Clarity

  • 1.  CA Clarity Excel UI for Resource Management

    Posted Apr 20, 2015 02:09 PM

    Hello All,  we are in the process of assessing the feasibility to use the CA Clarity Excel UI for Resource Management Utility to update Resource Allocation details under Team tab .

     

    Business Justification / Requirement to Implement Utility - Project Managers need to invest so much time to update their Resource Allocation under Team tab as 15+ team members allocated to most of the projects.Hence Updating the allocations process for monthly/(sometimes weekly) challenging for PM's..

     

    While I'm researching about this utility I found couple of solutions from 2- different service/solution providers like (IT ROI, MEISTERPLAN). Indeed CA also providing an Utility for this activity.As CA itself providing an utility I would preferably go with the utility which CA is providing as we are using Clarity as OD / SaaS model.

     

    However Prior to proceed with this I would like to know the below details to decide to go with this Utility or Not to go with this Utility.Hence I would like to take the inputs from our forum member/s. Please see my questions below and request you to provide your inputs.

     

    1. In order to implement this Utility do we need to install this Utility on each & every local computer separate? (FYI - MS Excel has been installed on every PM's Local computer)

     

    2. if we implement this Utility, how the authentication process function for data update? Normal Clarity credentials would be suffice in order to update (or) every PM need to connect to CA VPN as we are using Clarity using OD Model?

     

    3.What could be the Risk/s if we implement this Utility? Does this cause any data integrity issues as we are allowing at least 50 -75 PM's to update the data?

     

    4.Do we have any specific point of contact from CA to touch base to get more details or to see the demo regarding this Utility?


    Your help/ inputs are much appreciated.



  • 2.  Re: CA Clarity Excel UI for Resource Management
    Best Answer

    Posted Apr 20, 2015 03:53 PM

    Maddineni,

     

    Reps from the responsible companies or users that own the tools may clarify what I've written here.  We are writing a purchase order for the "Assignment Editor" from ITDesign, and have investigated the ITROI Excel integration.  Also, you may find that the solution offered by CA is in fact the exact same solution provided by their partners.  ITDesign, ITROI and Rego, amongst others, are all CA partners.

     

    The ITROI Excel integration is one that resides in an Excel file that you provide to users.  If users are not part of your IT CA PPM support team, you're likely going to configure the integration in Excel to allow users to perform a limited set of downloads, that they can then edit, create new and save back to CA PPM.  The user needs a copy of the Excel file with the macros installed.  Last we checked, once the license was purchased, any number of files could be created with the installed macros and distributed amongst your user base.  Macros in Excel include a login capability, which uses the CA PPM login credentials and security/access settings.  The tool is capable of downloading about everything from CA PPM - you shouldn't give it out to users without preconfiguring it and locking the configuration in Excel, else users will be able to get into stuff you might not want them getting into.  The integration uses your lookups, and it includes data validation when saving back to CA PPM - it will let you know if a record's change was not saved and why.

     

    The ITDesign "Assignment Editor" is a series of screens that are delivered by the CA PPM UI through portlets to your users - it is not installed on individual machines.  As these screens are delivered through CA PPM, it uses CA PPM's login credentials and user security settings as defined in CA PPM.  Unlike the ITROI Excel tool, this "Assignment Editor" is very focused on one particular topic/data set.  As its specifically designed to do one thing, you may fined it a more tailored solution that the ITROI - 'download/upload anything and everything' tool.  Both have their place, and I'd like to have both, for supporting different purposes.

     

    The two tools are using CA PPMs XOG (XML Open Gateway) capability, so there are no data integrity issues.  However, one caveat - neither tool locks records while one is working on them.

     

    CA will likely direct you to the partners for demos, details, questions - this has been our experience.

     

    Give 'em a call.  Its been a few months since I've met with any of these companies - please contact them directly to get the latest information.  Apologies to any of the three partners where my words are out of date!



  • 3.  Re: CA Clarity Excel UI for Resource Management

    Posted Apr 21, 2015 11:10 AM

    Hi Dale, Thanks.Much appreciated your time , efforts in order to provide detailed response.I'm reading your comments and would like construe the answers to my questions. If possible, please see my comments and correct me if I understand your explanation correctly.

     

    1. In order to implement this Utility do we need to install this Utility on each & every local computer separate? (FYI - MS Excel has been installed on every PM's Local computer)

    Jagadeesh -- If I use IT ROI Excel integration ,Yes we need to provide this Excel sheet to each & every user.It can't be global.

     

    2. if we implement this Utility, how the authentication process function for data update? Normal Clarity credentials would be suffice in order to update (or) every PM need to connect to CA VPN as we are using Clarity using OD Model?

    Jagadeesh -- No Need of VPN Access required, Authentication process will be taken care with in Excel sheet itself.

     

    3.What could be the Risk/s if we implement this Utility? Does this cause any data integrity issues as we are allowing at least 50 -75 PM's to update the data?

    Jagadeesh --

    Advantage - As this tool uses XOG, NO DATA Integrity issues

    Disadvantage - IT ROI Excel tool doesn't lock the record/s while one is working on them

     

    Best Regards

    Jagadeesh



  • 4.  Re: CA Clarity Excel UI for Resource Management

    Posted Apr 21, 2015 11:55 AM


    Maddineni,

     

    Glad you are finding this helpful, but would encourage you to contact the partners.

