CA Clarity Product Line Community Winter WebConference January 10, 2008 Tips and Techniques Extending Clarity for Targeted Status Reporting Jeffrey Bloom, PLC Secretary

This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom /10/2008Clarity PLC Winter WebConference2 Tips and Techniques Extending Clarity for Targeted Status Reporting Outline Why Clarity would need to be extended? Qualitative Needs & Target Audiences Using Claritys Customization Features Qualitative Program Status Reporting Example Using external tools for quick analyses

This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom /10/2008Clarity PLC Winter WebConference3 Why Clarity would need to be extended? Claritys 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

This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom /10/2008Clarity PLC Winter WebConference4 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

This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom /10/2008Clarity PLC Winter WebConference5 Using Claritys 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

This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom /10/2008Clarity PLC Winter WebConference6 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

This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom /10/2008Clarity PLC Winter WebConference7 Example of status reporting - Weekly Status Report object PROGRAM STATUS - 1/10/2008 Executive Summary Statement of Status Key Messages Discussion Points

This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom /10/2008Clarity PLC Winter WebConference8 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

This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom /10/2008Clarity PLC Winter WebConference9 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 to Data -> XML -> Import … input XML Open Gateway standard & custom query exports Quickly integrate with data exports from other systems via Excel vlookup function

This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom /10/2008Clarity PLC Winter WebConference10 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

1/10/2008Clarity PLC Winter WebConference11 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