In case you missed last weeks PPM Office Hours below is the text of the chat. Be sure to join us for the next PPM Office Hours in the New Year!
Doug to Everyone: We have volumes of old resources in Clarity.
Doug to Everyone: What is the impact of Inactivating a resource in Clarity on historic Financials and Reporting? Does it impact the dollars that show on the project (financial plans), or in the reporting (portlets, dashboards, reports, etcetera).
Kathryn Ellis (CA) to Everyone: @Doug: we improvded in v13.3 the inactivated resources will still get rates and costs on cost plan population, all posted financial transactions are still there
Lynn Harris to Everyone: @Doug at least in 13.3 (not sure maybe 13.2 also?) the cost plans show inactive resources, but inactive resources don't show on the team tab by default (must do a show all) --Reporting all depends on what report you are using.. custom or OOTB they all very but I am sure CA can add more
Kathryn Ellis (CA) to Everyone: @Lynn, thank you for adding a bit more to my quick answer
Doug to Everyone: @Lynn & @Kathryn, thank you for the answer. We're currently on 13.2, but hope to move to 13.3 soon.
Lowell Wetzel to Everyone: I lost my chat from last discussion. What is the syntax for having a "remote" database connection? For example, if you have a "staging" database and need to connect to it, what is the connection string to use?
Nika Hadzhikidi (CA) to Everyone: @Lowell is the connection you want to make with Clarity? Would this be the NSA jdbc string that you are talking about?
Lowell Wetzel to Everyone: @Nika This would be a connection to a database outside of Clarity. For example, when we move to the SAAS model, I'll need a staging database and need to know how to connect to a staging database
Nika Hadzhikidi (CA) to Everyone: @Lowell, this would depend from the different access levels. I would prefer to take this question offline. and send you an email including Gary Cruz, who will be able to help determine that.
Lowell Wetzel to Everyone: @Nika That sounds great. thanks
Nick Darlington (CA) to Everyone: @Lowell: that request will be answered through your support issue, we won't be able to answer it here until we get a resolution for it sorry
Leila Wiebe to Everyone: Have we heard when the next release of Clarity will be coming out?
Nika Hadzhikidi (CA) to Everyone: @Leila 14.2 should be released at the end of the month.
Nika Hadzhikidi (CA) to Everyone: @Leila the ETA is still not definite though
Leila Wiebe to Everyone: @Kathryn - Thank you.
Chris Hackett (CA) to Everyone: @Leila - RE: 14.2 release, product management informed us that there is no confirmed Clarity v14.2 GA date. They will let the community know as soon as there is.
Tim Guzek to Everyone: Can someone explain the relationship that the Hierarchy Plays in Chargeback Invoices? Is it true that the Chargeback invoices are generated at the Top level investment of the Hierarchy
Kathryn Ellis (CA) to Everyone: @Tim : is that what you are seeing on your implementation?
Tim Guzek to Everyone: @Kathryn - It appears so
Kathryn Ellis (CA) to Everyone: @Tim - are you using Invoice Delegation down to sub-departments?
Kathryn Ellis (CA) to Everyone: @Tim - check the Department properties
Tim Guzek to Everyone: @Kathryn - yes the delegate flag is set to Yes
Kathryn Ellis (CA) to Everyone: @Tim - I would suggest logging a case ; provide screenshots of the provider and customer departments configuration, project financial properties, resource financial properties, credit and debit rules
Tim Guzek to Everyone: @Kathryn - OK - the delegate flag is set on ALL our departments as Yes
Tim Guzek to Everyone: @Kathryn - are you thinking the invoices should show the investments at the lower levels of the Hierarchy? Does it depend on whether the lowest levels are Internal or Standard ?
Doug to Everyone: @Tim, we've found that hierarchies are fairly limited out of the box. We leveraged an internal hierarchy table to build our own hierarchy Portlet. With that said, it is still fairly limited. Although I do not have answers for you, I too am very interested in your question.
Kathryn Ellis (CA) to Everyone: @Tim - if the Delegation flag is on, for all the levels of the hierarchy they should have their own invoices, if one of the children is not delegated, the charges for that department are rolled up to the parent.
Kathryn Ellis (CA) to Everyone: @Tim - quote from the user guide -- topic title = 'Delegated Invoice Approvals' .... "Delegated invoice approval enables sub departments to view and approve their own invoices. Delegated invoice approval is determined when setting up departments"
Tim Guzek to Everyone: @Kathryn - OK - So since all our flags are set to Yes, each department should have it's own invoice If I understand that correctly. So maybe I didn't ask the second part of my question clearly, so how does the Investment's Hierarchy play into determining what Investments appear on the Chargeback Invoice for a Dept?
