Tracking time in Clarity PPM

[PFM1000]

Hi!

 

Was wondering if anyone had a good idea/solution for using Clarity as a time-tracker.  Here is my dilemma:

 

I need to have my IT department track their time; however, their tasks are really Support and Maintenance.  We have over 40 different applications; each application has 10 sub-applications and we have over 40 clients.  The Support and Maintenance work can be broken down into Requirements, Analysis, Development, Testing, UAT, Production Support for each sub application, under each application, for each client.  If we wanted to track at that level of granularity, we would have thousands of projects.  Has anyone ever used Clarity this way, and if so, how did you set it up?

 

Thanks so much!

[mike2.2]

Lets break the requirements down further.  What exactly do you want to get out of time tracking? Do you want to know how much time each resource is spending on each app/sub-app for each client? Can all resources work on all apps for all clients? How are resources assigned work? Are some resources dedicated to clients or apps? More detailed requirements are necessary. A lot more questions need to be asked.

[PFM1000]

Thanks Mike.  To further break it down:

 

Yes, I want to know how much time each resource is spending on each app/sub app for each client.

Any resource can work on any task.  No dedicated resources to clients or apps.  Resources are assigned work by an RM based upon availability and expertise.  Does that help?  I'm thinking I'll need a "project plan" by App/Sub App.  If I could get my company to turn on the User Value 1 field on the timesheet - the resource could use that field to identify the client.  Does that make sense?

 

Thanks.

[Ali]

Hello,

Looks like an old thread but I'm interested if anyone has tried to tackle this in Clarity more recently?

Thanks

[Martti Kinnunen]

Time is tracking in Clarity al the time.

Would you like to tell more details about your need.

[Ali]

As per the original post: S&M contracts for 40 applications x 10 sub applications x 40 clients with a team of 40 gives 16000 tasks each with 40 resources assigned.  

The nature of support and maintenance work means little lots of switching between tasks, little ability to plan which tasks will be worked on when, etc. all of which makes time compliance difficult (think about having to select from 16000 tasks to fill in your timesheet, or having to manage state of 16000 tasks, etc).

Wondering if Clarity addresses this at all or whether it's not designed to meet this sort of work?

[Pratyush Prateek]

If you are going to expect team members to have to select one of 16000 tasks, you will have problems and it isn't a clarity/tool problem to solve.
I wouldn't approach this with my starting question being whether a tool (Clarity) can address this. 
Given the brevity of the question being posed, it is difficult to ascertain what specific problem will be addressed even if you find a (any) tool that can address this.

Having said that, if we limit ourselves to this being a tool challenge (which I wouldn't), here are a couple of options that do not involve a WBS with 16000 time tracking tasks.

1. Look to integrate with your service management systems in a way that eventually team members only see the incidents they are working on in their respective timesheets.
2. Evaluate the To-Do functionality in Clarity to see how much of your specific needs it can address.

[Martti Kinnunen]

In Classic UI that would take some doing and no exactly my skill area.
For time tracking with application object you would 40 X 10 X 40 to select from for the time sheet which would not be practical 
Unless another field would qualify for the customer you cannot avoid the total number.
Further applications do have hierarchy, but that does not help as on the timesheet you would see both applications and subapplications.

If you used the project object, you would have projects as applications and tasks as sub application. That would allow on the timesheet for starters 40 projects/applications to choose from and then from 10 tasks in the selected project.

If you could use one of the User Lovs for clients (another list of 40 to select from but separater) that would reduce the max number of items to choose from one list. (The total of 16000 is still there)

You still would have to assign the 40 resources, but that would be only to the 40 top level objects if you allow them to enter time for unassigned tasks.

An issue is that Clarity does not have eternal projects nor applications. They do have a duration which could be one year or something different. Then you would have create a new one. Some organizations actually do that: They have Maintenance 2019, Maintenace 2020 and so on.

I can't say if the New UX makes this easier with its configurable custom investment object.

One option is to get in touch with sales and ask for a proof of concept if you consider Clarity an option.

[Martti Kinnunen]

No tool where you have to select from a single list of 16000 items is not a practical option unless you want to punish somebody.

However, that is the total number of options if any resources is allowed to work on anything at any time.