MSP: Limit on number of Tasks for performance

Products

• Clarity PPM SaaS
• Clarity PPM On Premise

Issue/Introduction

Looking for the ability to load and manage 4500-7000 task line items in Clarity and to use the Microsoft Project (MSP) integration to export, change, and import back into Clarity.

• Is there a limit to the number of tasks that can be imported and exported to MSP? 
• What type of performance impacts and if possible in quantifiable numbers will we experience if we try to load 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, and above 5000 line items?

Environment

Release : All Supported

Component : Clarity Microsoft Project Interface / Integration

Resolution

Table of Contents

• MSP Task Limit
• Benchmarks
• MSP XML Timing Log
• Best Practices

MSP Task Limit

There's no limit to the number of tasks that can be imported to Clarity and exported to MSP. However, the amount of time it takes for the project to open can go up as the number of tasks increases (along with other factors that impact how significant that time may be). 

Factors that can impact how long the project takes to open include the below (see MSP Integration performance best practices for more details)

• How many total assignments
• The duration of the tasks
• How many baselines (and if more than one, is the setting in Clarity to only export the current baseline checked)

Benchmarks

There are no benchmarks  / quantifiable values available as there are multiple factors (including those listed above) that can cause the project to take longer to export/import.

Some examples:

• Duration: A project with about 7,500 tasks and 7,000 assignments with most tasks having 10 day durations will take longer to open then a project with the same amount of tasks and assignments where the Durations of the tasks are only 1 day.
• # of Assignments: If you have a project with 7500 tasks and 30,000 assignments versus 7,000 assignments, that also can cause the project to take longer to open.

MSP XML Timing Log

• There is a log that can give you a count of how many assignments, baselines, tasks, etc there are in a project along with the timing it takes to export (open) and save (import). This log file name is mspxml_timing.log and it's found in the logs folder that is located within the documents folder after the MSP Interface is installed.

Best Practices

• See also: MSP Integration performance best practices that provides more details on MSP Integration best practices to avoid performance issues. 

Additional Information

Note: If users are creating the tasks in Clarity first, this can cause an issue due to design behavior, where the users would need to add a constraint or dependency to help keep dates from changing (or create the tasks in MSP). See MSP: Start Dates change to Project Start Date when exported to MSP for more information

Reference KBs:

• MSP Integration Known Issues - Master KB
• Searching for known Clarity Issues using Self Service for tips on how to optimize the use of Self Service for Clarity