Broadcom Clarity Reviews

The most valuable features are the ability to manage projects, statuses, various queued tasks of the project; and time tracking related to resource management.

It definitely gives us a way to group and manage our projects across the entire organization, as well as track time of resources so we can use that within our capitalization efforts.

We're actually trying to evolve our portfolio management practice within the tool, but from a project perspective, it's done well. I guess we're still trying to see how we can maximize and use it across the portfolio.

We are not with the current release, and I do not think that there is anything really glaringly wrong about it. Some of the issues we've had as far as project integration issues, for example, are probably addressed in the current version.

It's pretty stable. We haven't had any significant outages, no crazy bugs. The version we're running is probably about three releases from the current version, so we like to make sure it's a stable version before we upgrade. We will probably upgrade to 14.4, the current version soon, but right now it's pretty stable.

It's really scalable.

Personally, I haven't used technical support. We have a technical lead who does most of our technical work and deals with CA’s technical support. I think he's been pretty happy.

Personally, I think there are some things that could be a little better, particularly regarding response times. Over time, I think, they have showed improvement. There hasn’t been anything glaring that would make me say their support is terrible.

It's been set up for over 10 years now. It's evolved from there, but I think the initial setup was over 10 years ago.

Make sure the organization is ready for the solution. Sometimes it's a lot about process. The tool can't fix process issues. If the process isn’t built for the tool, it is not going to work correctly. Make sure you prepare the processes first, so they will be ready for it.

We look for something sustainable. Sustainability is a very important value for the users and for our IT team, who are the people supporting it.

Its strength is all the different features it offers. It's kind of a one-stop shop solution for project managers, resource managers, and finance department personnel. There are a lot of different uses for the tools; and it enabled us to consolidate our list of tools from five or six tools down to just PPM. We're managing one tool with one person managing it as an administrator, instead of having two or three administrators for each tool, with manual processes, and so on.

It is much more streamlined, with a lot more automation, and it’s just easy to use.

A benefit of the SaaS version is not needing to deal with any of the standard on-premise issues that you have. We can rely on the vendor to do a lot more of the upgrade work and things like that. I don't feel like we're pressured, like we would experience with some of the other SaaS providers out there, to be on the latest version or pick up any other applications that go with it.

It just costs much less, and it's as reliable as if it were on-premises. We don't have to pay for the hardware cost. We don't really have to support any of that. It's just a matter of giving them a call and asking for whatever it is we need.

When you look at it, it saves us a ton of money. Fewer FTEs to manage the different products or tools. As I've mentioned, it's a one-stop shop. As a project manager, I can go in and do all the administrative work that I need to do; instead of doing it manually over spreadsheets, uploading it to SharePoint, and so on. It's just a lot more straightforward and convenient.

We're actually releasing two different funding portfolios. Right now, I think we have between 10 and 13 in the company. As we're going through each of the funding portfolios, we're evaluating what they're doing today. We're not only just making them use PPM, but we're streamlining some of their processes and weeding out some of those things that we used to do solely because they are used to doing it that way. The funding portfolios are becoming much more efficient. We're re-evaluating what the value is of everything that we do today. As we streamline it, we put it in the PPM.

It needs to provide a more mobile-friendly user experience. There could maybe be a little bit more around Jaspersoft reporting. I know Jaspersoft is kind of decoupled from PPM, but reporting is one of the big draws for us. It would be nice to be able to do all our project management, and then report on it, using the same tool. If they could keep building out Jaspersoft, that would be great.

We have no issues with stability.

We're going from a few hundred users to several thousand in a few months. We haven't done any stability testing, or anything like that, with around three thousand users; but we know that there are other companies which do use that many people; so we're not too worried about it. We aren’t experiencing any issues today.

Technical support has been average. We do a lot of investigation on our side before we use CA support. Our assumption is that if we can't figure it out, they should probably be able to. A lot of times, it takes a couple of days before we even get a decent response, or something that gets us closer.

It almost seems like we need to rely on some of the contractors that we use, such as Regal Consulting to answer some of our more in-depth questions.

