Canadian Clarity User Group October 21 st 2010

Canadian Clarity User Group October 21 st, 2010.

Agenda 0830 – 0900 Networking 0900 – 0910 Opening remarks 0910 – 0945 Microsoft Project and Clarity 0945 – 1000 Networking break 1000 – 1100 WEBI 1100 – 1145 Round table 1145 – 1200 Closing remarks

MSP and Clarity It can be done! Michael Thibault October 21 st, 2010 Canadian Clarity User Group Part 1

Background Project Managers often manage schedules by % Complete n Seldom update Start and End Dates for tasks, or other fields. n Often have little or no formal training in Microsoft Project n

What’s the Problem? Clarity is changing my dates !#$% n Constraints are being set for no reason! n My task was converted to a milestone! n My task was fixed duration and it changed!! n n Why did my task finish date move to 2049?

Whose Fault? Naturally the new tool is at fault so its Clarity as everything worked before. Right? Not really! The introduction of Actuals (Effort tracking) starts the issues to manifest. What is being seen is natural behavior of MSP

Tools! Microsoft Project (MSP) is a project scheduler and is the industry standard. Clarity is an excellent PPM tool. So, Clarity owns the project schedule and MSP want to schedule it!

MSP Setup CA Green Paper CA Manual On the Calculation tab, select Automatic Calculation. Automatic calculation is the preferred setting, but it is not required. If you choose Manual Calculation, you must manually calculate the project before saving it to CA Clarity PPM. The project is recalculated whenever you open the project from CA Clarity PPM even if manual calculation is set in Microsoft Project

MSP Setup (cont) CA Green Paper CA Manual Nothing

MSP Setup (cont) CA Green Paper CA Manual On the View tab, clear the Show links between projects dialog on open check box. This feature is incompatible with CA Clarity PPM external dependencies. If selected, this option is ignored.

MSP Setup (cont) CA Green Paper CA Manual Nothing

MSP Setup (cont) CA Green Paper CA Manual On the Calendar tab, click Set as Default to ensure the default start and end time matches the shift schedule on your system-wide standard calendar set in CA Clarity PPM.

MSP Setup (cont)

MSP Setup (cont) From the clarity manual: “In general, you can set up Microsoft Project as you like. This section provides guidelines for setting up Microsoft Project to work effectively with CA Clarity PPM features. “ Yet the CA Green Paper states: “Mandatory and Recommended Settings” Confused?

MSP Setup (cont) The Key is understanding how MSP works and what the setting actually does: n Use the MSP online help. It is an excellent resource for understanding the options and what they do.

Where did these constraints come from? A common concern for CA Clarity PPM users involves exporting a project with new tasks from CA Clarity PPM to Microsoft Project. The new tasks may be assigned a constraint automatically. This can happen if the new task start date is a different date from the project start date.

Where did these constraints come from? (cont) Also, if you change the Start or Finish date in MSP, you’ll end up with a constraint being added by MSP. n n “Start No Earlier Than” – is set if you change the start date “Finish No Earlier Than” – is set if you change the end date. Microsoft Project assumes manually entered dats are hard dates and sets the constraint! To clear the constraints you open the task and change the constraint to “As Soon As Possible”

Changing Duration? When you have a fixed duration task, why does the duration change? Work = Duration x Units <- MSP formula So a fixed duration task should not change duration. Right? Wrong!

Changing Duration? (cont) When a fixed duration task has effort applied to it prior to the start date, the start date will be set to the date of the actuals entered and the duration kept. That is unless there is a constraint on the task! When this happens look to see if there is ‘Must Finish On’ constraint.

Changing Duration? (cont) If actuals are being applied to the task and there is work remaining on the last scheduled day for the task, MSP will extend the Finish date and increase the duration. This is MSP native behaviour!

Where did that Milestone come from? Durations changed unexpectedly to zero days causing the duration of the task to become zero, which then instantly converts the task to become a milestone! And now the finish date is not reflecting the true scheduling finish dates.

Where did that Milestone come from? (cont) This can happen in a rare case where a single resource is assigned to a task and the project manager then decides that the person is no longer needed on that task. Rather than deleting that assignment, the project manager zero‘s out the resource‘s assignment unit value.

Start and End Dates Changing As your team members enter their timesheets, they are in effect modifying your schedule. If they enter time against a task earlier than its start date then the start date will change.

Start and End Dates Changing (cont) If they enter time after the end date of a task then the end date will change. n This is native MSP behavior. The solution is to close your tasks when they are completed.

Start and End Dates Changing (cont) As most PM’s generally track by % Complete, we almost never update the Start and Finish dates on a task. By implementing effort tracking or applying actuals to a MSP schedule, MSP will update the dates for us.

MSP Flaw! A simple project schedule that actuals are bring applied

MSP Flaw! (cont) • Once leveled the end date is in 2049! • Level Only Within Available Slack setting will keep this from occurring • I am research this further with Microsoft

Diagnosing Issues When your schedule has unexpected results when opened in MSP, Actuals have normally recently been applied since the last open. Check what timesheets have been entered, approved, and posted.

Diagnosing Issues (cont) You can split the screen in MSP and show the Task Usage in the split window and look at the tasks that have the changes. Recommendation: Normally there is a trickle down effect due to task dependencies. Find the few offending tasks and update accordingly. (remember to update the duration)

Tips n Only have open for time entry those tasks that team members are working on n When a task is complete: (Remember this) Set Remaining Work to 0 n Set % Complete to 100% n Close the task for time entry n

Tips (cont) If you project dates shift significantly or has other radical changes: Do not save back to Clarity n Review the plan and understand where the change occurred n Fix the issue (change the duration in some cases, avoid changing start and end dates) n If everything fails – call support n

Tips (cont) Task IDs are separate in Clarity and MSP (Text 1) n TASK ID’s in Clarity will assist team members when selecting tasks in timesheets. n

More Information Download from the CA Support site: • CA Clarity PPM: Integration Best Practices for Microsoft Office Project • CA Clarity PPM: Comparing Scheduling Tools • CA Clarity PPM: Project Scheduling with Microsoft Office Project

What’s Next? Verify if leveling is being performed by the MSPAPI. dll or Microsoft when the project is opened from Clarity. These results will be brought up in a later meeting. Part 2 will cover more MSP and Clarity at a later meeting.

Questions