Workfront Reporting Question: Reporting Work in the Month It Was Completed vs. Campaign Close Date

Question

We're running into a reporting challenge in Workfront and I'm curious how others are handling it.

Currently, many of our reports are project/campaign-based and rely on the campaign (project) reaching a Closed/Complete status. The issue is that most of the work is actually completed in the month prior, but the reporting doesn't reflect it until the campaign is closed.

For example, a campaign may have the majority of its tasks completed in June, but if the project isn't closed until July, all of the reporting appears in July. This creates a lag and doesn't accurately represent the team's monthly output.

How are others addressing this?

Are you reporting on completed tasks rather than project completion?
Do you use hour reports or task reports for monthly operational reporting?
Do you report on open/in-progress campaigns to capture work activity before project closure?
Have you implemented any custom fields or reporting strategies to better align work completed with the appropriate reporting period?

I'd appreciate any recommendations or examples of reports/dashboards that have worked well for your teams.

Lyndsy-Denk · Accepted Answer

Whenever we have projects that have follow-on or closeout tasks after the actual delivery of work, we rely on either Milestones or a custom field on the key task. Either of those approaches allows you to report on the more important activity. In this approach, you create a task report that filters on that key task, but displays project-level details like the name, program, and portfolio.

StutiTi · Answer

Hi ​@HaleyCh, Lyndsy's suggestion is spot on for anchoring your reporting to the key delivery task rather than project close. To address your broader questions, here's how many teams handle this:For monthly operational output, reporting on completed tasks is generally more accurate than project completion, since it reflects when work actually happened. A task report grouped by Actual Completion Date month gives you a true picture of monthly throughput regardless of when the parent campaign closes. You can create a calculated custom field like CONCAT(YEAR(Actual Completion Date),"-",MONTH(Actual Completion Date)) to get a clean month grouping that sorts correctly.Hour reports are worth using alongside task reports if your teams log time,they let you report output by the month the hours were logged, which is often the most accurate reflection of effort and is completely independent of project or task status. This is especially useful for capacity and productivity reporting.Reporting on open/in-progress campaigns is also a good idea if leadership wants to see work activity before closure. A task report filtered on Actual Completion Date within the reporting month, with no filter on project status, will capture completed work even while the campaign is still open.The key takeaway is to shift the anchor of your reporting from the project status to the task-level completion date, which decouples your monthly output numbers from the campaign closeout lag entirely.

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