We are beginning to use CA Clarity at my company. I have an extensive knowledge of Microsoft Project (and Project Server), but no experience with Clarity. We will use MSP for scheduling and Clarity for the PPM. Does anyone have any advice as far as best practices for using both? I know there are restrictions / suggested ways to do things, but have not yet found good documentation.
Thank you! Saving Changes...
I have not used Clarity, but I have used some of its earlier versions (Workbench). In my experience, using MS Project for scheduling and Clarity as the server component is a mistake. I urge you to use Clarity's own tools for scheduling as well.
We found that there were many subtle differences in the way MS Project and the server would calculate duration and end-date. The result was that we would create a schedule in MS Project, and when we import it into the server, it would be off by a few percentage points. Not any huge amounts, but enough to push a schedule off of the month-end close or another critical date.
It was just irritating and difficult.
In the end, we came up with lists of features in MS Project that we should not use. These features caused the drift and errors to be worse. We also came up with procedures to fix the schedules on the server or in MS Project, to eliminate the problems. In my view, it was a waste of time, and we would have been better off dropping MS Project.
After all, the reason given for using MS Project -- it was "easier to use" and "everyone already knew it". In real life, we had to teach them a host of new procedures and restrictions to make the two products work together.
Also, when we contacted support to ask for solutions to the problems, we were told that they would be fixed soon or they were due to a limitation in MS Project/Workbench. Each vendor blamed the other. In the end, we had to work out the problems on our own.
Clarity may have solved many of the problems I saw, though. Perhaps in your release the data translates better between the server and the desktop. There will always be some translation, though, so I recommend avoiding mixing and matching tools from different vendors. Saving Changes...
