---

The need to implement CA PPM inside an organization normally surges from wanting to replace an existing tool or shifting their project management methodology towards a tool such as CA PPM.

Implementation issues arise when they want to model the exact same formats, fields and workflows without keeping in mind the tool’s native functionality. Organizations also focus on carrying out an implementation that meets all the requirements and encompasses the entire project in a single phase.

All of this leads to project failure because:

• Not all functionalities are utilized, for example best practices aligned to PMI with the PMO accelerator.
• Implementation of functionalities which are not used.
• Makes the tool unintuitive for end users that leads to them not using it.

As an alternative, strategies can be presented so that these types of implementations tend not to fail:

Have an expert consultant team – An experienced team can advise the client on the decisions regarding the requirements that could and should be implemented according to the client’s needs.

Divide and Conquer – From my experience, this is a strategy that I find valuable and successful. It begins by implementing at different stages, so that end users can start to learn to use the tool and start giving it proper use, while carrying out best practices according to the PMI for effective project management.

Here is a previous client’s implementation business case, where a 15-month rollout was carried out in four stages:

• Implementing Foundations (resources/users/OBS).
• Implementing ideas/projects and data migration.
• Implementing the portfolios module, creating personalized objects and reports.
• Implementing the financial module and integrations.

For each stage, the following cycle is repeated:

Requirement Gathering > Design > Construction > Tests > and then the move to Production.

This cycle provides maturity for the client regarding CA PPM use, and it clearly establishes their needs that translates into requirements which are helpful for user adoption and to carry out a successful joint implementation.

---

Check out more great CA PPM tips & tricks on our blog:

> CA PPM Functional Knowledge Base

> CA PPM Technical Knowledge Base

---

As staff roles and positions change, the impact and work required to make those changes throughout all of the resources in CA PPM projects are traditionally very time consuming and costly.

 

---

The PPM Excel Interface allows those changes to be made much more efficiently because everyone is used to using Microsoft Excel’s familiar UI. Also the technical know-how normally required to do the job is removed with IT-ROI’s automated XOG technology that the PPM Excel Interface provides for data extracts and pushes with CA PPM.

Watch the brief video and see how it’s done in under 2 minutes.

 

---

This work was performed using IT-ROI’s PPM Excel Interface, by simply following a few steps and using Excel’s native Drag & Drop, Cut & Paste, and Auto Complete functionality.

Steps Performed to Update Over 800 Resources in CA PPM.

1) Get all the Resource data from your CA PPM environment by selecting the Resources Interface from the “Get” drop down button. This will populate all the resource data in CA PPM for you by displaying it in an Excel sheet to edit and update.

2) Update the Resource Manager data you desire, you can filter the resources by using Excel’s out-of-the-box functionality. Save time by using Excel’s native Drag & Drop, Cut & Paste, and Auto Complete functionality.

3) Validate the data, and correct any typo mistakes that are highlighted in yellow.

4) Load your work back into CA PPM by simply clicking on the “Load” button.

5) Done.

Check out other business challenges and roles that the PPM Excel Interface solves.

We are happy to provide a customized demo on how the PPM Excel Interface can perform in your CA PPM environment.

Description:

The user-defined and stock attributes created on the’Project Financials Properties’ object are secured properly when accessed on the Project > Financial subpage, but are not secured properly when accessed from the Project List View or other Project Property subpages. Similar behavior is seen for Non-Project Investments.

We are using the following Financial security access rights in combination with the ‘Project – Edit Management – All’ right.

The Project Edit Management right should not encompass the financial properties rights.

Project – Edit Management – All

Allows user to edit the general and management properties, staff and tasks for any project that has been enabled for management. This includes the ability to add sub-projects to that project as well as to edit it in Microsoft Project and Open Workbench. This right also allows the user to create processes on any project and to edit the processes that he or she creates.

Project – Edit Financial – All
Allows user to view and edit general properties, processes and financial information on all Projects. Also allows the user to enable financial fields on a Project.

Project – View Financial – All
Allows user to view the general and financial properties and processes on all projects. This right does not include the right to view the financial plan(budgets/forecasts).

In exploring the behavior of these rights with respect to user-defined attributes it appears that the two rights only affect fields placed on the Project > Financial Properties subpage.

If we place the user-defined or stock attributes on the Project List View or other Project Property subpage, and if the end-user has the ability to edit the project, these financial user-defined or stock attributes can be edited in these other places.

