Using CA Clarity PPM with Microsoft Project › How to Assign Resources to Tasks (Microsoft Project)

How to Assign Resources to Tasks (Microsoft Project)

You can assign resources to tasks from CA Clarity PPM or from Microsoft Project.

In CA Clarity PPM, you can assign resources to tasks from the following pages:

• Work Breakdown Structure page
• Task Properties page or Assignment page by clicking the Assign or Replace button.

Resource assignments created in CA Clarity PPM default to the Default Load Pattern specified by the Project Management Settings in the Administration Tool.

When you open a CA Clarity PPM project in Microsoft Project, the following occurs:

• When the load balance pattern is set to Contoured in CA Clarity PPM, the work contour in Microsoft Project is set to Flat if the assignment is newly created and you are opening the project in Microsoft Project for the first time. If the assignment already exists (i.e., previously opened in Microsoft Project and saved to CA Clarity PPM), the work contour in Microsoft Project does not change.
• When the assignment is a split task (i.e., has a gap between the end of the actual work and the start of the remaining work) and the load balance pattern is Contoured, the settings of following fields on the Microsoft Project Options dialog box determine how the work contour is set in Microsoft Project:
  • The Updating Task Status Updates Resource Status check box on the Calculation tab.
  • The Split In-progress Tasks check box on the Schedule tab.

Note: If the project's Track Mode field in CA Clarity PPM is set to Clarity or Other, the Updating Task Status Updates Resource Status check box is cleared, regardless of the user settings in Microsoft Project.

The schedule for the work may change when opening the project in Microsoft Project.

Examples

Example 1

If you create a Front-loaded assignment in CA Clarity PPM with 40 hours on a 5-day task, CA Clarity PPM schedules that work as full-time over those five days. Microsoft Project will schedule those 40 hours over 8.33 days.

Example 2

If you assign a resource uniformly to a 5-day task in CA Clarity PPM and then change the task duration to 10 days, the rate of work is reduced to half-time, retaining the total amount of work. Microsoft Project reschedules this change as full-time, shortening the task back to 5 days.

Note: See the Project Management User Guide for more information.