Project Execution and Monitoring

Introduction to Managing and Tracking Active Projects in Clarizen 1

Copyright © 2016 Clarizen. All rights reserved. Confidential Material
 Kicking off a Project
Best Practice
When you are ready to activate your project, first
save the Baseline. To do so, navigate to the
Utilities (or Misc.) menu of the project Ribbon
and click “Save as Baseline” – your planned
values will be saved so that you can compare
against actuals as the project is executed.

Activate Project
By default, Projects are created in “Draft” state.
Once the project WBS and schedule are
finalized and you are ready to begin executing,
use the “Mark As” dropdown to Activate the
project. Once activated, the project team will be
able to begin their work and project Status
calculations will begin.

*Note the other project States that are available. These

can be used to fine tune which Work Items are being
actively executed vs. those that are elsewhere in their
lifecycle
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 Managing an Active Project: Add Files

1. Highlight the Project level in the

Work Plan
2. Click on the “Add Related” option in
the ribbon
3. Click on Files
4. Add New or Link existing file
a. Upload New File to be stored in
Clarizen
b. Add a “shortcut” to a file location
on a file server
c. Add or Create New File stored in
Google Docs or Box
d. Add a link to a webpage where the
document can be found

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 Managing an Active Project: Find Upcoming Tasks

Monitor work that is about to start by utilizing a

filter on your Work Plan

Open the Filter window by clicking the icon.

Filter for:
• State = “Active”
• Start Date = “In the Following 7 days”

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 Managing an Active Project: Communicating with the Team

Utilize Discussions to communicate

with the project team or resources
working on specific tasks.

To initiate the discussion, select the

appropriate Work Item by highlighting
its row (Task A in this case) and
choose “Add” from the Discussions
Panel.

All Resources, Managers, and

Followers of that Work Item will
receive the message. If you would
like to include others, you can “@
Mention” them and they will be
notified.

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 Monitor Project Health: Find Tasks Impacting Project Status
Option 1 – Retain Hierarchy
1. Select “Retain Hierarchy” (using gear icon)
2. Filter on Status of Off Track or At Risk.

• The items left on the list after filtering have a task under their
hierarchy that is either Off Track or At Risk

Option 2 – Show Matches Only

1. Select “Show Matches Only” (using gear
icon)
2. Filter on Status of Off Track or At Risk.
• The items left on the list after filtering are any items that meet the
criteria. Note: A summary/Parent task could be listed along with the
actual task.
• Drill down into the list and find the items that are Off Track or At Risk
• Follow up with Resource via discussion in Clarizen or direct contact.
Then adjust dates or status as appropriate.

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 Plan and Monitor Projects: Roadmap

The Roadmap is a great way to

observe project status and progress
from a bird’s-eye view.

It provides an interactive color-

coded timeline chart with start/finish
dates reflecting real-time visibility to
deliverables.

By default, the roadmap provides

Milestone-level detail, but tasks can
be selected for visibility if you desire.

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 Plan and Monitor Projects: Keeping Track of Milestones

Expand the Roadmap and select

the option to view the Baseline
view via the gear icon.

Check to see if there are differences from baseline to current planned.

Create an issue if there’s not already one explaining any variance and make sure
the issue is associated with the milestone
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 Plan and Monitor Projects: Interactive Gantt Chart

Clarizen’s Gantt view gives a real-

time interactive graphical illustration
of your project’s performance,
timeline and resource scheduling to
help you make smarter and timely
business decisions, make
adjustments and keep everyone
informed of the project progress.

The Gantt view is ideal for resource

scheduling and project
management.

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 Access, Configure, and Interact with the Gantt
1
1. Access the Gantt View
You can access the Gantt view by clicking the gear icon for a work plan. 2

You can also set it as the default view in the project view editor.

2. Configuring Display Settings for the Gantt View

Clarizen’s Gantt view display options are highly configurable to meet your
project planning needs. Choose from different view options, including a
baseline view, critical path view and more. Optionally, add display labels
around the bar, and percentage complete in the bar itself. Finally, add
color coding to the display to help you focus important data.

3. Interact with the Gantt View

Quickly and easily, adjust your project plan. Simply drag and drop or
stretch bars to change start and due dates, reorder work items, or create
3
dependences. All changes are instantly reflected in the grid view.
Note: The ability to interact and modify the Gantt view depends on user’s
privileges for the work item they are trying to update.
.