Kathryn Ellis (CA) to Everyone: @Tim - regarding your last quetion "how does the Investment's Hierarchy play into determining what Investments appear on the Chargeback Invoice for a Dept?"................................. the hierarchy is not considered. It is only the financial properties of the Department and Location OBS units.
Tim Guzek to Everyone: @Kathryn - Thx - I'll open a case to work through what we are seeing
Keri to Everyone: Hello - Can you tell me how a contractor who makes time and a half would be handled with financials?
Connie Fu (CA) to Everyone: @Keri you can have a specific rate defined in the matrix, for the contractor identified by their role, transaction class, etc
Keri to Everyone: @Connie - We have a specific rate but will it automatically calcuate the overtime dollars?
Keri to Everyone: @Connie say the contractors rate is normally$60 with time and a half it's $90, how does the system calculate that?
Lowell Wetzel to Everyone: @Keri - How do you set a resource up for calculating time and a half? Do you have a task with specific role of time and a half?
Keri to Everyone: @Lowell - we don't have a way currently to do so because it was never an issue. We are not just encountering a contractor who is eligible for overtime and can't figure out how the system can handle the overtime. Does Clarity have a way to distinguish normal vs. overtime rate?
Lowell Wetzel to Everyone: @Keri - I would like to find that out as well
Connie Fu (CA) to Everyone: @Keri in that example you can put in $90 rate for these contractors, while having another row of $60 for the regular contractors.
Lynn Harris to Everyone: @ Keri, do you do time entry in Clarity? If I recall, I think that is what the split feature is for in time entry? been years since I have used it though.. not sure how/if it impacts costing though
Lynn Harris to Everyone: @Keri -- to clarify - the split was to indicate ovetime in time entry..
Doug to Everyone: @Keri, we use splits in combination with Input Type Code on the timesheet to control various rates for a contractor.
Keri to Everyone: Thank you!
Lynn Harris to Everyone: @Lowell- go to the Resource Workloads portlet it has a link to the resource allocations through an image.. maybe that will help? [Link to Resource Investment Details] but you cannot get the query for that portlet, but you might be able to trace the link..
Lynn Harris to Everyone: What are the risks or gotchas to watch out for regarding Programs when users decide to add a project to multiple programs. I have my checklist, but I wanted to get others' input. Particluarly, cost plans and effort planning - is it mainly reporting or is there something in the OOTB functionality to be aware of? seems like hirarchy allocation % helps some in reducting duplicate values? sure hope that makes sene-- just seekign some general input
Lynn Harris to Everyone: Does anyone have any input to my question I raised on programs? It may have gotten overlooked as the subsequent questions are being answered.. Then again, there may be no input to add just curious.. thanks!
Connie Fu (CA) to Everyone: @Lynn you would want to make sure Update Aggregated Date job is run when projects are added/removed to program
Lynn Harris to Everyone: @Connie- thanks, I was more seeking on what impacts occur if people associate projects to multiple programs.. using OOTB functionality..
Atul Kunkulol to Everyone: Is it possible to XOG a URL as favorites for each user?
Nika Hadzhikidi (CA) to Everyone: @Keri Unfortunately it is not possible to XOG in data in the personal portlets such as Favorites URL or My Projects.
Nika Hadzhikidi (CA) to Everyone: @Atul : Apologies, my last reply was actually for you.
Atul Kunkulol to Everyone: @nika.. No worries. got it. Thanks
Lowell Wetzel to Everyone: I have a request from a user to have a link to the Resource Allocations page from a Custom NSQL portlet. Is there a way to accomplish this?
Lynn Harris to Everyone: @Lowell- go to the Resource Workloads portlet it has a link to the resource allocations through an image.. maybe that will help? [Link to Resource Investment Details] but you cannot get the query for that portlet, but you might be able to trace the link..
Lowell Wetzel to Everyone: What is the syntax for modifying the "Notification Properties" to cusomize the messages? For example, I want to have the link to a site. I found that I have to put 2 // (slashes) for every single slash for the link
Doug to Everyone: To Everyone, We're looking at having Portfolios include Ideas and Projects. What happens when a Project is created from an Idea? What happens to the Idea? Is it auto excluded from the Portfolio? Is there a flag we can include in the power filter to exclude them?
Kathryn Ellis (CA) to Everyone: @Doug - The portfolio does not recognize the relationship between an Idea and the project that was created from that idea. You have to manually manage this relationship in the portfolio.
