ca clarity product line community winter webconference january 10, 2008 tips and techniques...
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CA ClarityProduct Line Community
Winter WebConferenceJanuary 10, 2008
Tips and Techniques Extending Clarity for Targeted Status Reporting
Jeffrey Bloom, PLC Secretary
1/10/2008 Clarity PLC Winter WebConference 2This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom 2008
Tips and Techniques Extending Clarity for Targeted Status Reporting
Outline
Why Clarity would need to be extended?
Qualitative Needs & Target Audiences
Using Clarity’s Customization Features
Qualitative Program Status Reporting Example
Using external tools for “quick” analyses
1/10/2008 Clarity PLC Winter WebConference 3This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom 2008
Why Clarity would need to be extended?
Clarity’s Status Reporting Reflects Critical Path Method scheduling
concepts Quantitative status reporting for tasks, projects,
programs, services and related budgets & financials
Status “lookups”, “stoplights” and “unstructured text fields” provide very limited support for qualitative reporting
Qualitative Status Reporting Requirements Needed to support subjective aspects of
management decisions Go beyond the numerical scope and fixed
categorizations of standard Portfolio Analysis
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Qualitative Needs & Target Audiences
What do we need beyond the numbers? Executive Summary Statement of Status Key Messages Discussion Points
Who needs to know what and when? Upper Management Program Review Meetings Summaries of current status with history of
periodic progress available for review Decisions on where to focus attention
The “meat” beyond the charts
1/10/2008 Clarity PLC Winter WebConference 5This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom 2008
Using Clarity’s Customization Features
Create Custom Objects E.g. weekly “Program Status” Object
Augmenting Programs, Projects & Tasks Add custom attributes and object pages
Configuring Portlets/Portlet Pages Include custom attributes on existing portlets Add custom pages to “expose” objects
Custom Reports Keyed to local management review “style”
Enforcing Policies & Procedures Scheduled reports encourage policy compliance Clarity “processes” to implement procedures
1/10/2008 Clarity PLC Winter WebConference 6This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom 2008
Example of status reporting - Add “Weekly Status Report” to the project
“New” button adds weekly “Status Reports”
Status Reports listed as rows on the custom “Status Report” Project “Properties” page
1/10/2008 Clarity PLC Winter WebConference 7This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom 2008
Example of status reporting - Weekly “Status Report” object
PROGRAM STATUS - 1/10/2008
Executive Summary
Statement of Status
Key Messages
Discussion Points
1/10/2008 Clarity PLC Winter WebConference 8This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom 2008
Example of status reporting - Custom Report for Management Meetings
Printed report discussed in Executive Management Review Meeting
Clarity “Status Reports” updated in real-time Management “decisions” reflected in Clarity
Risks, Issues and Change Requests modified in real-time
1/10/2008 Clarity PLC Winter WebConference 9This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom 2008
Using external tools for “quick” analyses
Actuate Report Viewer tools Download to Microsoft Excel – summary/analysis Search – download selected rows & columns e.Analysis – perform analysis in the browser
Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets Data -> Import External Data -> New Database
Query … to access Clarity database Many commonly use SQL queries are available for free from CA Clarity Support
and/or email to [email protected]
Data -> XML -> Import … input XML Open Gateway standard & custom query exports
Quickly integrate with data exports from other systems via Excel “vlookup” function
1/10/2008 Clarity PLC Winter WebConference 10This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom 2008
Using external tools for managed integration
Clarity provides XML Open Gateway and Gel Scripts for integration automation Programming to resolve “data clashes”, such as
“Joe” vs “Joseph”, can be difficult Manual validation & repair via Excel Spreadsheet
Excel “Data import” from all systems Formulas to identify possible “data clashes” Visual Basic for Applications “macros” if needed to
enforce complex validation Output of XML for update of Clarity via XML Open
Gateway
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Open Discussion
Users are invited to submit Suggestions for future WebConferences Suggestions for possible PLC activities
Web Forum User Community Sharing Etc
Strategic questions for the CA Clarity Product Development Team
Other