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 Using the Interactive Gantt

The Gantt view is fully interactive where To move items in the Gantt:
changes made in the Work Plan Grid affect 1. Hover over the center of the item's bar until the cursor
changes to a 4-way (move) arrow
the Gantt and vice versa. This allows you to
2. Click and drag the bar to the location you wish to move it to
manage your projects and tasks with ease. 3. Release the mouse button

To change the item's Duration:

Hovering over an item on the Gantt will
1. Move your cursor to the beginning or the end of the work
display a quick peek Gantt bubble showing item's Bar until the cursor changes to a horizontal 2-way
the relevant fields based on the Gantt (stretch) arrow
display option which is configurable by 2. Click and drag the bar back or forward to change the Start
profile settings for each user. date or Due date of the work item
3. Release the Mouse button
4. Alternatively, hover over the work item bar until the quick peek
Based on your individual user permission bubble appears and manually change the relevant filed.
and role on the project, you can edit
the fields shown in the bubble as well as To create dependencies:
1. Move the item as described above
utilize drag and drop capabilities.
2. Release the mouse button while the cursor is directly on top of
another work item's bar
3. A dependency is created between the two items
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 Sharing and Printing the Gantt

Printing the Gantt Sharing the Gantt

1. In the Gantt view open the Utilities tab
1. From the Ribbon,
2. Click select “Share” and
The Print preview window opens choose Widget
3. Define the Gantt print options: 2. Set any desired
a. Full Gantt - prints the entire options such as
b. Gantt Current view - prints only the view expiration date and
currently displayed
password
c. Specific period - allows you to define a specific
time frame to display 3. Choose recipients
and personalize an
4. Move the page column separator between
email message if you
the list (grid) and the Gantt view to
determine what columns will be printed wish. Recipients will
receive a live read-
5. Use the zoom slider to adjust the desired only view of your
zoom for the Gantt project’s Gantt.
6. Define the print options, page size and
orientation
7. Click

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 Roadmap Views and Navigation

The Roadmap can be viewed from

several perspectives (accessible
from the Gear Icon
The ribbon allows for the addition of new Milestones making the
Roadmap a great way to quickly build high-level project timelines
• Standard - Displays all of the before detailed planning takes place.
selected projects in a standard
view Clicking an icon on the Roadmap will bring up a mini-properties
• Flat - Mainly used for portfolios, card revealing summary information and allowing you to make
quick updates or drill into greater detail.
this display option creates a flat
view for all of the projects within
• Baseline - Displays an additional
block showing the Project's
baseline
• Plan vs. Actual - Displays an
additional block showing
planned vs. actual information
on the project's timeline
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 Monitor Project State, Status, and Conflicts
Status

On Track
All Work Items can be tracked
according to Status (health), State At Risk
(lifecycle), and Conflicts (schedule Off Track
or resource issues that require
resolution).
State
By adding these fields as columns Draft
to a view, you can quickly monitor Active
work or filter to isolate areas of Complete
concern.
Canceled
On Hold
Finally, by creating views that filter
on exceptions, you can easily
Conflicts
maintain “watch lists” that must be
actively managed.
Schedule Impacted

Schedule Impacting
Other

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 Status and Conflict Definitions

Status Conflicts
Compares reported progress against expected Conflicts indicates a contradiction between due dates
progress of at least two project work items.

If the Actual Percent Completed is under The following are several examples of a Conflict:
On Track
10% less than the Expected Percent
Completed or Actual Percent Completed • A hammock (parent item) has a manually set Due date but
is greater than the Expected Percent one (or more) of its sub-items finishes after that date
Completed
• Task X has a manually set Due date and Duration. Task X
depends on task Y that has a Due date that prevents X from
If the Actual Percent Completed is 10% or being finished on time.
At Risk
more below the Expected Percent • Task X has a manually set Start date. Task X is dependent
Completed on task Y whose Start or Due date is earlier than the Start
date of task X.

Note: In case of conflict situations, the system does not

The due date of the task has passed and
Off Track automatically move planned Start or Due dates accordingly,
the Actual Percent Completed is less than
100% but rather raises an indication of a conflict in the form of an
Alert.

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 Calculation of % Complete

General Rules

The following rules are the basis of the calculation:

1. Hammock completeness is influenced by its direct children (sub-projects/sub-tasks).

2. When weight (via Progress Impact) is defined for an item, the item's relative effort is not used for
parent completeness calculations.

3. When a hammock's children do not have Progress Impact weight defined, the calculation of the
hammock's %Completed is according to their effort.

4. When all children of a hammock have defined Progress Impact weights, the %Completeness of the
parent is calculated according to those weights.

5. When a hammock has children of which some have weights and others don’t have weights, the
children with weights defined is calculated by their weights, whereas the children without weight
defined are calculated according to their effort and the relative weight.

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 Special Situation: Progress Uncertainty

Relationship Between Actual Effort, Work and % Complete

Actual Effort reported by resources can sometimes result in a situation where Actual Effort exceeds the
estimated work of the task.

In this case the work item is internally flagged as 'Overworked' to indicate that the work item is 'over-budget' for
its defined work.

When Actual Effort is updated via reported Timesheet hours, the 'Overwork' situation can cause ambiguity
(uncertainty) of the %Completeness.

Work items with this status are not transferred automatically to Completed state.

When % Completeness is Uncertain:

1. % Complete displays a '?' character (example: 100 (?))
2. Remaining Effort, if it’s not manually set, is displayed in red with a '?'character

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 Monitor Project Health: Generate Project Status Report
If installed*, Clarizen provides PMs with 2 “one-click” options for
Status Reporting
*These reports are available on the Apps Marketplace. If you do not have them available in your instance, please work
with your admin to install

Project Highlight Report PPR (Periodic Project Report)

Delivered via Email. Select Leverages “Document
options below and it will be Publisher” to produce a Word
mailed after clicking “Ok” Doc (can be saved as pdf)
presenting status information
according to a defined template.

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 Advanced Topic: Weighted Tasks
Utilizing Weights
When calculating the %Complete of a hammock, the %Complete is also influenced by the weight of the sub items.
The weight is the amount of effort defined per work item
• Weight default value = 100
• Weight manually set value will not be limited
• Calculated weight = weight value / total of all weights

Children Group Types Under a Hammock

There are Three(3) children group types under the hammock:
• Priority 1 – Work items that have weight
Distribution in the group is according to the weight of the individual work item = SUM(all work items weight) /
work item weight
• Priority 2 – Work items that have work
Distribution in the group is according to the work of the individual work item = SUM(all work items work)/ work
item work
• Priority 3 – All others work items
Distribution in the group is linear = 1/COUNT(all work items work)

The distribution between the groups is based on the calculation of the number of children for each group.

Copyright © 2016 Clarizen. All rights reserved. Confidential Material 19

 Advanced Topic: Calculating Progress of Weighted Tasks
Hammock Calculation
Completeness % of hammock = sum (completeness of child * its relative weight/ total weight)
Completeness of child can be its direct completeness (user defined for task or calculated on hammocks) or actual effort/total effort (user defined
for tasks)
Relative weight has the three following scenarios:
• Weight is manually defined: Calculation disregards effort and only calculates according to weight
• No weight defined and task has effort defined: weight of task = default weight *(task effort/total effort of tasks with no
weight defined)
• No weight defined and task does not have effort defined: Calculation done using default weight (100)

Example:
Hammock has six children:
• Child 1 - Completeness = 30, weight 50, (effort doesn’t matter)
• Child 2 - Completeness = 20, weight 150, (effort doesn’t matter)
• Child 3 - Completeness = 70, no weight, effort =5
• Child 4 - Completeness = 80, no weight, effort =10
• Child 5 - Completeness = 40, no weight, effort =15
• Child 6 - Completeness = 60, no weight, effort = 0
The Relative weight of children = • Child 1 = 50/600 = 1/12 • Child 2 = 150/600 = 1/4 • Child 3 = 300/600 (relative weight of all tasks with no weight
defined) *5/30
(relative effort of all tasks with no weight defined) = 1/12 • Child 4 = 300/600 (relative weight of all tasks with no weight defined)*10/30
(relative effort of all tasks with no weight defined) = 1/6 • Child 5 = 300/600 (relative weight of all tasks with no weight defined)*15/30
(relative effort of all tasks with no weight defined) = 1/4 • Child 6 = 100/600 (default weight/total weight) = 1/6
% Completeness = (30*1/12) + (20*1/4) + (70*1/12) + (80*1/6) + (40*1/4) + (60*1/6) = 46.67

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 Get it done.
Faster. Better. Together.

Clearer visibility than you ever had

so you can move faster than you ever could.

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