Kathryn Ellis (CA) to Everyone: @Doug - Portfolio management, you may be able to use power filtering to include or exclude the investments based on some criteria.
Doug to Everyone: @Kathryn, thank you, any idea (no pun) on what attribute on the Idea is set if a project is created from it?
Lowell Wetzel to Everyone: For converting an Idea to a Project, I use a template. The issue is that the OBS associated with the Idea overwrites the OBS in the template. Is there a way to get around this issue?
Leah Martine to Everyone: @Doug, the Conversion Date is set on the Idea when it is converted to a Project.
Kathryn Ellis (CA) to Everyone: @Doug - Idea does not have an attribute when converted ; only project has an attribute 'originating idea'
Nick Darlington (CA) to Everyone: @Lowell: re "Notification Properties" customization - If you mean under Administration > Notifications (templates), have you tried putting the format in as HTML? E.g. with <A href="yourlinkhere">friendly name for link</A>
Lowell Wetzel to Everyone: @Nick - I will try HTML references for that?
Nick Darlington (CA) to Everyone: @Lowell: those notification templates will accomodate HTML to style the output (both in the email as well as in the UI for the notification), so although not every capability of HTML is possible some simple formatting and structure can be added using any HTML reference material as a guide
Kathryn Ellis (CA) to Everyone: @Doug - for the Idea OBS being used, this is as currently designed. Log an 'idea' on the communities to request a change in behavior to 'chose' the idea or the template OBS.
Doug to Everyone: @Kathryn, @Nick, @Atul, thank you very much, this provides multiple ways to approach it.
Atul Kunkulol to Everyone: What is easy way to force a full rate matrix extract? Within a client env, even after selecting prepare and Update check boxes and not selecting Incremental, it will not do a full run. Any ideas?
Kathryn Ellis (CA) to Everyone: @Atul - this sounds like you need to open a support case. Check the BG logs or turn on debugging to see if more messages are generated in the logs to see if there is something going on with the job.
Atul Kunkulol to Everyone: @Kathryn.. will do. Thanks
Tim Guzek to Everyone: As long as we're asking Rate Matrix Questions - What are best practices as far as the ToDates for resources that are no longer active? Latest Allocation Finish, Actuals Through Date, Terminiation Date??
Kathryn Ellis (CA) to Everyone: @Tim : regarding 'Best Practices" for inactive resources, there maybe best practices that can be found on the communities from other customer experiences.
Lowell Wetzel to Everyone: I have had an interesting issue with the rate matrix and task assignments. When the rate for a resource begins the day the resource is hired, I get unfound rates for the resource on a project. But... if I change the rate start date to the beginning of the month, it takes care of this issue. Should rates only begin on the start of months?
Doug to Everyone: @Tim, we set all our to date to 12/31/2020 that are not contract specific. Then when we end a resource, we set it to their end date.
Doug to Everyone: @Lowell, @Tim, oops that was to Lowell
Kathryn Ellis (CA) to Everyone: @Lowell - regarding finding a rate that has a 'from date' not beginning at the first of the month. This is a known design issue --- there must be defined rates that cover the entire fiscal period.
Martti Kinnunen to Everyone: @Lowell Wetze Rather than fiscal periods we start and end rates and employment the first day of timeentry period and the last day. The rates are applied to time entries, aren't they. so if the whole period is not coverd there could be errors or invalid transactions
Chad to Everyone: Is it possible to enter a WIP adjustment and not affect assignment totals? The assignment shows correct totals, but the WIP is missing the transactions and we want to make them match.
Lynn Harris to Everyone: @Chad- be sure you ran all 3 jobs (wip, post transactions to financial, import financial actuals ) once processed, ppa_wip should show the original record with a status of 2 and then the new (adjusted) entry with status of 0
Connie Fu (CA) to Everyone: @Chad, when there is already a discrepancy between WIP and assignment, it's often difficult or impossilble to make them synced with WIP adjustment. Just make sure you don't reverse ANY transaction, or adjust any negative transaction. If you have a specific issue we can look further into it via a Support case
Chris Hackett (CA) to Everyone: Ok Everyone - We're finishing up the last of the questions and are wrapping up. For those in California (much of the CA team here) stay safe and dry! Thanks you all for participating today and we'll be back in January. Happy Holidays and New Year!
Martti Kinnunen to Everyone: @all Happy Holidays
Thanks
Nika Hadzhikidi (CA) to Everyone: Happy Holidays to all!!
Chris Hackett (CA) to Everyone: Thanks again everyone!
Doug to Everyone: Happy Holidays
Connie Fu (CA) to Everyone: Ciao!