Their whole support model seems to be a little bit fractured, I guess. Depending on the issue we have, we have a completely different experience. I would say there are some frustrating aspects of that and we're not always confident that we're going to get an answer to any of our questions.

We hope the expertise will improve. As we get more and more in tune with PPM, we're answering more of our own questions. I'll be honest.

We didn't have any real solution in place. We saw the need for a tool to take on all these different responsibilities, and PPM just happened to fall into place.

I wasn't around for the vendor selection. I know we looked at a Microsoft product and then there was one other one. I think what it came down to was this: Microsoft was cheaper because of the deal we have with them, but CA PPM fit more of what we're looking to do in terms of our long-term vision. It was going to fit a little bit more. It was more aligned with what our company was looking to do.

My advice would be to make sure that you understand the tool before you start fitting everyone or moving everyone to it. If you don't understand the architecture, it can cause a lot of rework in the future. Truly understanding the tools is important while having experts that understand the tools is critical.

We are currently using the Idea feature for project intake. We actually locked (CA PPM) Clarity down, so people can't open projects. In order to initiate a project, they come through the Idea feature. That helps us because for resource management, we get more applications and all the required fields are populated at that time. That feature is very valuable for us.

We are using the SaaS version of this tool. It works the same as the non-SaaS version, but I know that our responsibility on the back end is different. We don't have that responsibility anymore, and that's a benefit to us.

The project management expertise varies across the organization. This tool works for the people who are advanced as well for the new people.

With every pre-launch process, we want to be transparent in what's going on for the organization. We want people to know up front what's expected and when they're going to be needed on a project. This tool helps us get that transparency.

I'm looking forward to the addition of the Jaspersoft reporting feature. We don't have that right now. This feature is going to make things easier to measure. I do a lot of metrics and recording, and this feature will help.

The stability of this solution is fine. I've never even seen it go down. It's very, very good. We're always notified when there is scheduled downtime.

This tool is scalable. It’s big enough for us and the right size for our organization.

We have a consultant who we use for our technical problems.

We had Primavera before we moved over to (CA PPM) Clarity. I wasn't involved in that decision, so I don't know the reason behind that transition.

To offer advice to colleagues researching this solution, I would need to know what they were looking for first, and then I could see what wasn't working for them. Nonetheless, (CA PPM) Clarity is a very robust tool and you can really do a lot with it. It has a lot of features and a lot of capabilities that we don’t even use yet. For our needs, it works.

We use it to track projects and work in our portfolio. For us, it is about the reporting on project statuses during the project lifecycle.

The benefit of using the SaaS version is that it is more manageable than needing to have the infrastructure and the overhead of being on-premise, which would be too much for us. We really like being able to use the SaaS solution so that CA is managing everything except the actual data capture and generating reports.

With it, we're able to organize how we collect information and ideas and projects and get them funded. Without it, we would be using Excel spreadsheets and people don't want it to be like that.

It lets us aggregate all that information about ideas and projects, and put them into common reports which we can share. That's been very valuable.

I would like to see the ability to connect with other kinds of reporting engines like Tableau, or other kinds of BI tools. That would be crucial for us. We use those tools anyway, so we end up exporting data from PPM, and then importing it into those tools. It would be better if we could do it directly.

It's very stable.

It's very scalable.

Technical support has been up and down. That's not always a great experience. It's difficult to work with. I've been using this product for many years now, so it's both good and bad.

We had nothing before. We were basically doing it manually in spreadsheets. This was our first foray into formal project portfolio management. We made that move in 2009.

It was fairly difficult to get going. We had to try it a couple times. We had signed up initially for a program that was supposed to get it up and running in 30 days, but it didn't explain enough or train us enough about this very complicated product; so it actually took us a couple of years before it was right.

The HPE solution and the CA solution are really the only two options at this level. In general, we decide primarily on a vendor based on price and features. Our organization undertook a couple of different times to look at who makes these kinds of products, what they offer, and for how much (the per seat cost). We believe that we arrived at the right solution in terms of the amount of features for the cost.

Make sure that you need all the functionality included in the PPM tool because it's very complete. That means it can also be very confusing. If you don't need this much functionality, look at something that's not quite as robust in the enterprise class. There are other tools that don't have all the features. They aren't as complete, but they are easier to use.

