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.

The most valuable features are its compatibility with other programs, easy to use and the report generating feature.

It has consistent delivery of reports and all project-related information housed in one place.

We would like to see compatibility with more than just one scheduling tool. Primavera P6 is our tool and it drives our projects.

Currently, we are still in development and we're not in production. The few times that we've tried putting it in production, it hasn't been that stable.

From what I've seen at a recent conference, I'm quite impressed. You can do a lot with it and there is lot of room for growth.

They are very good and extremely responsive when it comes to addressing questions. They provide good suggestions for any troubleshooting.

We were using a previous solution; it was a combination of Microsoft Access, SharePoint tables and Excel. It was becoming too cumbersome and time consuming to produce reports and we needed something to manage all our projects. With the number of projects we were doing, the things we were trying to track and report on were getting more detailed; thus we needed a tool to manage all that.

The vendor’s ability to understand our current process, adapt to it while also being honest and setting guardrails for us on what their limitations are and what the product can deliver, were important criteria while choosing a vendor.

I was involved in the initial setup and it was quite complex. We're still in the initial setup.

Make sure that the production requirements are detailed and thorough, so that the vendor can understand what is needed for successful implementation.

We're not in production. We had gone to production, but we had to go back. There was difficulty in understanding our process and expectations from the start of the project to where we are now and that hasn't been realized.

The project management part of it is definitely the most valuable part of it to us. We don't get a lot of value out of resource management or portfolio management yet. It really helps reporting on overall statuses at an aggregate level that we have going on. It's really the best part.

The way we're structured, we support a lot of different organizations. If marketing wants to see the status of all things marketing, along with their impacts on other organizations, we're able to whip that together pretty quickly. In all our previous tools, that was always a black box.

It changed the way our departments talked to each other. Particularly, IT became a delivery organization along with everyone else. They didn't talk before, and now they do; so all the data is front and center. They're starting to tear down some of those walls. They're sharing data now, as opposed to just hoping everything's OK.

It comes down to the shared space aspect of it, particularly when you start talking about code releases, alignments, and things like that. It seems to be that everybody is on the same page. There are a lot of things that get exposed because they're now sharing data. Some of those risks can now be mitigated ahead of time, as opposed to last minute. That was a problem we had back before PPM.

The whole business transformation thing that all industries are going through is very big right now. Those are the higher priority projects that we're able to dedicate money, resources, time, everything to those key initiatives, as opposed before when everyone had their own priority.

• Considering that agile is a big buzzword these days, I don't really like that PPM is so strictly tied to CA Agile Central. There are a lot of other tools out there that people use.
• We're a JIRA shop. There's not a whole lot right now. Everything as far as a PPM JIRA solution is homegrown, and all over the place. I'd like to see some more industry standards applied to the tool.
• I really hate Jaspersoft, so I would like to see a better reporting solution, or perhaps some improvement around Jaspersoft.

It's pretty stable.

It's scalable, but not great. We're a pretty large implementation. We have 120,000 active resources in the tool. We see a lot of performance impacts, particularly in the newer versions with Jaspersoft and things like that, so that part has been pretty disappointing. But, you know, it still gets the job done. It's just a little slow.

We brought in some people from Services (back when there was a Services) to do health checks and things like that. We were constantly opening up tickets, particularly with the newer versions and Jaspersoft and things like that.

We were using PTC Integrity. We outgrew it; and it didn't handle customizations very well. Of course, we overcustomized to the point where it wasn't usable. Something had to go. It was more of a workflow engine; and so, it worked for IT. But we wanted a space where we had business, IT, and other groups all in one space.

I've been there from day one. The initial setup was pretty easy. I was kind of surprised that just getting the app installed, up and running, was pretty simple. The complexities usually came with stakeholder requirements. That's where things got a little nuts; but just getting it up and running wasn't bad.

We also considered HPE. PTC was on our list early on. They had a newer version, and that just didn't do it. There were a handful, but it was six or seven years ago.

The most important factor in choosing PPM was the usability of the tool. CA was good about helping us getting it set up initially with some of the earlier requirements. We had to redo a bunch of that due to shifting business needs; but their assistance was a big factor.

Don’t overcustomize it. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should do it. We would've been better off if we could go back in time, roll it out of the box again, and use it for a predetermined amount of time before determining what we needed to customize.

We’re using the on-premise version.

For us, it’s all about resource management and schedule management. Without this, we would be in trouble. This solution has it and more.

It’s driven global consistency and the management of our projects. We have used it a long time and are seeing great benefits by sticking with the product.

We have not deployed the latest version, but a problem we are seeing is the inability to get data out of the system and into Excel. This is a feature we want and need.

We have been using this solution since 2003.

It has been consistently stable over the years. This for us is critical.

In terms of scalability, it has adapted well. We use it for both small projects and very large projects. I think it’s great that it handles both kinds of projects with equal power.

They're very knowledgeable, and there have been times in which we have had big issues which we call show stoppers. When this happens, you need a different level of support, and, thankfully, we are on first-name basis. Therefore, all is resolved quickly.