Steps to Reproduce (Setup):

1. Admin Tool > Objects: Project Financial Properties(projfinproperties)
Create a new attribute (myProjectFinancialAttribute100)

2. Objects: Project > Views > [Layout:Edit] >Financial sub-page
place the new attribute on this page

3. Views > Project List Column [Layout]
place the new attribute on this list view and one of the stock financial attributes such as ‘WIP Class’

4. Admin Tool > Resources > ‘Resource1’
Global Rights:
Project – Edit Financial – All
Project – Edit Management – All

5. Admin Tool > Resources > ‘Resource2’
Global Rights
Project – View Financial – All
Project – Edit Management – All

Steps to Reproduce (Resource1):

1. Login as ‘Resource1’ (with Edit Financial rights)

2. Main Application > Projects > click the projectname for any project and navigate to the Financial subpage

Note: the fields are open for editing as expected

3. Return to the Project List View > [–Actions–]> Edit Mode

Note: the fields are open for editing as expected

4. Logout

Steps to Reproduce (Resource2):

1. Login as ‘Resource2’ (with View Financial rights)

2. Main Application > Projects > click the projectname for any project and navigate to the Financial subpage

Note: the fields are NOT open for editing as expected

3. Return to the Project List View > [–Actions–]> Edit Mode

Expected Result: The ‘Project Financials Properties’ Object attributes should be securedin all places

Actual Result: The attributes are not secured by the ‘Project – View Financial – All’right in all places

Additional testing:

Add the user-defined and stock attributes to other Project Property subpages. When the end-user navigates to these other pages within the project, since they have the ability to edit the project instance,these fields are also open for editing on these other subpages.

Non-Project Investment Financial Properties:

Similar behavior is seen for Non-Project Object Investment Types (NPIOs): Asset, Application, Product, Other Work, Service (notIdea)

Steps to Reproduce (Setup):

1. Login to Clarity as an Administrator User

2. Admin Tool > Resources > Select ‘Resource2’ >Global Rights

Select and Add the following rights for the NPIOs:

Application – Edit – All
Application – View Financial Information All
Asset – Edit – All
Asset – View Financial Information All
Other Work – Edit – All
Other Work – View Financial Information All
Product – Edit – All
Product – View Financial Information All
Service – Edit – All
Service – View Financial Information All

3. Logout

Steps to Reproduce (Resource2):

1. Login as ‘Resource2’

2. Main Application > Services List View > click on the name of an existing Service Investment

Navigate to Financial subpage (odf_view=npiofinproperties.serviceCreate)
Actual Result: Fields show open for editing, but the ‘Save’ and ‘Submit’buttons are not present

Click ‘Cancel’ button
Services [–Actions–] Edit Mode
Actual Result: The financial fields are open for editing and values can be saved

3. Navigate to Applications List View > click on the name of an existing Application Investment

Navigate to Financial subpage (odf_view=npiofinproperties.applicationCreate)

Actual Result: Fields show open for editing, but the ‘Save’ and ‘Submit’buttons are not present

Click ‘Cancel’ button

Applications [–Actions–] Edit Mode

Actual Result: The financial fields are open for editing and values can be saved

4. Navigate to Assets List View > click on the name of an existing Asset Investment
Navigate to Financial subpage (odf_view=npiofinproperties.assetCreate)
Actual Result: Fields show open for editing, but the ‘Save’ and ‘Submit’button are not present

Click ‘Cancel’ button
Assets [–Actions–] Edit Mode
Actual Result: The financial fields are open for editing and values can be saved

5. Navigate to Products List View > click on the name of an existing Product Investment
Navigate to Financial subpage (odf_view=npiofinproperties.productCreate)
Actual Result: Fields show open for editing, but the ‘Save’ and ‘Submit’buttons are not present

Click ‘Cancel’ button
Products [–Actions–] Edit Mode
Actual Result: The financial fields are open for editing and values can be saved

6. Navigate to Other Work List View > click on the name of an existing Other Work Investment

Navigate to Financial subpage (odf_view=npiofinproperties.otherCreate)
Actual Result: Fields show open for editing, but the ‘Save’ and ‘Submit’buttons are not present

Click ‘Cancel’ button
Other Work [–Actions–] Edit Mode
Actual Result: The financial fields are open for editing and values can be saved.

