CA Clarity PPM
Clarity Reporting Platforms: Real Life Successes & Challenges
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CA Clarity
Eats Like an
Elephant
Poops Like a
Mouse
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Phone: 1-888-813-0444
Overview
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Introduction
Reporting Platforms / Tools
Ranking Categories
Advantages & Disadvantages of each tool
Rank by Category
When To Use
Outside Reporting Tools
What’s New in 13.4
Q&A
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Introduction
● Personal Bio & History
● Reporting Strategy
● People, Process & Tools
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Available Reporting Tools
● Portlets
● Crystal Reports
● WEBI Reports (Ad-Hoc)
● Xcelsius Dashboards
● Outside Reporting
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Ranking Categories
 Ease & Speed
 Tools Needed
 Formatting
 Integration
 Export
 Printing & Distribution
 Performance
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Portlets: Examples
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Portlets: Advantages
● Ease & Speed: Simple portlets can be created or modified quickly and
without knowledge of SQL or the Clarity data model. Even complex
portlets can be created quickly compared to other reporting methods.
● Tools Needed: There is no need for additional tools. Portlets can be
created and modified within the browser.
● Formatting: In addition to regular grid portlets, bar graphs, pie charts, line
charts, and HTML portlets are also available.
● Integration: Portlets are integrated within Clarity, can be displayed almost
anywhere within the tool, and can contain links to objects, other portlets,
reports, etc.
● Export: Export nicely to Excel, “okay” to PowerPoint.
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Portlets: Disadvantages
● Formatting: It is difficult to re-create reports from other tools as portlets. The
formatting is standardized and not very customizable.
● Printing & Distribution: Portlets are designed to be displayed in the browser.
To distribute beyond that you must print from your browser or use a screen
capture tool such as Snag-It.
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Crystal Reports: Examples
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Crystal Reports: Advantages
● Formatting: Highly customizable as the arrangement of the report and the
look and feel can be be tailored to specific requirements. In most cases an
existing report from another system can be duplicated exactly in Crystal.
● Export: Reports can be exported to PDF, Excel, or Word.
● Printing & Distribution: Perfect for printing hard copies or PDFs (Crystal was
designed with this purpose in mind). You can also schedule reports to run and
have them emailed.
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Crystal Reports: Disadvantages
● Ease & Speed: The flexibility of formatting comes at a cost – Crystal Reports
are time consuming to create or modify. It is not uncommon for a report to
take 40-60 hours to develop.
● Integration: Reports run from a separate Business Objects server. They can be
launched from Clarity, but the reports aren’t fully integrated within the Clarity
application.
● Export: Reports look slightly different in each export format, so although any
format can be used, a report should be designed around one particular
format.
● Tools Needed: An external tool is required to create reports.
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WEBI Reports: Examples
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WEBI Reports: Advantages
● Ease & Speed: WEBI is an ad-hoc reporting tool aimed at Clarity end users. It is
the quickest and easiest reporting tool. With little training, non-technical
Clarity power users can learn to quickly build reports. Technical experts will
also benefit from the speed at which reports can be produced.
● Formatting: Reports are highly customizable. The look and feel can be tailored
to specific requirements.
● Tools Needed: Report developers need no additional tools. Reports can be
created and modified within the browser.
● Export: Reports export nicely to Excel and PDF. They will look virtually identical
whether in the browser, Excel, or PDF format.
● Printing & Distribution: Reports can be exported to PDF and printed, or you
can schedule reports to run and have them emailed.
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WEBI Reports: Disadvantages
● Ease & Speed: WEBI Reports have simplified data providers that do not
include custom Clarity fields. The custom fields will need to be added to the
data provider before being available for reporting. This requires extra effort
upfront.
● Tools Needed: To modify the underlying data providers, an additional tool is
required.
● Integration: Reports run from a separate Business Objects server. They can be
launched from Clarity, but the reports aren’t fully integrated within the Clarity
application.
● Performance: The underlying queries can be inefficient because they are
generated automatically and not optimized. This means that queries can be
slow when dealing with large data sets.
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Xcelsius Dashboards: Examples
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Xcelsius Dashboards: Advantages
● Integration: Xcelsius Dashboards are integrated within Clarity, like portlets.
● Formatting: Xcelsius Dashboards are highly customizable. The look and feel
can be tailored to specific requirements. They are also more interactive than
any of the other reporting methods.
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Xcelsius Dashboards: Disadvantages
● Ease & Speed: Creating these dashboards can be very time consuming, and
simple changes take a while to make. You can also only use small data sets for
performance reasons (recommended to keep under 512 records).
● Printing & Distribution: Xcelsius Dashboards are designed to be displayed in
the browser. To distribute beyond that you must print from your browser or
use a screen capture tool such as Snag-It.
● Export: No export options available.
● Tools Needed: An external tool is required to create the dashboards.
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Rank by Category (lower is better)
Portlets
Crystal
WEBI
Xcelsius
Ease & Speed
2
3
1
4
Tools Needed
1
3
2
4
Formatting
4
1
3
2
Integration
1
3
4
2
Export
3
2
1
4
Printing & Distribution
3
2
1
4
Performance
1
2
3
4
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Phone: 1-888-813-0444
When to Use Each Reporting Tool
● Portlets
○ The target audience is Clarity users who want to view the information
in the browser or export to Excel, and no specific format is required.
● Crystal Reports
○ There are very specific requirements on how the report should look,
or the primary distribution method of the report is printed copies or
PDFs.
● WEBI Reports
○ You want power users to build their own reports or data extracts, or
you need to create a large number of reports quickly.
● Xcelsius Dashboards
○ Executive “eye candy”, high interaction needed, or it needs to be
displayed within Clarity but a portlet won’t do.
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Outside Reporting Tools
● Vary depending on the tool, but remember:
○ Outside reporting tools cannot match Clarity’s integration with portlets,
Crystal Reports, WEBI reports, and Xcelsius dashboards.
○ All of the above reporting tools are free with Clarity. Other tools will have a
cost associated with them.
○ Only use outside reporting tools when the Clarity toolset will not meet your
requirements.
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Outside Reporting Tools
● Examples
○ OBIEE (Oracle)
○ Business Analytics (CA Offering)
○ Sharepoint Integration (CA & ITROI)
○ Cognos, QlikView (Axis COMPASS), SSRS, Others
● When to Use
○ There is a company reporting standard or there is a tool that your
developers are familiar with.
○ There is a technology or tool strongly desired by your users (Qlickview,
Sharepoint, etc).
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Reporting in CA Clarity 13.4
● The focus of Clarity 13.4 will be on reporting. The details are not set in stone,
but right now the planned improvements are:
○ Business Objects updated to 4.1. This will be a huge jump and include
major improvements and many new features for Crystal Reports, WEBI,
and Xcelsius.
○ Another ad hoc reporting tool called Jaspersoft has been introduced as a
native reporting tool within Clarity.
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Questions
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