

IFC is also how this app connects to the rest of the OpenAEC toolkit: the same file can be read by BIM software for the 4D link (schedule alongside the building model).

Exporting to other formats

Open Backstage → Export for four formats:

• CSV (semicolon-separated) — universal table export. All tasks with dates and durations.
• MS Project XML — opens in Microsoft Project. Full WBS structure.
• Primavera P6 XML — for Oracle Primavera P6.
• IFC 4x3 — the buildingSMART standard, the same as the native format (handy as a "save as" to a separate file, or to share a copy without touching the rest of your open documents).

Each format has its own limitations: the richer the target format, the more comes along, but none of the three external formats is a full mirror of IFC.

CSV

The CSV export contains only the task table: WBS code, name, duration (days), start, finish, predecessors (as a text code, e.g. 2.1FS+3d), task type, status, completion (%), actual start/finish, critical (yes/no), total float and description. Resources, assignments, calendars and baselines are deliberately left out — CSV is purely a task table for anyone who wants to view or edit the schedule in a spreadsheet, not a full-fidelity project exchange. When you import a CSV file back in, baselines therefore stay empty (there was nothing to read them from).

MS Project XML (MSPDI)

MSPDI is considerably richer than CSV: resources, assignments (including their loading curve), calendars and baselines do come along. Still, not everything is expressible in MSPDI. On export the app warns in the developer console (console.warn) whenever something is lost, with the exact number of affected items:

• External links between projects are dropped (the other task's "ghost" reference stays in-app only).
• Soft Start On/Finish On constraints (soft MSO/MFO) are degraded to SNET/FNET — MSPDI codes 2/3 are hard (Must), so the soft variant's upper bound is lost. Hard MSO/MFO export exactly.
• Secondary constraints are lost — MSPDI only has one constraint field per task.
• Hammock tasks (derived duration) are exported as a plain task with the computed dates — MSPDI has no native hammock/LOE type.
• Task notes are deliberately not exported, even though MSPDI has a <Notes> field: our notes are a checklist-with-checkboxes form that doesn't translate cleanly to plain text.
• The critical-path definition (near-critical mode/threshold) and other scheduling options aren't natively expressible in MSPDI and are therefore lost — those are only preserved via IFC.

Primavera P6 XML

The same kind of trade-off as MSPDI, with a few P6-specific quirks:

• External links and hammock tasks are dropped/simplified the same way as with MSPDI, each with a warning.
• Task notes are also left out here — P6 XML has no suitable field for them.
• Percent lag on a relation (e.g. 40% of the predecessor's duration) is "baked" into a fixed number of days, because P6 has no percent-lag concept.
• Calendar-day lag (lag in elapsed days rather than working days) is exported as a plain hour-based lag — P6 has no separate lag unit per relation.
• The LATE_PEAK loading curve has no P6 equivalent and is exported as the closest approximation ("Early Peak").
• Scheduling options (as with MSPDI) are not exported.

These warnings aren't sloppiness — they're a deliberate, explicit choice: a visible warning per dropped item beats silent data loss. Open, for example, the showcase Nieuwbouw 6 Rijwoningen De Akkers (it has task notes and a relation with a percent lag) and export to P6 or MS Project XML: the developer console then shows exactly which items were dropped or simplified, and how many.

Importing

File → Open (or Backstage → Open) accepts .ifc, .csv and .xml files. For an .xml file, the app detects on its own whether it's a Primavera P6 or an MS Project file, based on the content. As described above: a CSV or P6 import produces a project without baselines (there weren't any in the source), while IFC and MSPDI bring baselines along.

Extension importers

Beyond the fixed formats above, installed extensions can add their own importers — for example for a format that isn't supported by default. Those show up under Backstage → Import, each with its own name, description and matching file extensions; without any import extensions installed, that section is empty. Check Backstage → Extensions to see what's available.

Further reading

• Baselines only come along via IFC and MS Project XML, not via CSV or P6 — read the guide Baselines & progress for how to record a baseline.
• Resources, assignments and loading curves — read the guide Resources, histogram & leveling for how those are built before you export.