Marc Latreille, Creative Director, IT-ROI Solutions
IT-ROI is one of Rego Consulting’s partners, which is why we’re so delighted to feature Marc Latreille, Creative Director at IT-ROI, who came here to discuss some exciting opportunities he sees with Microsoft (MS) integrations.
Marc wrote on this CA PPM topic back in March, and you can view his original post here, which comes from years of user feedback.
Productivity Benefits of CA PPM Microsoft Integration
Some of the most exciting opportunities Marc sees are when companies integrate Microsoft Excel and Sharepoint with CA PPM.
“The productivity benefits alone are staggering,” said Marc, “and with over 500 million active Excel and SharePoint users out there, user adoption costs will be in check.”
It’s easy to find quantifiable value. The following five hot spots are where 
CA PPM users, managers, and admins report the most benefits integrating Microsoft with CA PPM.
1 | Microsoft Excel Makes You a Productivity Guru
For mass project data updates—the huge ones—Marc gets the most feedback about the Microsoft Excel Integration with CA PPM.
“There is no comparable productivity PPM tool out there,” he says.
MS Excel is widely adopted, simple to learn, easy to use, and it’s also a highly customizable software.
Marc claims the Excel spreadsheet to CA PPM integration will unleash your “PPM Productivity Guru,” which feels good.
2 | Dramatically Increase CA PPM User Adoption Rates
Adoption is a big deal. “People say that CA PPM is hard to use; we hear it from our clients, user groups, at trade shows, almost everywhere we go,” says Marc.
Organizations spend a lot of money in training, so why not leverage common knowledge?
Everyone knows Microsoft SharePoint. “Why not take advantage of that?” says Marc.
Integrating SharePoint with CA PPM simplifies project documentation and you can use SharePoint while taking advantage of fully dynamic portlets and dashboards, with no coding required.
3 | Save Time—Turn Months into Weeks and Weeks into Days
“Not only does your inherent knowledge of Microsoft products make you a productivity guru, it makes everyone else one too,” says Marc.
When your team knows how to use the CA PPM tool and use it quickly, team collaboration is efficient.
“CA PPM Project updates . . . almost everything PPM work-related—via Excel, Financials, documentation—gets done much faster and easier, with less red tape.”
4 | Get Out-of-the-Box Mobile Functionality
You can take PPM with you on your phone.
“Microsoft SharePoint comes with Exchange and Outlook integrations that allow CA PPM data to be bi-directionally integrated with your mobile device,” says Marc, “for example, CA PPM project tasks and CA PPM timesheets.”
“Everyone in your organization has an App on their mobile device that connects to Microsoft Exchange and Outlook out-of-the-box, and it’s supported by Microsoft, not your IT department.”
5 | Get Enterprise-Wide Visibility of All Your CA PPM Data
IT-ROI recently released the PPM studioBoss, which allows enterprise-wide visibility on all CA PPM data via SharePoint.
This is done with a bi-directional Microsoft SharePoint enterprise connector.
“The integrated solution allows you to select any data you want to make bi-directional with CA PPM,” says Marc, “so you can then configure and personalize to suit your needs.”
Using Microsoft Excel and SharePoint in CA PPM can make your life easier by making CA PPM simple to use.
IT-ROI’s integrated solution offerings are only a few examples of available Microsoft tools, and at Rego we have a great time providing these kinds of integrations for clients.
Have you found a helpful MS tool for PPM? We’d love to hear about it in the comments. And thanks again to our great partner, IT-ROI, for sharing their brilliance with us.
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IT-ROI Solutions is a software company and PPM systems integration provider who specializes in the development of PPM software tools and solutions that dramatically improve company productivity, visibility and streamline business application performance. With a focus on enterprise application integration for the PPM space and with over 50 combined years of technical/functional expertise in Clarity PPM – IT-ROI Solutions has become widely regarded as the go-to Clarity PPM pioneers.
About the Author: Rego Consulting
