Release 14.2 Updates › Advanced Reporting

Advanced Reporting

The Advanced Reporting feature lets you build views and reports against project and other investment data to drive organizational intelligence. All customers upgrading to Release 14.2 that have no custom reports receive Advanced Reporting automatically. Advance Reporting has the following benefits for your users:

• Easy to use, interactive reports that run within CA Clarity PPM are available.
• Filter options and report results appear in the same window, with support for cascading filters.
• More scheduling options are available.
• You can email reports, export reports, and save the report in the Jaspersoft repository.
  • You can specify email addresses, using up to a maximum of 200 characters. Separate email addresses with commas. You can also enter email aliases, which we recommend if you are sending the report to a large number of users.
  • You can export reports to a maximum of two formats (for example, Powerpoint and Word or PDF and Excel).
• You can create report and style templates.
• You can develop reports in CA Clarity PPM against the Data Warehouse or the CA Clarity PPM transactional database.

Data Warehouse

The Data Warehouse provides a schema that is optimized specifically for analytics. A set of CA Clarity PPM jobs extract, transform, and load the data from CA Clarity PPM to the Data Warehouse. The advantages of the Data Warehouse include:

• Simplification of the data model that makes end user reporting easier. This feature reduces the demand for custom report development.
• Reducing the stress and traffic on the CA Clarity PPM transactional database. This reduction is possible because the Data Warehouse resides on a separate database server.
• Any reporting solution can access the information in the Data Warehouse.

The following diagram shows the flow of data from the CA Clarity PPM database to the Data Warehouse.

The Data Warehouse addresses several data and reporting challenges that users experienced when working directly with the CA Clarity PPM transactional database.

Jaspersoft Reports

Advanced Reporting uses the Jaspersoft Studio application to manage views, reports, and dashboards. This third-party reporting option is integrated with CA Clarity PPM to provide easy reporting for users. Each report can be customized by selecting the domains and fields needed.

The Jaspersoft domains are a business representation of the Data Warehouse that lets you interact with data without having to understand database complexities. The Jaspersoft domains parallel and serve the same general purpose as the Business Objects Universes. The following figure shows how the Jaspersoft domains can be used to create reports in CA Clarity PPM.

User Interface Adjustments for Advanced Reporting

New or upgrading customers who are moving to Advanced Reporting (Jaspersoft) must adjust the CA Clarity PPM user interface and user access rights. Because the Business Objects reporting solution is still available for existing customers, the user interface reflects that option.

Upgrade Actions: Adjust the user interface and access rights to reflect that Jaspersoft and not Business Objects is the reporting option.

Actions for new and upgrading customers:

1. Rename the Reports and Jobs link that appears in the Home menu to Jobs. This menu link appears for basic users.
   1. Open the Administration menu and from Studio, click Menu Manager.
   2. In the menu list, click Application Menu.
   3. Click Reports and Jobs in the list that appears.
   4. Change the link name to Jobs.
   5. Change the link description to Jobs.
   6. Click Save and Return.
   7. To see the updated menu option, refresh the menu.
2. Rename the Reports and Jobs link that appears in the Administration menu to Jobs. This menu link appears for administrators.
   1. Open the Administration menu and from Studio, click Menu Manager.
   2. In the menu list, click Administration Tool Menu.
   3. Click Reports and Jobs in the list that appears.
   4. Change the link name to Jobs.
   5. Change the link description to Jobs.
   6. Click Save and Return.
   7. To see the updated menu option, refresh the menu.
3. Ensure that no users have the Reports - Access right assigned.

   This access right makes the Reports tab under the Reports and Jobs link accessible to users. Because the reports listed there are Business Objects reports, the tab should not be visible to Jaspersoft users.

   If you are a new customer, do not assign this access right to users.

   If you are an upgrading customer, remove the access right from assigned resources or groups. An out-of-the-box Jaspersoft report that is named User Access Rights can provide the resources and groups with the right granted.

4. Remove the My Reports portlet from the Overview page.
   1. Open the Administration menu and from Studio, click Portlet Pages.
   2. In the Pages list, click Overview, and then click Tabs.
   3. In the list of tabs, click General, and then click Content.
   4. Select the check box next to My Reports and click Remove.
   5. Save your changes.

General CA Clarity PPM Differences between Jaspersoft and Business Objects Implementations

The following cases describe the way that CA Clarity PPM report-related fields set for Business Objects can affect a Jaspersoft user:

• If Report is selected for the Executable Type field in the Job Definitions filter, no result is given. Previously, this selection resulted in the list of Business Objects out-of-the-box reports.
• All Jaspersoft reports are created and executed directly from the Jaspersoft user interface available in CA Clarity PPM. Do not create a job with an Executable Type of Report if you are a Jaspersoft user.
• Report-based object actions do not allow you to select a report from a drop-down list. No out-of-the-box reports appear in the Report drop-down list.
• Query (NSQL) link creation does not provide out-of-the-box reports in the list of actions that can be selected.
• Customers who are using Advanced Reporting cannot currently add an Action Link in Favorites for a report.
• If you email repository links in the email body, the user must have repository access within Advanced Reporting, which requires at least a restricted user license. If the user needs to view the report output and does not have a minimum of a restricted user license, schedule a report to email the report output to the user.

Time Slices for the Data Warehouse

The following points apply to time slice requests that support the Data Warehouse:

• A total of 40 time slice requests (25 new and 15 existing) support the Data Warehouse.

