As many of you know I am a huge fan of the latest release of Clarity 13. Recently, I received a sneak peak of the new 13.2 release of Clarity and the new features of CA Clarity Agile. These promise to be extremely exciting releases! Here are some of the features that we can all look forward to:
Clarity 13.2
I felt that the 13 release of Clarity was a game changer. Clarity has always been more than a project and portfolio tool to me, it is also a platform. Since we can create objects, attributes, and configure the tool, we are really only limited by our imagination. We have been able to create resourcing solutions for professional services, solve complex algorithms for the pharmaceutical industry, and revolutionize oil and gas by taking the base of Clarity and extending the platform through configurations not customizations. What I saw in version 13 finally solved many of the UI challenges that the tool lacked. Version 13.2 continues to build on the momentum with some continued usability enhancements, mobile timesheets, and some exciting changes to portfolios and Open Workbench.
Portfolios
Portfolios has been a difficult feature for Clarity for quite some time. There are some usability issues within the current version, however, procedurally many clients want to start with portfolios without having good data to support the proper use. Once the data is ready, several clients have complained that the scenario functionality can be difficult to use. The main reason for this is navigation and understanding of how it really works. This has been addressed in a major way in 13.2. In fact, scenarios in the traditional was is completely gone in this release. Scenarios is now replaced with an object called “Plan” that is a configurable object that is less constrained to reality giving the user more options to play with the project schedule and more options to work within the live investments. This brings the data within the plan object so that it exists and is contained within that object making it more user friendly and less clicks from a navigation stand point. This is a huge shift in thinking as well as multiple plans can be created within the portfolio in a more rapid fashion making it easier to delineate and compare the plans than it was in the previous scenario model.
Even more exciting was when the “Waterline” functionality was shown which was extremely elegant and visually pleasing in the demonstration. This functionality allows a configurable set of parameters (just like constraints works today) to be adjusted real time. However, unlike the past where this information had to be generated and then the user looked at the results, this information is presented in a very slick interface with a clear “Waterline” that shows investments that are above and below the line of inclusion based on the parameters. Additionally, the individual constraints are shown with red, yellow, and green explanations in segmented boxes as well giving directed feedback on the selected parameters. A very clear shift in reporting and a huge improvement in portfolio functionality.
Another exciting feature was the drag and drop interactive Gantt charts on the portfolio. For instance, if the user is looking at the same investments from the waterline report above and switched to the Gantt chart view to see the durations of the investments, the user then could decide to move one investment from 2013 to 2014 by sliding the bar on the Gantt chart. The user also could extend another investment from one year to 18 months as part of his or her analysis. Immediately, Clarity would provide instant feedback with visual components of the impacts of those changes including the shift of the waterline up or down respectively. A very cool new function. Version 13.2 has had a very large focus on the Portfolio functionality and I know of several clients that simply can’t wait to get their hands on it!
Mobile Timesheets
Another highly anticipated feature is the addition of mobile timesheets. To be clear, this isn’t simply timesheets that have been added for the Safari browser. These are timesheets that have been optimized to work with mobile applications. Multi-gesture enabled timesheets that will allow the very busy user to bill their time on the go. This includes pinch, zoom, and full synchronization with Clarity. This is a feature that many people have been asking for and it is ready to go for 13.2.
Keyboard Shortcuts
I love the continued advances that Clarity continues to bring and the ease of use that it continues to bring. Clarity was one of the first tools that I can remember that had the “Edit Mode” functionality where I could configure my screen, drop in to edit mode and then edit the web page like a spreadsheet. Then finally in 13.0, we did not have to go in to edit mode and had just the in line editing. Then one of the chief complaints, especially when using the time scaled values from a usability standpoint is that when working with a tremendous amount of data, many of the standard keyboard shortcuts (like you would use in Microsoft Excel) did not work. The standard response to that complaint usually was, “This is a web application.” Now in 13.2, the keyboard shortcuts will work in 13.2. Many of the quick shortcuts that most people are accustomed to will now function in the TSV (CTRL+C, CTRL+X, CTRL+A, etc.) This is quite exciting!