The most valuable features are the resource management, project management, and tracking time for our employees.

I would like to see better dashboards within the tool and better integration with SAP BusinessObjects.

It is very stable.

Technical support is very good.

Previously, we just had too many spreadsheets and one-off processes.

We considered HPE, CA, and I can't remember the other one.

The most important factors when we decide on a vendor are: the quality of support, the functionality, and whether it is customizable to suit our business needs. It must be extendable.

You should know that you can customize it to suit the way that you do business. Don’t think that you need to do everything all at once.

PPM provides end-to-end processes for portfolio, project, and resource management. It allows you to ramp up, in a controlled manner, based on your organization’s needs. The ability to configure PPM gives you the flexibility to align it and its strengths with your particular needs and the nuances of your organization. You're not isolated in a siloed process that can't expand. You've got a process area you can work in and then utilize the configuration capability to meet your needs.

It provides visibility into what we're working on and the amount of time we're spending. It helps us validate our forecast for labor resources and milestones for delivery. That's our primary use now. We're moving more into areas of resource management and forecasting for one and two years out. That's our next area that we're ramping up in. It provides the product management and the high-level portfolio management visibility we need today.

I recently went to a conference to see what upcoming features are going to be. I want to see what the trade offs are. With any change, you're always dropping some type of feature or capability. The key is knowing, in advance, what that new feature is so you can make the proper plans, address those changes, and communicate them to ensure good collaboration. If we do that, we'll be successful.

This is our third year using the tool.

So far, we've had very favorable uptime usage. We haven't had any major issues with downtime. That's been a pleasant surprise. We're using it in a SaaS platform and we're pleased with what we're seeing. The configuration capability that it offers has been beneficial to us. We're starting to leverage the new reporting capabilities that let our users to be power users rather than having to staff a reporting organization to supply all our needs.

It’s a little too early to evaluate scalability. Thus far, it's been scalable for our organization. We have a solid relationship with CA and if we have any challenges or needs we have an open line of communication. We work with them and those needs are addressed as needed.

Technical support is very good. We contact them if we have an issue that's not easily identified and it’s resolved pretty quickly. We open a ticket and monitor it’s progress. We maintain a continuous communication loop with CA until the issue is resolved.

We wanted to leverage our existing relationship with CA. We were trying to consolidate in our vendors, which most companies try to do. Having a shorter list makes life simpler as far as planning and budgeting. The CA suite for PPM and Clarity was ranked up very high by several of the independent research companies so we evaluated it with other tools and it came out on top. We've been moving forward since then.

I became involved mid-stream. The initial setup was already underway and I followed that through initial implementation into the growth and maturity stages of the processes, to align them within our organization.

It was a straightforward process. There was a degree of complexity because it was a different type process. Out of the box, it has a set procedure you need to follow. There are steps A, B, and C, and you're locked into that. With configuration, comes a degree of complexity. You have to be disciplined enough to build your processes first and then work on utilizing the tool, which is the right process to follow. It was a different method from what we had worked with in the past.

We considered several of the top vendors in that space that would be ranked in Gartner or Forrester. I won't mention what those are because they still have some relationship with us. All top tier, which spoke well for CA that they, from our perspective, came out on top.

Regardless of the solution you're looking for, always think about what your process is. Define those processes and have a clear understanding of your goal. Document that, clearly state it, and get buy-in from the key stakeholders, because they're going to be the individuals that are key to helping drive adoption downstream once those processes are built. It's not about the technology, it's about the process. In this case, I think the technology supports the processes that we want to invoke now and in the future.

We're using it as an on-demand service. We're don’t have an on-premises install, so we're learning some things in that space, as well.

When selecting a vendor, the relationship is key. A solid customer relationship must be more than just talk. You have to be able to demonstrate it and practice it. I think we saw that early on in the partnership with CA and in initially setting up the solution and understanding what was required. I think that's key to success.

We've used this solution as an enterprise tool. It allowed us to bring organizations together for communication, planning, and cost. Outside of our IT department, we are integrated heavily with our marketing areas, both on the wireless and the wireline side. That includes marketing, sales, operations, products, new business development, and networking. All those areas come together and are able to communicate within the tool.