     

    1.  I guess that one could put the Excel file on a shared corporate site, such as in SharePoint, such that the file could be run in a browser by many users.  Each user would still provide their own login credentials.

     

    We did not look at a global/shared solution, as our use case required portability - a 'briefcase' functionality to allow our users to download and take data with them to our customer sites, then upload changes on return.  Our primary use case was resolved by supplying cellular access to our engineers that travel to our customer sites.  They access CA PPM live, from offsite, now, so don't need to 'briefcase' anything.

     

    2.  If you are not using VPN now to access CA PPM, I expect you won't need VPN with this utility.  In trial testing of the ITROI tool, we did not need VPN.  Also, we are an "On Premise" user of CA PPM.  Also, we are SSL secured.

     

    3.  Your understanding is correct.  Except I would say the lack of locking feature is a disadvantage of CA PPM and not ITROI integration.  CA PPM only allows locking with use of Gantt charts (OWB, MSP, Clarity Gantt) and checked out documents.  In order for ITROI integration tool to perform a lock on CA PPM records, I believe CA would have to change something on the CA PPM app to allow this.  If you use this tool to adjust allocations, assignments - your situation will be no worse than allowing, today, your 50-75 PMs to do the same using out of the box CA PPM UI screens.

     

    Dale



  • 5.  Re: CA Clarity Excel UI for Resource Management

    Posted Apr 21, 2015 12:13 PM

    Thanks again Dale for your quick response.

     

    2.  If you are not using VPN now to access CA PPM, I expect you won't need VPN with this utility.  In trial testing of the ITROI tool, we did not need VPN.  Also, we are an "On Premise" user of CA PPM.  Also, we are SSL secured.


    Jagadeesh - we are using On Demand model Clarity. We DON'T use VPN in order to access Clarity however we DO use CA VPN in order to access database. Yes, we are SSO enabled.

    Consider our case (i mean OD Model Clarity) - do you think Users need to have CA VPN access in order to use this Utility?


    Best Regards

    Jagadeesh



  • 6.  Re: CA Clarity Excel UI for Resource Management

    Posted Apr 21, 2015 12:33 PM


    Maddineni,

     

    You would need to confirm this with CA and/or ITROI.  However, as the integration tool utilizes XOG, which is part of the app, my expectation is that you would not need VPN.  The tool would access CA PPM app via XOG, the app would then access the DB via your VPN connection and return the data.

     

    Please, confirm this with CA or ITROI, as this question is outside the requirement/testing set that we had in our scenario.  Also, as mentioned in my first reply, its been some months (~4 or 5) since we last looked at these tools.  Trust, but validate!    I think you are ready for a demo, so give 'em a call.

     

    Dale



  • 7.  Re: CA Clarity Excel UI for Resource Management

    Posted Apr 21, 2015 02:00 PM

    Hi Maddineni,

    Dale is correct, the PPM Excel interface uses only the API (AKA XOG) for all it's transactions including extracting and inserting data.  For accessing data, it utilizes the query API to extract the data therefore it does not need DB connectivity Similar to the way the QB does on this thread (Great new XOG tool - check it out!)  it uses NSQL queries to build the data extraction.

    As for Application access, the excel uses your normal Clarity login. Keep in mind that XOG does not support SSO, therefore you would have to maintain the passwords of the users inside of clarity for this functionality to work. 

    The loaded question is the one regarding locking data after extract and multiple concurrent users. This is very hard to accomplish in excel as the tool does not really know how long the user is going to extract the data for. They might have a need to extract all projects to excel so they can modify PM's while they go home, but it is not logical to lock all projects in Clarity until that file comes back.  There is a middle ware component that is recommended for large number of consecutive users so the admins can actually trap the messages before they get to Clarity and therefore add additional business rules such as load order, priority.....

     

    Hope this helps,

    Federico



  • 8.  Re: CA Clarity Excel UI for Resource Management

    Posted Apr 21, 2015 02:21 PM

    Thanks Federico for the response. Just one clarification from your comments.

    I'm sorry I did not get this point - what exactly you mean to say "Keep in mind that XOG does not support SSO, therefore you would have to maintain the passwords of the users inside of clarity for this functionality to work"

    Jagadeesh- I'm under the impression that we would need to configure our user Clarity credentials in Excel Utility itself(every user has to configure their clarity credentials when they are trying to setup/open this utility first time).


    Best Regards

    Jagadeesh



  • 9.  Re: CA Clarity Excel UI for Resource Management

    Posted Apr 21, 2015 02:30 PM

    Hi Maddineni,

    What that means is the following, if you use SSO (log in through the OD Portal), the authentication happens at the portal level, and creates a session that allows you to navigate Clarity. XOG does not support this, which means that the password for your users would have to be maintained in Clarity for XOG purposes (or Excel), and that is the password that they would use to log in to the excel interface.

    Hope this helps.

    cheers,



  • 10.  Re: CA Clarity Excel UI for Resource Management

    Posted Apr 21, 2015 02:35 PM

    That helps, Thanks Federico.