Updated Portlet Code
Clarity’s presentation layer is one of the absolute best in the industry. It is the most configurable on the market. It allows each user to make their own decision about how they want to see the data while not effecting other users. One of my favorite stories that I tell as an example is when I was working with a PMO director who hated pie charts. He explained that when there are 10 issues or 100 issues, the pie chart is always the same size, so he prefers bar charts over pie charts. While he was explaining this to me, I went in to his Clarity and changed his issue pie chart to a bar chart so it was a moot point! I love Clarity for the things that it can make so easy. One of the downfalls of the presentation layer had been the lack of a grouping level. Sometimes when there was a complex report, the reporting layer would not present the data in a readable way. Therefore, through code or a forced layer, we would have to modify a portlet to get it to report the way a client was wanting the data to be seen. In 13.2, there is now an added option in the out of the box portlet code adding a “group by” category for easier charts and portlets to assist in this difficulty. This is a feature that will bring many clients immediate benefit.
Open Workbench
At the last CA World, it was announced that Open Workbench would be maintained and that there would be some effort placed in updating the product. This promise has been fulfilled. There are many people in different camps. Some favor Microsoft Project, others that think Open Workbench is a superior product. I have enjoyed both products for various reasons. I really like the delivery of the views of Open Workbench and how they can drive you through the workflow. What has been frustrating in the past with Open Workbench is some of the basic features of the application. Items such as resizing the columns, dependencies, and basic functionality like that has been severely lacking. I am happy to report that these items are now addressed with the release in 13.2. Significant enhancements to the user interface and overall usability is a very welcome enhancement. Dependencies have been particularly frustrating because of how you had to create it. This is now available with drag and drop functionality. With this focus, I suspect many new users will shift officially to the Open Workbench camp.
CA Clarity Agile
As the Agile methodology continues to grow in its adoption and users continue to look for integration options to allow development and project teams to have seamless integration, CA Clarity Agile continues to be a market leader due to the power of Salesforce.Com and Clarity. The 13.2 release continues this momentum.
Burn Down Charts
A feature that has been long overdue in this integration is a burn down chart that can be displayed in Clarity for project managers to display on their projects or for dashboards. This is now available with the integration options in the new version of CA Clarity Agile.
Task Status Mapping
One of the most exciting items that I saw was a task mapping status to Clarity charge codes. For each task type in CA Clarity Agile, these can be configured. For most clients, they need to know whether a task is capital or expense for capitalization purposes. This has been quite a headache for clients because we had to create a custom map or solution outside of the tool that did a mapping so that this could be tracked for financial purposes. In the latest release, this has been fixed so that each task type can be tracked to a charge code within Clarity so that time can be charged to capital or expense and a secondary solution is not required. A fantastic solution and one that has been needed for many clients!
Configurable User Story Popups
Within CA Clarity Agile, the User Story would popup. However, if there were custom fields (which many clients do create) they were unable to add the custom fields to the popup. This has been fixed so that their custom fields can be added to the popup. This is a great addition for our clients!
Task Cloning
When you clone tasks, this was a great feature, however it would pull the actual hours and pull over completed tasks that would require some clean up. While this would save some work for the user, it still required some clean up that was undesirable. Now the user has the ability to just select the tasks that are not completed and it will not pull over the actual hours so that it is just the information that is needed which is the true need of task cloning. This proves that the developers are listening to the feedback of the user community!
Conclusion
Beyond these named features, there are tremendous amount of performance improvements and enhancements that have been made to Clarity 13.2 and CA Clarity Agile. Clarity continues to be the most configurable to on the market. With release 13.2 shows that CA is unafraid to realize that certain architecture decisions may not have been the best (i.e. scenario vs. plan object) while continue to expand the usability decisions that have been fantastic (keyboard shortcuts in the TSV fields). I am excited about the new release and am hearing about early features of 13.3 like printing the Gantt chart and improved communications of the Plan Object. I will be playing with 13.2 at CA World, hope to see you there!
No Day but Today!
Rick
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