This solution has brought our groups a lot closer together and allowed them to communicate much easier rather than using emails and spreadsheets. Data is now in a central location. It's simplified the funnel process from our business partners, particularly into the IT and the network areas.

It has facilitated a much better ranking process, so that we can focus on what's most important for the business partners. It has helped us align our projects and portfolios to the overall business or IT strategy. It enabled proper management of the funnel and proper ranking and priority setting.

I'm really excited about seeing a simplified user interface. We've starting looking at the new UI with version 15. I'm somewhat disappointed in the limitation of functionality there. We'd like to see that expanded much more. As I understand it, you can't use custom attributes in the new UI. That limits what we do, because we have a number of customizations that we've made. I would like to see better performance, as always.

Our environment is fairly stable, but it is not as fast as what we'd like. Stability-wise, it's up and running. There are performance issues. It's obviously not as fast as we'd like it to be. The biggest complaint is too many clicks to get to where you need to be in order to perform a function.

It scaled very well. We have around 6,500 users. We have had no scalability issues.

My group doesn't use technical support as much as our development team, but we seem to have a great relationship with CA.

We actually moved from using three different project management tools into a single system. By the time I came along, the choice was made. There was a pretty heavy process of reviewing vendors with similar products, grading and rating them, and making a decision.

I was involved in the setup. I came from a background of not knowing the product, so it was complex at the time. We've grown to understand it since.

I would suggest not customizing it. It makes it much simpler that way and makes upgrades easier. It makes long-term maintenance much easier and allows you to use existing functionality.

I like that it’s very flexible. If you need it to do something, you can make it do that. That's a good thing.

For example, out of the box we use the SaaS version. It's not highly customizable as if we'd installed it locally, but out of the box there's no process to load the data warehouse on any regular basis. So you have to make a job to schedule and run this process according to your schedule. They give you the tools to do all these different things.

Previously, we used a different tool that didn’t have very good reporting. Clarity PPM came with reports out of the box, and we can make more, as we need. That was a really good thing.

It doesn’t help us collaborate more so than before. We're trying to open it up to other areas of the company. Right now it's just used within IT.

For a lot of people, it's just a place to put your buckets for your time. I'm not on the team supporting the tool; I'm on the technical side. Whereas we have a team of people that support the PPM and deals with business strategy.

The main benefit of the SaaS version is the cost. Also, I'm not responsible for any server maintenance, which is nice. If their servers go down, it's somebody else that gets a call at 3 a.m., not me. I like that.

I would like to see some of the automations that I've implemented included as part of the tool. For example, prior to a couple weeks ago, our administrator would have to go in every week and manually open next week's time sheet and close an old time sheet. We got some code that automated that process for us. I don't see why that couldn't be something that was just a part of the tool.

It's been very stable for us. We've been using our PPM implementation as a means by which to encourage the company to get more on-demand solutions because it's been successful for us.

We haven't had any stability issues.

I have used technical support. You need to get to the right person and that can be challenging. We've had tickets open for months, and we would try to reach out and say, "Hey, what's going on with this?" "Well, we're working on it, we'll get back to you." In certain situations, that would go on for months.

Finally, I'd get a phone call or an email from another person saying, "Oh, I was just assigned this ticket, here's the two-minute thing you need to do to fix it." Once you get to the right person, it’s great. But now I know who to go to.

We used Primavera for almost ten years. People were generally unhappy with it. They felt that it was inflexible and wanted something new. We have other products from CA, and they came and offered us PPM if we got a bundle. It was a big change for us to go from an old tool to the new tool.

I was not involved in the selection process. That was much higher than me, so I don't know what they did.

I was involved in the initial setup. Just setting up the system was very easy, because they did it all and it's on demand. Trying to make it work in our world had it's moments. For many projects, we had to get the old data from the old system into our new system. That posed some interesting and unique challenges.

I would have to look at Primavera all over again, because I know they're changing and evolving.

My advice is to plan, plan, and plan. Just know what it is you want and then go for it.