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Capacity Planning Scenarios

This section contains the following topics:

Capacity Planning Scenarios Overview

Capacity Planning Scenario Behavior

Terms Used in Capacity Planning Scenarios

Access Capacity Planning Scenarios

How to Work with Capacity Planning Scenarios

Capacity Planning Scenarios Overview

Capacity planning scenarios allow you to make informed decisions about resource demands and staffing. Using a capacity planning scenario, you can modify team allocations. You can create a scenario to make temporary changes to your data affecting your overall capacity plan. These temporary changes are never saved or applied to your actual data. Use the capacity planning scenario for analysis before making actual changes.

Based on the criteria you enter and update, the capacity planning scenario changes the demand data that is displayed. Filters offer you the ability to exclude or include to-be-hired resources and soft bookings. The list of investments consisting of resources for inclusion in the capacity planning activities, helps build capacity planning scenarios to study and anticipate utilization.

Capacity planning scenarios are investment aware. The demand from staffing for all investments is counted and displayed when viewing data in a scenario.

You can use capacity planning scenarios with any investment; you do not have to add those investments to the scenario manually. You only require to specify the investments to which you want to make tentative changes.

If you modify an investment while in a scenario, the investment is automatically added to the investments list for the scenario. You can hide an investment from a scenario to display the original or plan-of-record value for the investment. You can also exclude an investment from a scenario to remove it from consideration completely.

Capacity Planning Scenario Behavior

The following lists how a capacity planning scenario behaves:

Terms Used in Capacity Planning Scenarios

The following terms are introduced in capacity planning scenarios:

Capacity

The total availability of resources grouped by resources, roles, or OBS units.

Demand

Demand is the sum of all task assignments by investment allocation. Demand consists of one of the following:

Unfilled Demand

The demand to which roles are allocated for an investment.

Unused/Available Capacity

The total capacity minus total allocation demand. Negative unused capacity indicates over-allocation.

Unassigned Work

The total investment allocation minus total investment assignment allocation. Negative unassigned work shows where the assignment allocation exceeds the investment allocation.

Access Capacity Planning Scenarios

You can access and create your capacity planning scenarios from any CA Clarity PPM page that displays the scenario toolbar or a Scenario menu item. The scenario toolbar indicates that the data you are viewing and editing on the scenario-enabled page is not actual data. The changes to a scenario do not affect the plan of record.

From scenario-enabled pages, you can do the following:

The capacity planning scenarios selected from the Scenario drop-down allow you view or edit access rights. To exit a scenario, selected Plan of Record from the Scenario drop-down.

How to Work with Capacity Planning Scenarios

Use the scenario-enabled pages to create scenarios and use them as guidelines for planning your investments. Use capacity planning scenarios to address situations similar to the following:

You can do the following from scenario-enabled pages:

More information:

Manage Investments in Capacity Planning Scenarios

Example: Compare Capacity Planning Scenarios

Filter Investments and Resources for Analysis

By default, all resources and investments to which you have access are displayed in a capacity planning scenario. Use the filters on scenario-enabled pages to restrict the investments, roles, or resources that have no relevance to your capacity analysis. And to show a subset of the data currently presented on the page. You can save the parameters of the most recent filter operation across sessions. Such saving aims to eliminate redefining a new filter for each capacity analysis.

Create Capacity Planning Scenarios

You can create capacity planning scenarios from any page that displays Scenario. You can also create scenarios from the manage scenarios page.

Share scenarios with other resources or keep them private. By default, scenarios are private. Use a capacity planning scenario to modify your current investments.

When you view tentative data in a new scenario, the scenario toolbar appears.

Follow these steps:

  1. With the investment open, click the down arrow for Scenario, and click New.

    The new scenario is created.

  2. Click More and select Edit.

    The properties page appears.

  3. Define the following fields:
    Scenario Name

    Defines the name for this scenario.

    Default: New Scenario

    Required: Yes

    Portfolio

    Defines the portfolio associated to this scenario.

    Description

    Defines the description.

    Limits: 240 characters

    Required: No

    Owner

    The resource who has primary responsibility for the scenario.

    Default: Logged in user

    Required: Yes

    Planned Cost

    Defines the planned cost amount of the investments in the scenario.

