With the huge recent releases of CA PPM 14.1 and 14.2 (CA Clarity PPM), 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. 

CA PPM 14.2 | Why Wait to Upgrade?ca ppm 14.2 pros cons, clarity ppm 14.2 pros cons,  MSP connector, data warehouse, portfolio management, ad-hoc reporting, pixel, BO support, rego consulting

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.

CA PPM 14.2 | Reasons to Upgrade: Fixes, Support, MSP, & Investments

There’s a lot of reasons to go for the CA 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.

ca ppm 14.2 upgrade, clarity ppm 14.2 upgrade, data warehouse, performance, objects & attributes, jaspersoft, ad-hoc reporting, rego consultingCA 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 CA PPM 14.2 recommendation here. It’s important you update before this Fall.

Everyone’s really excited about the CA 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 CA PPM (CA 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 CA 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 CA 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).

CA PPM 14.2 | Reasons to Upgrade: Data Warehouse

There’s two databases in the CA PPM 14.2 upgrade: the CA 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 CA PPM database directly, and it takes the stress of the transaction off the CA 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 CA PPM transactional database. Then share or save your reports in the repository.

CA PPM 14.2 interface, non-technical users, custom fields and tables, pixel-perfect, ad hoc reporting, Rego Consulting

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 CA 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 CA PPM 14.2 & Jaspersoft.

Like this post? Stay tuned for more details on Jaspersoft Domains, the Ad-Hoc Viewer, and Navigation in CA PPM 14.2.

Join our mailing list below.

About the Author: Rego Consulting

As the leading Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM), Project Portfolio Management (PPM), Technology Business Management (TBM), Agile and expert services provider, Rego Consulting has helped hundreds of organizations achieve a higher return on their software investment, including 60% of Fortune 100 and 70% of Fortune 20 companies.

Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!

Stay up-to-date. Join our newsletter!