We did not have a global solution and we needed one. This was something we needed internally and now we have it. You need to really understand what the business needs are going to be; this is essential. Also, I recommend going out and evaluating, both personally and from people in the industry.

We are primarily using it for analyzing our projects. It is performing very well at the moment. We do want to expand our functionality to include resource management, portfolio management, and more of the financial aspects of it, as well.

Right now, it is the project management module.

It is allowing us to keep track of what our projects are doing, and the idea module, what projects are coming into the pipeline.

I like the new UX. I am hoping that we will move to it soon. I think it is a vast improvement. It is much easier and more user-friendly.

While I know it is coming in the roadmap, the risks issues and changes on the new UX would be amazing. However, the risks issues and changes are not in the new UX yet. 

I know that it is a stable solution. It has been around for a long time.

We are On Demand, so SaaS. We really have not experienced downtime with it. Everything is so secure through our sites and stuff. We do once in a while run into latency issues, but it is not that bad. Nothing memorable.

It is definitely scalable. 

We have used technical support a few times. It was just little technical glitches. A page was not displaying correctly, or something like that.

They do answer us very quickly.

CA Community: I take advantage of it. I use it all the time. They are a great community.

Prior to using CA PPM, everything was spreadsheets. There were a few different homegrown solutions out there. We wanted to roll them all into PPM.

I was not involved in the initial setup. While not involved with upgrades at this organization, I did do upgrades with previous organizations.

The very first upgrade we did was quite complex, because we were moving from 7.51. I have been working with the solution for a long time, since 2006. We were moving from 7.51 up to 8. That was a big jump. It was a lot more complex than we initially thought it was going to be.

Do your research, do your homework, and definitely, contact CA.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: 

• Product stability: It has been around for a while. It is not a brand new thing. 
• The reputation of the vendor
• Cost

Project management in CA PPM is elastic and comprehensive. You can adjust the solution to any organization quickly and easily.

Studio is a powerful component that lets you add and modify features in an easy way without writing code. These features include new objects, attributes, views, process, and portlets.

The interface needs improvement. The new UI/UX (from version 15.1) is modern and more intuitive, but it only covers a small piece of the solution. The rest is the classic UI.

A new UX in CA PPM is the answer to the problem with complexity and the huge options in classic UI, which is the cause of problems using the solution for a beginner. The new UX is quite easy to use, but only covers time sheet management and part of project management. Switching between new and old interface is tiring. I understand that to develop a new UX needs time, but integration between the new and the old UI/UX should be better.

I have been using CA PPM for eight years.

We have not had stability issues.

Technical support is good, but fixes for bugs have a very long life cycle of many months.

We did have a previous solution. However, the class of the tool was much lower, so the tools are not comparable.

The initial setup was quite complex, especially in the financial area. But the solution can be usable after one hour of setup by an expert.

The price is high, but the solution is very comprehensive. The price is acceptable only if the solution is core for the organization.

CA PPM is one of the best solutions in the PPM area, but it is quite expensive.

Improvement over using various Microsoft tools, like just spreadsheets and other things. It's standardizing and expanding its use for the features that help our company.

We just started using PPM in my department, which is an engineering department. What I do for it, is I actually support it as from an IT-end, so I get it installed, configured, and running, and then go on to the next feature that takes IT work.

I have seen it now run for about three, four months, and it has been a stable product once installed and configured right, so I have not seen many needs to reboot the application.

I know it as being used for two-server system.

We intend to get into the thousands of users. We haven't reached that point. It's not driving the hardware resources that we would expect to see as something that's taxing the system.

As far as the features that we've planned to use, there's Jaspersoft, which allows you to move from Business Objects, and of course we have an upgrade being planned.

Specifically from CA, no, but the support we got from this contracted company has been very supportive, we've got the help we needed.

My company was choosing between either contracting with CA or this other contracting firm, or having someone internally be the tech-lead for PPM. We chose to assign it to me, because I have the skills to install, configure support having basically the OS knowledge to support such a utility.

I would recommend going right into Jaspersoft, which is part of the reporting feature of PPM, not to start out with Business Objects. Go right to Jaspersoft if you can.

The most valuable aspects of PPM are the project management modules and the visibility that it offers within them.

It gives us a view of where our project-management pain points are. Do we have enough resources? Where are our costs going? Are we spending too much internally, or should we be outsourcing?

The tool itself is comprehensive, but it's missing input from people like me. People need to be taught how to use it. Users are trying to teach themselves instead of learning effectively. So the education and training are what it’s missing.

We've had no issues with deployment.

From my experience, it's stable, as proven by its pretty large user base who agree on this.

It’s 100% scalable. It could be used in a small company and very large, equally effective and equally powerful.

Because it’s comprehensive, I only know that it's the best-practice solution. If we're using CA PPM, we're doing best practices.

If you're a basic user, the initial setup can be straightforward. But if you're exploiting it to the max, setup is complex -- and unwise. It would be like driving an expensive sports car and not knowing how to drive it.

If you are going to buy it, you should understand its usage, and make sure you appreciate how to exploit it because it’s not cheap and you’d be wasting your money if you won’t exploit it. Some organizations underutilize it, and I ask people why they bought it if they don’t exploit it.