Portfolios and Programs

Yep, Just picture a small custom form called "For reporting" with 1 custom form field in it -- a radio button field called "Include in reports?" [Yes/No] Then all your reports just filter for Portfolio:Include in reports? is not equal to No. This way, if the user forgets to put in the form, it's no big deal. Any portfolio with a Yes or a zero answer will get pulled into all the reports. However, if for some reason someone comes by and says to you "I didn't want that portfolio to be reported on at all" you can just put the custom form on the portfolio, or teach them how to do it themselves. Our use case was that we had a few "audit" reports that we wanted to globally look at portfolios, AND we had portfolios that we never wanted to be reported on, on those reports. So this was a global "don't report" field that we could use to keep them off any reports auditing our system in this way. Meanwhile, reports that don't audit the system don't need this field or can casually exclude portfolios one or two at a time. -skye

My $.02. Don't timebox your portfolio names, especially if you plan to have the same program names under each year's portfolio. Doing so causes duplication and complicates reporting. Imagine having 3 portfolios: IT 2017, IT 2018 and IT 2019; each having Program X, Program Y and Program Z. You now have 3 "Program Z" buckets and would need to include all 3 in a report filter if you wanted to compare program execution year over year. It gets even more confusing when you only want "IT 2017 - Program Z". You have no way to know which Program Z you are adding to your filter, so you have to put all 3 in the filter. If you don't you might have the portfolio IT 2017 in the filter, but the Program Z from IT 2018; and 0 results. Not to mention the pain caused at the turn of the year; having to create the IT 2020 portfolio and creating all the programs that ought to be there. Now you've got 4 Program Zs and need to update any reports you had created to include the new portfolio/program identifier. It is a management nightmare. Stick with 1 IT portfolio and 1 Program Z; then group / filter by dates in reporting. Rick MacDuffie Symetra Life Insurance Company

Hi Skye, In your example, "e.g. 2018 Marketing, 2019 Marketing, 2020 Marketing" scenarios, are you building each from scratch year over year? We have recurring campaigns-some annual, some quarterly and some monthly. It would seem to significantly simplify things for our Managers if they could copy/duplicate a Program and its contents. When copying be able to remove attributes from Program and/or contents. Alternatively be able to bulk clean up the projects within the copied Program. Newbie to programs and portfolios, Tammie Bouchard National Safety Council

hey Tammie, thanks for asking. Since I posted this, there's been a change in Workfront feature so that programs can now be deactivated. There are a few good reasons to go with yearly portfolios and one of the big ones WAS that there wasn't a way to "archive" programs so that they didn't have to be seen again. Now that there is, I would probably say to sit down with your users and talk about why you would want to have portfolios by year vs. one portfolio, and go with what seems to make the most sense for your group. -skye

Anyone out there a part of an in-house creative team/national retailer using portfolios to group campaigns (or new store openings)? Aka 2019 campaign portfolio with XXX campaign program with a print, digital and social projects under that? What does that process look like for your project owner/campaign manager? Do they create the program and the PM over each channel create the project? Does the custom form data from the portfolio trickle downwards or do you have to copy and paste for each project? We're trying to migrate to portfolios and programs for our campaigns and grand openings and could use some insight from other in-house teams and/or retail brands! Aya Elsoukkary, Creative Operations Floor & Decor