With the huge recent releases of Clarity PPM (CA PPM) 14.1 and 14.2, you’re faced with the decision to upgrade now or wait. In this post, we’ll outline reasons to move forward and some reasons you might wait, so you can decide what works best for your organization.
Clarity PPM 14.2 | Why Wait to Upgrade?
Let’s get the reasons to wait out of the way first. For starters, by default, we always recommend our clients wait for second dot releases. There’s simply less risk when you let other organizations find the new bugs and jump onboard after the bugs have been fixed.
It’s also worth waiting if you’re not ready to move to Jaspersoft. That said, you can still run Business Objects side-by-side with Jaspersoft in the 14.2 upgrade, and this could help you with the transition.
Finally, while Rego makes upgrades more affordable, having the time and the financial means to upgrade are important considerations.
Clarity PPM 14.2 | Reasons to Upgrade: Fixes, Support, MSP, & Investments
There’s a lot of reasons to go for the Clarity PPM 14.2 upgrade. For starters, 14.2 offers fixes for over 200 customer facing defects, and your support for SAP Business Objects will run out in December. (See more on the Business Objects upgrade here.)
The new 14.1 and 14.2 releases also include a complete Microsoft Project redesign—with staggering performance improvements.
And CA resolved a gap for many companies when they lifted the cap on portfolio investments (formerly set to 150). We’ll talk more about it later, but it’s important to note that while CA has already seen clients adding up to 8,500 investments, your data processing will get slower with a higher investment volume, so be careful.
Clarity PPM 14.2 | Reasons to Upgrade: Information Visibility, Reporting
We have an entire article dedicated to On-Demand clients considering using Jaspersoft and Business Objects in tandem, so if that includes you, read Rego’s official Clarity PPM 14.2 recommendation here. It's important you update before this Fall.
Everyone’s really excited about the Clarity PPM 14.2 upgrade because the Jaspersoft integration and the data warehouse support (see more below) give us two major reporting options: one sophisticated, one ad hoc.
In the Jaspersoft Studio, you can still do custom reports like the ones you’re used to making in Crystal Report Designer or Business Object Designer. (See Rego PPM Hangouts on Air 6:28). But the self-service reporting really opens up our reporting options. In earlier versions of Clarity PPM, we had to use a technical resource to report off multiple functional areas. No more. Reporting is far simpler and more powerful. It's drag and drop.
From within the Clarity PPM user interface, non-technical users can view data with custom fields and tables, and those custom fields and tables are now automatically available for ad hoc reporting. That’s a key differentiator (see Rego PPM Hangouts Online 13:32).
The ad hoc reports can also be exported and emailed in any format (PowerPoint, PDF, Excel, Word), and you’ll be really pleased with the rendering. The reports are pixel for pixel what you see running them in Clarity PPM, so they look really nice when they're moved into other programs, like PowerPoint (see Rego PPM Hangouts Online 6:28 and 9:52).
Clarity PPM 14.2 | Reasons to Upgrade: Data Warehouse
There’s two databases in the Clarity PPM 14.2 upgrade: the Clarity PPM database and the new data warehouse. The new warehouse is what gives us the simplified data model and convenient ad hoc reporting.
Because the data warehouse resides on another server, queries don’t hit the Clarity PPM database directly, and it takes the stress of the transaction off the Clarity PPM database. This means everything runs faster, and you can create and develop reports, as well as style templates, against either the data warehouse or the Clarity PPM transactional database. Then share or save your reports in the repository.
It’s much easier to add objects and attributes (see Rego PPM Hangouts Online 17:57), and it’s much easier to find the data that you need to build reports.
The data warehouse also gives us incredible flexibility to access information from any reporting suite—it doesn’t have to be Jaspersoft or Business Objects. You can connect your other reporting tools much more easily to the CA PPM data schema.
----
There's so much information visibility in the Clarity PPM 14.2 upgrade. Data is more accessible, the integrated reporting is far simpler, and the data warehouse allows for unprecedented PPM flexibility.
We're excited. It’s a powerful upgrade.
Do you have other questions about this upgrade? Let us know in the comments below. And if you missed the terrific 14.2 and Jaspersoft discussion between our experts, here's a link. Rego PPM Hangouts On Air | Moving to Clarity PPM 14.2 & Jaspersoft.
Like this post? Stay tuned for more details on Jaspersoft Domains, the Ad-Hoc Viewer, and Navigation in Clarity PPM 14.2.
Join our mailing list below.
Let Rego Be Your Guide
Join us live and in-person at RegoUniversity in San Diego Sept 29-Oct 2 and learn from the expert guides who deliver Clarity PPM and Agile services to 60% of Fortune 20 companies. Act now to save $300 on Early Bird Pricing until July 1st.
Rego also offers free health assessments, webinars, and half-day training classes for Clarity PPM on Roadmaps in the Modern UX, Power BI, Portfolio Management, and Jaspersoft.
For a full list of Clarity Services, visit regoconsulting.com.
