Clarity: Copy Tasks

Products

• Clarity PPM On Premise
• Clarity PPM SaaS

Issue/Introduction

In Classic PPM on a Project or within the PPM Gantt, you can use an action 'Copy Tasks From Template'. 

• What access rights are required for using this action?
• What are the rules to successfully 'Copy Tasks'? 
• Can we use this functionality in the Clarity Tasks Module? (new user experience) 
• Is there a difference when using 'Copy from...' vs using the 'Copy' context action within the same investment? 

Environment

Release 15.x, 16.x 

Resolution

Overview

• Target Investment = the project you are currently working in for which you want to pull in tasks from another investment (the 'source' investment). 
• Source Investment = the template or project selected for which you want to copy tasks 'from'. 

Access Rights

• Target Investment 
  • For the user to access the 'Copy Tasks From Template' action from within the 'target', the following rights are needed: 
    • Global Project - Edit Management - All 
    • OR Instance/OBS Project Edit access for the 'target' investment 
    • These rights include permissions to create tasks on the target investment 
• Source Investment 
  • To select an investment to 'Copy from...', the user needs to have 'VIEW' access for the Source Investment 
  • For the user to successfully copy tasks with assignments, the user needs Resource 'Booking' rights for the staff that is assigned to the 'source' task 
    • Global Resource - Hard Book - All and/or Resource - Soft Book - All
    • OR Instance/OBS Resource - Hard Book and/or Resource - Soft Book for the staff on the 'source' investment 
    • The booking rights allow the staff to be booked on the target investment 
• Optional, but NOT required - To Do access rights 
  • To Do access rights are NOT required - user is not required to have 'Create' access or 'Edit/View' access on To Dos 
  • All To Do records are copied with the task even if the current user does not have access to them 
• Success vs. Failure Messages related to access rights  
  • In Classic, the 'Copy Task from Template' action is available when user has Investment 'Edit' access, otherwise it is disabled or not present. 
  • Once the 'copy' action begins, validations are performed so it is reactive if validations fail.
  • Nothing is copied in the case of missing authorization for booking staff.
  • If tasks have the same ID, the source task is ignored and not copied; no message is generated to the user. 
  • In general, because of the nature of processing multiple tasks, NO MESSAGE is provided for tasks that are not copied over due to validation violations as noted below.

Copy Tasks Rules or Logic

Question	Answer
In Classic PPM can you copy tasks from regular projects instead of a Template?	Yes, you can change the filter in the Project Selection page to filter for non-template projects.
Can you copy tasks from within the same project as the target?	Yes, you can change the filter in the Project Selection page to filter for the current project to copy existing tasks again within the same project. Only tasks without a Task ID will be successfully copied because you cannot copy a task with the same Task ID that already exists in this project. Attempting to copy a task that has the same Task ID of an existing task on the target investment is not copied and no message is generated to the user.
Can you copy an Effort Task from the source investment to the target investment?	If the Target investment does NOT already have an effort Task (ID = ~rmw) then it is copied.
Can you copy a source investment Task with a Task ID value (either manually entered or auto-numbered)?	If the target investment does NOT already have a Task with that same ID, then it is copied. No message is provided if the task with that ID already exists. When the Task ID field is auto-numbered it is copied the first time using the existing Task ID. A new auto-number is NOT generated when creating the 'copied' task record and hence if the target investment already has the same ID, the task cannot be copied a second time.
Are Task Dependency lines copied?	Yes, If you select from the Source investment both the predecessor and successor Tasks, then the task dependency lines will be drawn. If you copy 1 of the tasks (predecessor or successor) that has a dependency and it is linked to a Task that was NOT selected, but the linked task has a Task ID of an existing Task in the Target investment, the Dependency line is drawn between the newly copied task and the existing task on the Target investment.  If you copy a task from within the same investment that is linked to another task, the dependency lines are not drawn if the dependent task is also not selected (no task IDs on the tasks). If you copy both predecessor & successor tasks from within the same investment, the new tasks created will have dependencies between the new, copied records.
If the source project has an 'External Task' listed in the PPM Gantt, can I select it for copy?	No. You cannot select an 'External Task'. You can only see it on the PPM Gantt as a line item designated as an external task dependency.
Are Task 'Assigned Resources' (Staff) copied?	Yes.  Regardless of the Target Investment's Assignment Pool Setting, if the assigned resources are NOT already on the target investment, they are added to the Staff.  If the Administration, Project Management Settings option 'Convert resources to roles when using templates (default)' is CHECKED, then the Resources that have a Primary Role are converted into that role, otherwise the Resources without a Primary Role are staffed.
Are Proxy SubProject Tasks copied?	The user is allowed to select a Proxy Subproject Task, but it is NOT copied. No message is provided.
If you select a Phase or Summary Activity Task are all the child tasks automatically copied?	Yes, If you pick the Phase or Activity Task and selectively pick some child tasks, it will still bring in ALL child tasks.
If you select a child task under a Phase or Summary Activity Task, is the Phase or Summary Task copied?	No. We don't copy (up) the parent tasks.  We copy the selected task and if there are children tasks, all those tasks are copied (down).
What happens to the Task Dates when it is copied to a target investment? Does it impact the overall target investment date range?	Clarity determines the interval from the start of the source investment to the start of the source task and keeps that when adding it to the target investment.   For example if the Source Task Start Date is 14 days after the Source Investment Start Date, when it is copied to the Target investment the new dates for the copied task will be 14 days from the Target Investment Start Date.  If the duration of the Task is longer than the remaining duration of the target investment it could push out the Target Investment Finish date.
What happens to the Actuals on a source Task when it is copied to a target investment?	Actuals are converted into ETCs.
What happens to % Complete and Task Status when it is copied to a target investment?	The % Complete is reset to 0% and the Status is reset to 'Not Started'.
What happens to the To Dos, Links and Conversations on a Task when it is copied to a target investment?	Links are copied.  Conversations are NOT copied.  To Dos are copied over regardless of the user's access to the To Do Records.  The 'Completed flag' is cleared, the 'Due Date' is changed to current date (not the same date as the original) Original To Do Due Date = Mar 1 2023 Copied To Do Due Date = Today's Date
What happens if I copy a source Task multiple times to the same target investment (without a Task ID) that has an assigned role?	The Role is added multiple times to the Staff (DBA, DBA2, DBA3, etc).
What happens if there are active blueprint rules for the Tasks when a Copy Task action is invoked?	The blueprint business rules are ignored.  The 'Copy Tasks' functionality pre-existed before Blueprints. We are allowing multiple tasks to be copied so it does not make sense for the blueprint rules to run for the 'copy' action.
Are Task local Picklist values copied?	No. Task Picklist definitions are unique to each investment.