  Note: To view the list of Data Warehouse time slice requests, navigate to the Time Slices list page and sort on the Data Warehouse column.

• 25 new time slice requests were created.
• 15 existing time slices can be affected during the Release 14.2 upgrade.
• Because of new time slice requests and changes to existing requests, the first run of the Time Slicing job can take substantially longer than usual.
• Data Warehouse time slice requests are system requests and cannot be deleted.
• The Data Warehouse time slice requests default to the following time periods, based on the database server system date:
  • For daily: 1 year back, 1 year forward. The From Date of the slice request is one year prior to the system date.
  • For weekly: 1 year back, 1 year forward. The From Date is one year prior to the system date and is the same day as the First Day of Work Week. To locate the First Day of Work Week field, open the Administration menu and from Project Management, click Settings.
  • For monthly: 3 years back, 3 years forward. The From Date is three years prior to the system date and is always the first day of the month.
  • For fiscal: 3 years back, 3 years forward. The From Date is three years prior to the system date and corresponds to the start date of a Monthly (or 13 Period) fiscal period type that is based on the Entity for Fiscal Periods value in Data Warehouse Options. To locate the Entity for Fiscal Periods field, open the Administration menu and from General Settings, click System Options.

    Important! The entity must have Monthly (or 13 Period) fiscal time periods set up to cover the range of the time slice requests. Otherwise, the time slice requests are ignored when the Time Slicing job is run.

    Note for upgrading customers: If the From Date and Number of Periods for the 15 existing time slice requests are set to cover a time range greater than the default time ranges, the upgrade does not update the time slices. The time slices are left as they were before the upgrade.

• The Data Warehouse time slice requests can be edited on the Time Slices page available from the Administration menu.
• By default, the Data Warehouse time slice requests are set consistently for each slice period (Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Fiscal).

  Important! If you edit these slice requests, set the From Date and Number of Periods to be the same for each slice period type. If these values are not set correctly, the data in the Data Warehouse will be inconsistent.

  Specifically, follow these rules when setting the From Date and Number of Periods for the Data Warehouse time slice requests:

  • All daily time slice requests must have the same From Date and Number of Periods.

    Note: This release contains only one daily time slice request.

  • All weekly time slice requests must have the same From Date and Number of Periods. The From Date must also be the same day of the week as the First Day of the Work Week. For example: If the First Day of the Work Week is a Monday, all weekly time slice requests must be set with a From Date that is the same, and the date must be a Monday.
  • All monthly time slice requests must have the same From Date and Number of Periods. The From Date must be the first of a month; it cannot be a day within the month.
  • All fiscal time slice requests must have the same From Date and Number of Periods. The From Date must correspond to the start date of a Monthly (or 13 Period) fiscal period type that is based on the Entity for Fiscal Periods value in Data Warehouse Options. To locate the Entity for Fiscal Periods field, open the Administration menu and from General Settings, click System Options. The entity must have Monthly (or 13 Period) fiscal time periods set up to cover the range of the time slice requests. Otherwise, the time slice requests are ignored when the Time Slicing job is run.
• If you change the slice request default time periods, we recommend setting the time slice range to cover the start/finish dates of the investments on which you regularly report. For example, for two-year investments on which you regularly report, set the time slices to cover two years back and two years forward so that all relevant data is included in the Data Warehouse.
• Fiscal time slice requests and a new table (PRJ_FISCAL_BLB_SLICES) were added to the CA Clarity PPM schema to support fiscal period data in the Data Warehouse. These slice requests are not populated and do not have supporting data in the PRJ_FISCAL_BLB_SLICES table until a series of steps are completed.

  Note: Although we ship fiscal time slice requests, this release contains no option to create new time slice requests with a slice period of fiscal. The only available fiscal time slice request functionality resides in the new slice requests shipped for the Data Warehouse.

  To use the new fiscal slices and populate the PRJ_FISCAL_BLB_SLICES table after the upgrade or installation, follow these steps:

  1. Log in as an Administrator user.
  2. Open the Administration menu and from General Settings, click System Options.
  3. Select the Entity for Fiscal Periods value and verify the Languages setting, and save your changes.

     Specifies the entity that is used to determine fiscal periods. The fiscal periods that are associated with the selected entity are used for all Data Warehouse fiscal period data calculations. Setting the entity for the first time creates new Data Warehouse time slice requests. Therefore, the initial run of the Time Slicing job takes significantly longer than normal.

     Initially setting an entity or updating it also updates the fiscal entity and fiscal period type for the Data Warehouse fiscal time slice requests. Do not set or change the entity when a time slice rollover is in progress. If you do, an error message appears. Wait until the rollover completes and then set the entity. To determine which slice requests are in the rollover, check the expiration date on the time slices. A slice request with an expiration date that is blank, earlier than the current date, or the same as the current date is in the rollover. Allow the slice request to complete processing before setting the entity.

     Note: The entity must have Monthly (or 13 Period) fiscal time periods set up to cover the range of the time slice requests. Otherwise, the time slice requests are ignored when the Time Slicing job is run.

  4. Run the Time Slicing job.
  5. To populate the Data Warehouse schema, run the Load Data Warehouse job.
  6. To populate the security tables in the Data Warehouse schema, run the Load Data Warehouse Access Rights job.

  Note: For complete information about setting up and populating the Data Warehouse, see the Installation Guide.

• The following table contains the Data Warehouse time slice requests. Note that the new time slices have dwh in the name, and the fiscal time slices have fiscal in the name.