    Planned Benefit

    Defines the planned benefit amount of the investments in the scenario.

  4. Click Access to provide resources with access rights to this scenario.
  5. Make temporary changes to your investments, resources, or team information. The changes help compare with the plan of record for an investment.
  6. Save your changes.

Example

The following example describes one way to work with a capacity planning scenario:

  1. While in a scenario, make desired changes to all your future investments and save. You can change the investment start date, change resource allocations, or add more time to your investment.

    For more information, see the Project Management User Guide.

  2. From the scenario investments page, approve your future investments to see their effects on your current work capacity. Also approve your investments from the individual investments page.
  3. Access the Role Capacity portlet on the capacity page to review the results of your changes. Switch between the different Resource Planning portlets to evaluate capacity and demand in different ways within the scenario. This portlet can help you decide if you require to make any adjustments.
  4. On the Role Capacity portlet, drill down on one of your over-allocated roles to access the role properties page.
  5. Click Allocations to access the resource planning allocations page. Click in the field containing the data and edit the data.
  6. Edit allocation for a role to reduce it or shift the allocation dates.
  7. Save your changes.
  8. Click Capacity to access the capacity page. The changes display the effect of the overall capacity plan and determine other changes in the planning process.
  9. Make any further required changes to adjust your role allocations, add more investments, shift investment dates, or approve or unapprove investments.
  10. Save your changes.

More information:

Edit Capacity Planning Scenario Properties

Share Capacity Planning Scenarios with Other Resources

Manage Capacity Planning Scenarios

Create and Link Capacity Planning Scenarios to Portfolios

When creating a scenario, you have the option to link it to a portfolio. Linking a scenario to a portfolio makes the scenario accessible from the portfolio. However, you can only link a scenario to a portfolio by creating a scenario from the capacity planning scenarios page.

Follow these steps:

  1. From a page that displays the scenario toolbar, click More, and go to Manage Scenarios.

    The capacity planning scenarios page appears.

  2. Click New.

    The properties page appears.

  3. Complete the following fields:
    Scenario Name

    Defines the name for this scenario.

    Default: New Scenario

    Required: Yes

    Portfolio

    Select the portfolio from the drop-down to link this scenario. You can view and select the portfolios you have access to. Link the capacity planning scenario to the portfolio before saving the scenario. Once saved, the portfolio value cannot be changed.

    Description

    Defines the description for this scenario.

    Planned Cost

    Defines the planned cost amount of the investments in the scenario.

    Planned Benefit

    Defines the planned benefit amount of the investments in the scenario.

  4. Click Save.

    The new capacity planning scenario is created and is linked to the portfolio.

More information:

Edit Capacity Planning Scenario Properties

Example: Compare Capacity Planning Scenarios

You can compare a scenario with the plan of record or with another scenario. The comparison allows you to see how the latest scenario changes compare to the plan of record or the last round of changes. When you are comparing scenarios, red-lining appears on the page to help you distinguish between the two sets of data.

The ability to compare scenarios, using red-lining, appears on all project team and some project task pages.

Follow these steps:

  1. From the scenario toolbar, select a scenario.
  2. Select the plan of record or a second scenario to compare the first scenario from the Compare To drop-down.
  3. Navigate through the pages to compare different aspects of the scenarios. Switch between the investment and resource pages to compare role capacity and allocation.

    To see the scenario details as standalone entries without the red-lining, select your planning scenario from the left scenario drop-down. Select None from the right scenario drop-down.

    Scenario 1 is compared with the plan of record. The plan of record data is red-lined and scenario data appears below it. You can compare the resource allocation dates, allocation amounts, and ETC.

    Individual task dates got pushed out for an investment due to schedule changes.

    The investment staffing data is compared against two scenarios. You can compare the following data types for each investment team member between Scenario 1 and Scenario 2:

Configure the Capacity Planning List

You can configure the capacity planning list to do the following:

These configurations apply only when you are comparing a scenario with another or to the plan of record. These configurations do not apply to the following cases:

Add a Secondary Comparison Value

Follow these steps:

  1. From any capacity planning page that contains a list of data, click the Configure icon from the toolbar.

    The list column layout page appears.

  2. Click List Column Section and go to Fields.

    The configure list column fields page appears.

