Free XER viewer
Open a Primavera P6 XER file online
The schedule arrived as an .xer and you don’t have a Primavera license? Upload it here and read it as a Gantt chart: WBS, activities, relationships with lags, milestones and progress. Free, with no account and nothing to install.
Up to 10 MB. The file is not stored.
How to open an .xer file in three steps
Upload the export
Drag the .xer file into the box above or choose it from your computer. Primavera PMXML exports (.xml) work too.
Read the schedule
The read-only Gantt chart shows the WBS, activities with dates and durations, FS, SS, FF and SF relationships with their lags, and milestones. The list shows everything row by row.
Work on it with your team
With a free account the schedule becomes a Planitude project: update progress, share the plan with people who don’t use P6 and export to Microsoft Project XML.
What is an XER file?
XER is Oracle Primavera P6’s exchange format. It is a text file of tab-separated tables: projects, WBS, activities, relationships, calendars, resources and assignments. It is how general contractors and clients pass schedules to each other on large construction and infrastructure projects.
Opened in a text editor it is unreadable, and Primavera P6 needs a license and a database. The viewer rebuilds the schedule and draws it as a Gantt chart. If the file contains several projects, the first one opens.
What you see in the schedule
Full WBS
Every level of the work breakdown structure, with the activities in their place.
Activities and dates
Start, finish and original duration of each activity, in your time zone.
Relationships with lag
FS, SS, FF and SF relationships, with positive or negative lag.
Milestones
Start and finish milestones, highlighted on the timeline.
Progress
The percent complete recorded in P6 for each activity.
Resources
The labor and material resources assigned to activities.
The schedule leaves no trace
The file is read in memory on servers in the European Union, in Germany, and discarded as soon as the Gantt chart is ready. We do not save it or share it: construction schedules often contain the client’s confidential data.
If you decide to edit it, the file stays in your browser until you create an account and confirm the import.
Other ways to open an XER file
The viewer is for reading and sharing a schedule. For other needs there are these options.
Oracle Primavera P6
The tool that produces the file: it imports it into a P6 database, with a Professional or EPPM license. The right choice if you schedule in P6 every day.
Excel
The file is tab-separated text, so Excel opens it too: but every table ends up on the same sheet, with no Gantt chart and no readable relationships.
PDF export
Whoever sends you the schedule can print a Gantt chart to PDF: it opens anywhere, but you can’t filter it, update it or see the relationships.
Planitude
Opens the file in your browser and, with a free account, lets you update it, share it with your team and export it to Microsoft Project XML.
XER file questions
Can I open an .xer file without Primavera P6?
Yes. Drop the file on this page: you see it as a Gantt chart and as an activity list, free and without a license.
Do I need an account?
No, not to read the file. A free account is only needed if you want to edit the schedule and save it.
The file contains several projects: what do I see?
The first project in the file. To open another one, export an .xer from P6 containing only the project you need.
Is my file stored?
No. It is read in memory and discarded as soon as the Gantt chart is ready. It is only saved if you create an account and confirm the import.
Can I see the critical path and float?
The viewer shows the schedule as it was saved. If you import it into Planitude with a free account, the scheduling engine recalculates the critical path and float.
Can I convert an XER file to Microsoft Project?
Yes. With a free account you import the .xer file into Planitude and export it to Microsoft Project XML, which Project opens and saves as .mpp.