Solution:

WORKAROUND:

None.

STATUS/RESOLUTION:

Resolved in Clarity 12.1.3

Resolved in Clarity 13.0.1, 13.1.0

“Solutions provided by CA Technologies”

Description:
Prior to 12.0.5 attributes such as Actuals, ETC, etc are not showing any data on the Portfolio Scorecard Investments Portlets, on 12.0.5 these attributes are no longer listed in the Available Column for both Layout and Filter areas.
On 12.0.6 custom attributes I define on the Project object also disappear from filter configuration. Why is this and how can I view data from these attributes in Portfolios?
Solution:
Attributes can be displayed and filtered in portfolios based on Portlet’s data provider as well as the origin of the attributes. This design has been reinforced in 12.1 and higher versions to ensure consistency.
You can find out what a Portlets uses for its data provided by navigating from the Portlets to Actions -> Configure ->General -> Data Provider field.
The data provider for the Out of the Box Portlets’Investments’ is “Portfolio: All Investment Types”. This means only attributes defined on the abstract object Investments will display values and be used for filtering on this Portlets. These attributes should be visible on the CA Clarity Studio -> Objects -> Investment -> Attributes page.
Prior to 12.0.5, attributes that are not defined on the Investment object are available for configuration and filtering, however they do not provide values, nor do they filter correctly. Some examples of these attributes are Actuals, ETC, and Department.
On 12.0.5 stock attributes that are not defined on the Investment object are no longer available for configuration or filtering.
On 12.0.6 all stock and custom attributes that are not defined on the Investment object are no longer available for configuration or filtering.
On 12.1 the change made to 12.0.6 was reverted so that these attributes are available for the All Investments data provider:

stock attributes defined on the Investment object
custom attributes defined on the Investment object
custom attributes defined on other investment objects such as Project, Asset, Application, Idea and so on.

To view attributes for a specific object you can create a custom Portlets using the corresponding data provider. For example, to see Actuals, ETC and Department fields for all projects you can do the following:

1. CA Clarity Studio -> Portlets -> New -> Grid -> fill out required fields, choose Instance Type “Portfolio” and Data Provider “Portfolio: Projects only”.

 

1. Configure the layout for this Portlets to include fields that you want to see, for example, Investment ID, Name and Actuals.

 

1. CA Clarity Studio -> Portlets Pages -> Portfolio Default Layout -> Tabs -> Scorecard -> Content -> add your new Portlets -> Save.

 

1. Click on the Page Filters link and the Filter Mappings icon, populate the mapping fields for your new Portlets -> Submit.

 

Optionally you can publish this configuration from the Scorecard Tab Properties page.

Your new Portlets should be visible in portfolios and show data for project attributes.

 

Description:
After upgrading to 13.0.1, using XML Open Gateway(XOG) READ action of projects can take a long time.
Steps to Reproduce:

1. Create a project with some resources, tasks, financial actuals and other relevant data

 

Create a XOG READ file

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<NikuDataBus>
<Header version=”6.0.11″action=”read” objectType=”project”
externalSource=”NIKU”>
<args name=”include_tasks”value=”true” />
<args name=”include_resources”value=”true” />
<args name=”include_custom”value=”true” />
<args name=”include_dependencies”value=”true” />
</Header>
<Query>
<Filter name=”projectID”criteria=”EQUALS”>My Project</Filter>
</Query>
</NikuDataBus>

Perform the XOG READ action

Expected Result: For the XOG read action to complete in a reasonable time.
Actual Result: The XOG read action is very slow and for 1 specific project it took approximately 15 minutes.
Solution:
This issue affects 13.0.1 and 13.1 and is currently being reviewed for a resolution in a future release or patch.

Description:
I have created a custom user-defined Lookup. What table are the display names in for each value in the Lookup?
Solution:
Here is a simple query that will provide you with the English translation of the Lookup Value Name for the static lookup ‘Investment Goal Lookup’.
SELECT L.LOOKUP_TYPE, L.LOOKUP_CODE, N.NAME, N.DESCRIPTION, L.IS_ACTIVE, L.PARTITION_CODE, L.PARTITION_MODE_CODE
FROM CMN_LOOKUPS L, CMN_CAPTIONS_NLS N
WHERE L.ID = N.PK_ID
AND N.LANGUAGE_CODE = ‘en’
AND N.TABLE_NAME = ‘CMN_LOOKUPS’
AND L.LOOKUP_TYPE = ‘INVESTMENT_GOAL_TYPE’
Note: Change L.LOOKUP_TYPE with the correct ID of your lookup.
If you need more assistance in developing custom queries or portlets, please contact your CA Clarity Division Technical Consulting Services Representative.

Description:
Update the “imp_transactions_read.xml” and the “imp_transactions_write.xml” sample files to correct the ‘objectType’ value from “outboundTransaction” and”inboundTransaction” to simply “transaction”. A change was made to the XOG action and if the end-user uses this sample file the following error message is generated: “The object Type ‘inboundTransaction’ has been deprecated. Please use the object Type ‘transaction’ instead”. The user then has to manually change this value.

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Use the sample “imp_transactions_write.xml” file to create your own valid, financial transactions ; do not alter the “<Header>” element.

 

Execute the XOG write action.

Expected Result: I should see no error messages in the xog output results.
Actual Result: But instead I see error message : “The object Type ‘inboundTransaction’ has been deprecated. Please use the objec tType ‘transaction’ instead” in the xog output results.
Solution:
Workaround:
Change the ‘objectType’ value to “transaction” in the”<Header>” element.
Be sure to type the word “transaction” in lower case letters.
Execute the XOG write action again.
Bug Status/Resolution:
Open-Pending

Description:
BGT: When the ‘Benefit Plan’ attribute is added to the Cost Plan Properties [Layout: Create] page, the list of available Benefit Plans is for ALL projects.
The list of available Benefit Plans should be restricted to plans that exist on the current project. The browse behaves correctly on the ‘Edit’ page.
Steps to Reproduce:

1. Admin Tool -> Studio: Objects

 

1. Cost Plan (id=costplan) Object -> Views

 

1. Cost Plan Properties -> [Layout: Create]

 

1. Click ‘properties and layout’ icon for the ‘New Cost Plan’ section

 

1. Select ‘Benefit Plan’ attribute from the list of available attributes and move to the ‘Selected’ list

 

1. Click ‘Submit’ button

 

1. Main Application -> Projects

 

1. Create a Benefit Plan for Project 1 (P1 – Benefit Plan)

 

1. Create a Benefit Plan for Project 2 (P2 – Benefit Plan)

 

1. Create a Benefit Plan for Project 3 (P3 – Benefit Plan)

 

1. Create a new cost plan for Project 3

 

On the ‘Create’ page for the new cost plan, click ‘browse’ icon for the ‘Benefit Plan’ field

Expected: I should only see a Benefit Plan for Project 3
Actual: But instead I see Benefit Plans for all projects
Solution:
Workaround:
None
Status/Resolution:
Resolved in Clarity 13.0

Description:
Transactions are not created if we delete the timeentries of a timesheet when we adjust it. After posting the adjustmenttimesheet, the timesheet status becomes “posted” but no transactionsare created. The “Invalid transaction” page is empty (no newtransaction, no invalid transaction). So nothing is posted to financial andonly transactions of the original Timesheet are available in PPA_WIP.
If we zero out the unwanted hours when we adjust atimesheet, the problem doesn’t occur, transactions are created to back out theoriginal quantities.
Steps to Reproduce:

1. Create a timesheet and enter time on a task

 

1. Submit and approve the timesheet

 

1. Post the Timesheet

 

1. Post transaction to financial

 

1. Post to WIP. Check that transactions exist in ppa_wip

 

1. Adjust the timesheet and delete the time entry added for the task

 

1. Submit and approve the timesheet

 

Post the timesheet

Expected Result: To see transaction entries in the database with the financial entries backed out.
Actual Result: There are no new transaction in the “Invalidtransaction” page and of course nothing is sent to financial. The status of the timesheet is “Posted”
Solution:
Workaround:
When adjusting timesheet and removing the financial tasks, make sure to leave a direct task on the timesheet with zero time tracked towards that task and enter a note so that the task is not removed from the timesheet. This will cause the financial entries to be backed out.
Status/Resolution:
Resolved in Clarity 12.1.3 Generic Patch. Reference TEC570813
Resolved in Clarity 13.1.0
This has been resolved by removing the Delete button on the adjustment timesheet. When user makes an adjustment to a posted timesheet, the UI will no longer have a delete button for existing time entries. User will need to replace any unwanted hours with a zero (0) quantity.