  3. Next to the attribute or column label (for example, % Allocation), click the Properties icon.

    The list column field page appears.

  4. Select the secondary value for the selected attribute from the Secondary Value drop-down.

    For example, select Default Allocation (Compare To) as a secondary value for the % Allocation attribute.

  5. Click Save.

    Secondary values are appended with (Compare To).

View Secondary Values and Red-lining

After configuring the planning list, open the capacity planning page to view the results.

Follow these steps:

  1. From any capacity planning page that contains a list of data, click the Configure icon from the toolbar.

    The configure list column layout page appears.

  2. Click List Column Section and go to Options.

    The configure list options page appears.

  3. Click Save.

Manage Investments in Capacity Planning Scenarios

Investments can be added to scenarios manually or by using a power filter, or automatically when editing the investment attributes. For example, when you change the start date for an investment or the allocation for a team member. When an investment is added to a scenario, all associated team members are also added automatically to the scenario.

Follow these steps:

On the scenario investments page, do one of the following:

More information:

Temporarily Hide Investments from Capacity Planning Scenarios

Temporarily Hide Investments from Capacity Planning Scenarios

To ignore changes temporarily for an investment in a scenario and let the plan of record values appear, you can hide that investment from the scenario. You can also show an investment to display the scenario values again.

To view a hidden investment, choose No from the Hidden drop down.

Follow these steps:

  1. From a page that contains the scenario toolbar, click More, and go to Investments.

    The investments page appears.

  2. Next to each investment you want to hide, choose Yes from the Hidden drop down, and click Save.

    The investment is temporarily hidden from the capacity planning scenario.

Remove Investments from Capacity Planning Scenarios

Removing an investment from a scenario removes any changes to that investment from the scenario. The investment then shows the plan of record values.

Follow these steps:

  1. From a page that displays the scenario toolbar, click More, and select Investments.

    The investments page appears.

  2. Select the check box next to the investment, and then click Remove.

Make Hypothetical Changes to Investments in Capacity Planning Scenarios

You can make hypothetical changes to investments in capacity planning scenarios.

Follow these steps:

  1. From a page that includes the scenario toolbar, click More, and go to Investments.

    The investments page appears.

  2. Complete the following fields:
    Start

    Defines the investment start date. The value for this field is from the Start Date field on the project properties page.

    Planned Cost

    Defines the planned cost amount of the investments in the scenario.

    Approved

    Defines the investment as approved or disapproved in the scenario.

    Hidden

    Defines the temporarily hidden or exposed investment from the scenario.

  3. Click Save.

Reset Investments in Capacity Planning Scenarios

While in a capacity planning scenario, you can select investments and refresh the values to reflect the contents of the plan of record. Refreshing the investment values, enables you to undo the changes to an investment without exiting the scenario.

Resetting deletes any changes that were made in the scenario (for that investment) and refreshes it with data from the plan of record. When adding an investment back into the scenario, the investment includes scenario data. But the scenario data is the same as plan of record data unless changed.

Follow these steps:

  1. From a page that displays the scenario toolbar, click More, and go to Investments.

    The investments page appears.

  2. Select the investments for resetting, and then click Reset.

    The investment is removed from the capacity planning scenario and added again.

Manage Capacity Planning Scenarios

The pages for managing a scenario are common to both capacity planning and portfolio scenarios. The portfolio scenarios are visible on any page that supports capacity planning scenarios. Capacity planning scenarios are not visible on portfolio management pages.

Use the capacity planning scenarios page to create, edit, delete, copy, or set a scenario as the current scenario or the current compare scenario. From the scenario toolbar, click More and select Manage Scenarios.

Edit Capacity Planning Scenario Properties

Owners of capacity planning scenarios have implicit rights to edit their scenarios. Scenario owners can also grant instance access rights to their capacity planning scenarios. You can copy a scenario and edit the new copy. When you grant the access rights, you become the owner of the new capacity planning scenario copy.

Edits or actions are applied to the selected scenario and not to the plan of record or actual data. Also, if you edit an investment that was not explicitly added to the scenario, the investment gets automatically added to the scenario in the background. For example, while in a scenario, you modify a team record that does not exist in the scenario with the associated investment. The investment and all the team records are automatically added to the scenario in the background. To edit the plan of record data from the scenario toolbar, select Plan of Record from the Scenario drop-down.

