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Project Management Overview

This section contains the following topics:

About Project Management

Project Components

Advance Project Planning

How to Create and Manage Projects

Earned Value Information

Task Cost Metrics

Access Projects

Jobs (Projects)

Access Groups

About Project Management

Projects are sets of activities designed to achieve a specific objective. Their key elements are tasks that define project work and staff members - the resources who perform them. Time and budget constraints guide projects. The constraints estimate and determine how long each task and, therefore, the entire project take and how much it costs.

Use CA Clarity PPM projects to define and track each aspect of your project from tasks and staff to budgets, actuals, and risks. In addition, you can create master projects that group related subprojects. The master projects let you view and analyze the combined costs, estimates, and actuals of their sub projects.

Projects are used as the example investment. Project functionality and components apply to all investments that are based on the project, such as proposals.

Project Components

Project managers can define and manage a wide range of project elements such as staffing the project, recording risks and issues, and activating processes.

Projects consist of the following components:

More information:

How to Work with Project Properties

Teams (projects and investments)

Risks, Issues, Change Requests, and Action Items

Access Rights (Investments)

Advance Project Planning

To create a project, verify that you have a general idea of its scope, the tasks that resources perform, and a timeframe to complete them. Advance project planning makes the initial field entry and set-up easier for you. Once you enter the project with tasks and resources, keep it accurate and up to date. A regularly maintained detailed project plan is the most effective way to measure performance and status. The project plan also helps to get work done.

The more detailed and accurate your project plan, the more useful it is. For example, use system-generated work estimates, or create your own. Estimates (ETC) help to plan task and project duration, and also for comparison with actuals once the project is under way. Baselines are another useful tool to help you measure progress. Though creating estimates and baselines can take a little more time, the long-term benefits to you and your team can be enormous.

More information:

How to Work with Project Properties

How to Create and Manage Projects

If you are new to CA Clarity PPM projects, consider using the following process when creating and managing new projects:

  1. Create the project.
  2. Define project properties.
  3. Create the tasks and milestones.
  4. View the allocation of the resources to add to the project.
  5. Assign resources to tasks.
  6. If necessary, create time-varying ETC segments.
  7. Create a baseline.
  8. The resource assignment records time spent on the tasks on their timesheet.
  9. The project manager tracks and compares the actuals to the estimates.
  10. Automatically schedule the tasks using Autoschedule.
  11. Compare actuals to estimates.
  12. Modify the current schedule by creating a tentative schedule. Then, review and publish the changes to the current schedule.

Earned Value Information

You can display earned value fields on any portlet or list page that bases its information about the project or task. To display the fields, personalize the page, or let the CA Clarity PPM administrator configure the page or portlet at the system level using Studio.

For more information, see the Personalizing CA Clarity PPM User Guide.

For more information, see the Studio Developer’s Guide.

More information:

Project Management Overview

Task Cost Metrics

You can display cost metrics in the Gantt view without creating a current baseline.

The fields do not display, by default, on the page - requires personalizing the page. Alternatively, let your CA Clarity PPM administrator configure the Gantt list column view for the task object at the system level to display the columns.

For more information, see the Personalizing CA Clarity PPM User Guide.

For more information, see the Studio Developer’s Guide.

The following cost metrics are available:

ACWP

Displays the system-calculated value of Actual Cost of Work Performed (ACWP), which is the total direct cost incurred in performing work based on posted actuals. ACWP is calculated at the following levels:

Current Baseline Required: No

ETC (Cost)

Displays the system-calculated value of Estimate To Completion (ETC), and is calculated based on the following formula:

ETC (Cost) = remaining labor cost + remaining non-labor cost

Current Baseline Required: No

EAC (T)

Displays the system-calculated value of Estimate At Completion (EAC). This calculation is most often used when current variances are seen as typical of future variances. The calculation is based on the following formula:

EAC (T) = ACWP + ETC

Current Baseline Required: No

Access Projects

To access projects, from Portfolio Management, click Projects. The projects list page appears with the projects you have created and are assigned to.

More information:

How to Create and Manage Projects

Jobs (Projects)

The following jobs can influence information or performance in projects:

Contact your CA Clarity PPM administrator or see the Administration Guide for more information.

Access Groups

Access groups are associated with certain access rights, which allow group members access to secured pages, portlets, reports, and queries.

The following are the project access groups: