CA Enhances Clarity IT Governance Solution

CA announced Tuesday that it is providing browser-based scheduling, more flexible resource management and expanded features for global deployments. The enhancements, developed with customer input, are expected to improve the efficiency of IT operations as well as the alignment of IT operations and business objectives.

Users will be able to leverage Clarity&'s Resource-Constrained Scheduling algorithm within a Web browser. The algorithm helps schedule projects by taking into account the availability of resources rather than task duration. The end result is supposed to be a more realistic plan in less time. Users can also set project constraints and dependencies, create tentative schedules, edit and publish the final version, without downloading or maintaining software.

The solution helps managers to shift resources as needs change and withhold documents until they are formally assigned. It allows IT leaders to pinpoint and analyze capacity and demands of several departments or teams. It also allows the creation of customized groupings for application areas, clients or project type.

Other product enhancements support global deployments that require localization, scalability and flexible configurations. They contain language support for seven new languages and offline timesheet management in all languages to allow flexibility for remote users who are geographically dispersed. The architecture is upgraded for expanded platform support and improved security.

Clarity is CA&'s flagship governance solution and part of the company&'s Business Service Optimization offerings. It integrates with Open Workbench and Microsoft Project for desktop-based planning. A Gartner Research report released in September showed that the solution experienced more than 63 percent year-over-year growth in 2004.