You can edit a limited number of field values for scenario properties, investments, and team properties in capacity planning scenarios or portfolio scenarios. In the absence of the required rights to edit a scenario, all fields on all the scenario pages appear as read-only.

You can also remove or add new investments to this scenario.

Note: In a scenario, the edits are saved as part of the selected scenario.

Follow these steps:

  1. On the scenario toolbar, select the scenario from the Scenario drop-down, click More, and select Edit.

    The properties page appears.

  2. Complete the following fields:
    Scenario Name

    Enter or change the name of the scenario.

    Portfolio

    This field is read-only because you cannot change the portfolio to which a capacity planning scenario is linked after the scenario is initially saved.

    Description

    Defines the description for this scenario.

    Owner

    The resource that created the scenario appears by default. You can select a different resource as the owner.

    Currency

    Displays the currency code for the portfolio.

    Planned Cost

    Defines the planned cost amount of the investments in the scenario.

    Planned Benefit

    Defines the planned benefit amount of the investments in the scenario.

  3. Click Save.

Rename Capacity Planning Scenarios

Follow these steps:

  1. Open the capacity planning scenario.

    The list page appears.

  2. Click a scenario name.

    The properties page appears.

  3. Enter a new name in the Scenario Name field, and click Save.

Copy Capacity Planning Scenarios

The list of scenarios available to copy is limited to scenarios to which you have view or edit rights. When you copy a scenario, associated investments are also copied to the new scenario.

Alternatively, you can use the Copy option from the More button on the scenario toolbar.

Follow these steps:

  1. From a page that displays the scenario toolbar, click More, and go to Manage Scenarios.

    The capacity page appears.

  2. Select the check box next to the scenario, click More, and select Copy.

    A copy of the selected scenario is added to the list and is named Copy of <Scenario Name>. This copy is private.

  3. Click the name of the scenario.

    The properties page appears.

  4. Give the copied scenario a new and unique name, and click Save.

More information:

Share Capacity Planning Scenarios with Other Resources

Delete Capacity Planning Scenarios

When you delete scenarios, the selected scenarios, and the associated investment and team member conditions, are also deleted. The investments and team members are deleted only from the selected scenario, not from any other scenario.

Alternatively, you can use the Delete option from the More button on the scenario toolbar.

Follow these steps:

  1. From a page that displays the scenario toolbar, click More and select Manage Scenarios.

    The list page appears.

  2. Select the check box next to the capacity planning scenario, click More, and select Delete.

    The confirmation page appears.

  3. Click Yes to confirm.

Set a Current Scenario

You can select a scenario as the context for all capacity planning scenario-enabled pages by selecting a current scenario directly from the scenario toolbar.

Follow these steps:

  1. On the capacity planning scenarios page, select the scenario for the current scenario.
  2. Click More and go to Set Current.

    The scenario is now set as the current capacity planning scenario and the default in the Scenario drop-down on any scenario-enabled page.

Set a Compare Scenario

You can select a compare to scenario as the context for all capacity planning scenario-enabled pages. You can select a compare to scenario by selecting a current compare scenario directly from the scenario toolbar.

Follow these steps:

  1. On the capacity planning scenarios page, select the scenario for the current compare scenario.
  2. Click More and select Set Compare.

    The scenario is the current capacity planning compare to scenario and the default in the Compare To drop-down on any scenario-enabled page.

Reset to Plan of Record

You can deselect any scenarios (current and compare scenarios) to switch to the plan of record.

Follow this step:

  1. On the capacity planning scenarios page, click More, and select Reset.

The above action clears the current scenarios and resets all the scenario-enabled pages to the plan of record.

View Role Capacity from a Scenario

From the scenario toolbar, click More and select Go to Capacity Planning to access the resource planning capacity page. From this page, you can view role wise available and allocated work across all the investments. The page shows demand for filled and unfilled role allocations.

Share Capacity Planning Scenarios with Other Resources

Use the scenario access pages to view resources with rights to the capacity planning scenario. You can also use the pages to provide resources with access to the scenarios you create. From the scenario properties page or scenario: investments page, select one of the following from the Access menu: