Overview

You will learn about the connection and support between the following products:

• Unicenter Service Desk and CA Clarity PPM
• Unicenter Service Desk, CA Clarity PPM, and AllFusion Harvest Change Manager
• Unicenter Service Desk and AllFusion Harvest Change Manager
• CA Clarity PPM and AllFusion Harvest Change Manager

The primary objective of CA Clarity PPM Connector for CA Unicenter Service Desk & CA Software Change Manager for Distributed (The Connector), which is the connection between Unicenter Service Desk, CA Clarity PPM, and AllFusion Harvest Change Manager, is to allow the three CA Technologies products to be process aware and to interact with each other.

With the connector, you can transfer Service Desk change orders to CA Clarity PPM as tasks on an existing project, incidents, or ideas where they can be costed with effort and charged back to the customer, or transformed into project tasks and projects if necessary. After transferring to CA Clarity PPM, the work can be tracked in Harvest packages and status is communicated back to the Service Desk managers and end-users. Using the connector you will gain greater alignment between teams who are responsible for application maintenance and operations, and your business units. Other benefits of using the connector include:

• Increased productivity, due to tighter integration between teams and reduced duplication/manual data entry
• Faster response time, due to increased operations visibility, and
• Transparency of the end-to-end change process for audit/compliance purposes

Flow Overviews

The connector provides you the ability to integrate Service Desk, CA Clarity PPM, and Harvest. The primary uses of the connector are to manage change orders, new applications, and other maintenance tasks.

How the Change Order Management Flow Works

Service Desk provides a centralized source for change order issues in the following manner:

• Service Desk analysts initiate and approve change orders, and convert them to a task on an existing CA Clarity PPM project.
• CA Clarity PPM provides a centralized source for the management of changes to existing applications, while Harvest provides the mechanism for implementing changes related to software development.
• CA Clarity PPM project managers can create Harvest packages on an existing project in Harvest from CA Clarity PPM change order tasks.

You can also manage change orders that result in software fixes outside of CA Clarity PPM using only Service Desk and Harvest.

In the following three scenarios, you will learn how to manage change orders using a combination of CA products-Service Desk, CA Clarity PPM, and Harvest-as well as how to manage other maintenance work.

More information:

Harvest User Tasks

Service Desk User Tasks

Scenario 1—How to Manage Change Orders Using Service Desk, CA Clarity PPM, and Harvest

The following scenario incorporates call or issue management (Service Desk), project (resource or work management (CA Clarity PPM), and software change management (Harvest).

When a Service Desk change order is transitioned to CA Clarity PPM, it is managed as a CA Clarity PPM change order task on an existing project used to model maintenance activities. Service Desk analysts can also transition change orders to Harvest as a new package in a Harvest project where the Harvest manager can manage the new product development.

The following describes the flow of a change order from Service Desk through the default lifecycle in CA Clarity PPM and in Harvest.

In Service Desk:

1. The Service Desk end-user logs and submits a software issue.
2. The Service Desk analyst:
3. Reviews the request and determines whether it should be managed as a possible software problem in CA Clarity PPM.
   • Converts the request to a change order representing the demand for a software fix to be managed in CA Clarity PPM.
   • Creates a CA Clarity PPM change order task on an existing CA Clarity PPM project.

In CA Clarity PPM, the CA Clarity PPM project manager:

1. Considers the resource capacity of the CA Clarity PPM change order task, and schedules the task.
2. Creates the Harvest package.
3. Monitors task activity and progress using CA Clarity PPM.

In Harvest:

1. The Harvest manager reviews the resource assignment for the Harvest package.
2. The assigned resource makes the requested software change and promotes or demotes the software fix through the lifecycle states.
3. When the software change is approved for production, the package is promoted to the production (PROD) lifecycle state.

In CA Clarity PPM, the CA Clarity PPM project manager, marks the task as 100% complete.

In Service Desk, the Service Desk assignee:

1. Updates and closes the Service Desk change order.
2. Notifies the Service Desk end-user.

Scenario 2—How to Manage Change Orders Using Service Desk and CA Clarity PPM

The following scenario ties request/change order management (Service Desk) and resource/work management (CA Clarity PPM). In the following scenario, a Service Desk change order is converted into a CA Clarity PPM change order task on an existing CA Clarity PPM project.

In Service Desk:

1. The Service Desk end-user enters a software request using Service Desk.
2. The Service Desk analyst:
   • Reviews the request and determines its disposition.
   • Converts the request to a change order representing the demand for a software fix to be managed in CA Clarity PPM.
   • Creates a CA Clarity PPM change order task that will be tracked on an existing CA Clarity PPM project.

In CA Clarity PPM, the CA Clarity PPM project manager:

1. Evaluates the resource capacity of the CA Clarity PPM change order task, and schedules the task.
2. Monitors task activity and progress using CA Clarity PPM.
3. Marks the task as 100 percent complete.

In Service Desk, the Service Desk assignee:

1. Updates and closes the Service Desk change order.
2. Notifies the Service Desk end-user.

New Application Management Flow Overviews

Service Desk change orders representing the demand for a new application or product are sent to CA Clarity PPM as ideas. The CA Clarity PPM demand manager then reviews and converts the CA Clarity PPM idea into a new project.

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

Project tasks are linked to Harvest projects and packages through their association to the Harvest project in CA Clarity PPM. You can manage the new product management process using CA Clarity PPM, and manage the software development activity using Harvest. Real-time progress-percentage complete values and lifecycle state changes-is reported in CA Clarity PPM.

In the following scenarios, you will learn how to manage new applications using a combination of CA Technologies products: Service Desk, CA Clarity PPM, and Harvest.

Scenario 1—How to Manage New Applications Using Service Desk, CA Clarity PPM, and Harvest (IDEAS)

The following scenario ties request/change order management (Service Desk), resource/work management (CA Clarity PPM), and software change management (Harvest). In this scenario, a Service Desk change order is sent to CA Clarity PPM as a CA Clarity PPM idea, which is later converted to a project, and the software work is managed as a package on a Harvest project.

In Service Desk:

1. The Service Desk end user enters and submits a request for a new application or product idea using Service Desk.
2. The Service Desk analyst:
   • Reviews the request and determines its disposition.
   • Converts the request to a change order representing the demand for a new application or product idea to be managed in CA Clarity PPM.
   • Initiates the creation of a CA Clarity PPM idea.
3. The CA Clarity PPM demand manager evaluates the CA Clarity PPM idea and converts it to a project.

In Harvest, the Harvest manager:

1. Creates a new Harvest project.
2. Communicates the Harvest project name to the CA Clarity PPM project manager.

In CA Clarity PPM, the CA Clarity PPM project manager:

1. Creates the Harvest Project in CA Clarity PPM, and uses the Harvest project name that was communicated from the Harvest manager as the name of the Harvest Project in CA Clarity PPM.
2. Defines all tasks and WBS, and identifies the summary level tasks as the CA Clarity PPM feature tasks.
3. Associates the CA Clarity PPM feature tasks to the Harvest Project in CA Clarity PPM.
4. Submits the CA Clarity PPM feature tasks for approval.
5. Creates the Harvest packages from the CA Clarity PPM feature tasks.
6. Monitors task activity and progress using CA Clarity PPM.

In Harvest, the Harvest manager:

1. Creates additional packages associated to the CA Clarity PPM feature task, if needed.
2. Reviews and promotes the packages.

In CA Clarity PPM, the CA Clarity PPM project manager:

1. Marks the tasks as 100% complete when all of the Harvest packages have been promoted to the production lifecycle state.
2. Marks the project as complete.

In Service Desk, the Service Desk assignee:

1. Updates and closes the Service Desk change order.
2. Notifies the Service Desk end-user.

More information:

Service Desk User Tasks

Scenario 2—How to Manage New Applications Using CA Clarity PPM and Harvest

The following scenario ties resource/work management (CA Clarity PPM) with software change management (Harvest). In this scenario, the demand for a new application results in a new CA Clarity PPM project. The CA Clarity PPM project manager associates the project feature tasks with the Harvest project in CA Clarity PPM, which provides the link to the Harvest project in Harvest.

In CA Clarity PPM, the CA Clarity PPM project manager:

1. Creates a new project representing the demand for a new application.
2. Notifies the Harvest manager about the new project and communicates the CA Clarity PPM project ID.

In Harvest, the Harvest manager:

1. Creates a new Harvest project using the Service Desk Clarity Connector lifecycle template, and uses the CA Clarity PPM project ID that was communicated from the CA Clarity PPM project manager.
2. Communicates the Harvest project name to the CA Clarity PPM project manager.

In CA Clarity PPM, the CA Clarity PPM project manager:

1. Creates the Harvest Project in CA Clarity PPM, and uses the Harvest project name that was communicated from the Harvest manager as the name of the Harvest project in CA Clarity PPM.
2. Defines all tasks and WBS, and identifies the summary level tasks as the CA Clarity PPM feature tasks.
3. Associates the CA Clarity PPM feature tasks to the Harvest project in CA Clarity PPM.
4. Submits the feature tasks for approval.
5. Creates the Harvest packages.

In Harvest, the Harvest manager:

1. Creates additional packages associated to the CA Clarity PPM feature task, if needed.
2. Reviews and promotes or demotes the packages.

In CA Clarity PPM, the CA Clarity PPM project manager:

1. Monitors task activity and progress using CA Clarity PPM.
2. Schedules (or manually executes) the process to send the status of Harvest packages to Service Desk.
3. Marks the tasks as 100% complete when all of the Harvest packages have been promoted to the production lifecycle state.
4. Marks the project as complete when all of the project tasks are complete.

How Other Maintenance Work is Managed

The following process describes how the need for other maintenance work is managed using Service Desk, CA Clarity PPM, and Harvest. This process ties call or change order management (Service Desk), resource or work management (CA Clarity PPM), and software change management (Harvest).

• The request for a change begins in Service Desk.
• The request results in a Service Desk change order for other maintenance work that is sent to CA Clarity PPM as an incident.
• The CA Clarity PPM change manager manages the CA Clarity PPM incident as a standalone issue, converts it to a task on an existing project, or converts it to a new project.
• The CA Clarity PPM change manager determines the scope of the work and determines if the work will be managed as a stand-alone incident, task on an existing project, or new project.
• If the work is managed as a stand-alone incident or converted to a task on an existing project, there is no automatic association back to the Service Desk change order.
• If the work is converted to a project, the association to the Service Desk change order is maintained.

Installation Prerequisites

You must install all three products, Unicenter Service Desk, CA Clarity PPM, and AllFusion Harvest Change Manager, before you install and configure the connector.

The following product versions are required for the connector:

• Unicenter Service Desk r12.6
• AllFusion Harvest Change Manager r12.1 SP2
• CA Clarity PPM 13.0, CA Clarity PPM 12.0, CA Clarity 8.1, CA Clarity 8.0, or Clarity 7.5.3_FP01or higher