 

Can we use this functionality in the Clarity Tasks Module? (new user experience)

• Yes - In Release 16.1.2 and beyond

Is there a difference when using 'Copy from...' vs using the 'Copy' context action within the same investment? 

• In Release 16.2.0, a new 'Copy' context action has been introduced to provide the ability to copy a single or multiple tasks within the context of the same investment
• Reference Release 16.2.0 documentation for full details 
• This capability is available on the Tasks WBS Timeline and on the Tasks Grid layout; not available on the Board layout 
• Same behavior: 
  • Actuals are converted to ETC
  • Task Dependency lines are created between the newly copied tasks when both tasks linked are copied at the same time
  • The Proxy Subproject tasks are not copied
• Different behavior:
  • Selecting a 'parent' task such as a Phase or Summary Task will only automatically copy the children tasks when that parent task is being copied from the WBS Timeline layout 
  • Using the 'copy' context action on the Tasks Grid layout will only copy the 'selected' tasks and won't include any other tasks, even when selecting the 'parent' task
    • Comparing the 'Copy from...' selection from the grid behaves in the same manner as the WBS Timeline 'Copy' context action within the current investment - when the parent task is selected, the child tasks are copied 
  • Picklist values are copied using the new 'Copy' context action within the same investment, but not when using the 'Copy from...' action. This is because the task selected might be from another investment and Picklists are unique to the investment 
  • The relative dates of the tasks remain the same within the same investment, therefore the newly copied tasks won't have a date change as compared to copying a task from another investment with different relative start dates 
  • There is a difference in the behavior with respect to the Task ID for the copied task when using the 'Copy' context action within the same investment:

Task ID field	‘Copy from…’ Action (introduced in Release 16.1.2)	NEW! Context ‘Copy’ action within the same Investment
Blank	Task is copied. Task ID = blank. The task can be copied multiple times to the target investment.	Task is copied. Task ID = blank
Manually-entered value	If the target investment does NOT already have a Task with that same ID, then it is copied. No message is provided if the task with that ID already exists.	Task is copied. Task ID = blank
Auto-Numbered	When the Task ID field is auto-numbered it is copied the first time using the existing Task ID. A new auto-number is NOT generated when creating the 'copied' task record and hence if the target investment already has the same ID, the task cannot be copied a second time.	Task is copied. Task ID = newly-generated auto-numbered value

 

Additional Information

An issue has been identified with Release 16.2.0 'Copy' context action with regard to the Task Status and % Complete fields are not getting reset as expected on the newly copied task.

Reference Knowledgebase Article # 275908 for more details.