Community Manager

Adobe Workfront Experts on Project Template & Timeline Best Practices

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
January 29, 2024
28 replies
19075 views

February 21st, 2024

We are happy to welcome Cynthia Boon and Nichole Vargas of the Customer Success team at Adobe for an AMA session about Project Template & Timeline Best Practices.

Our experts:

Nichole Vargas & Cynthia Boon are Customer Success Managers at Adobe.

How this AMA works:

This thread will open on Wednesday, February 21, for you to start submitting your questions.
Reply to this post with any questions you have for our Experts. They will reply to as many of your questions as possible.
After the AMA is over, the thread will be locked for new replies, but it will remain visible as a resource.

Workfront

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anadlc

Question: We have some of our tasks set up to auto complete if that task is not required for certain projects. Is there a way to hide these tasks? The list of tasks end up being confusing or too much for some users.

J

JHulet

Level 3

Hi Ana! Is this auto complete function set up through fusion? Or is it something natively in WF?

NicholeVargas

Adobe Employee

@anadlc Great question! If you have tasks set up to auto-complete, you can create a filter in your task list to exclude those. There is a field in the API Explorer for Tracking Mode, so here is the text mode you could use in your view:

trackingMode_Mod=notin
trackingMode=AUTO

@jhulet Auto-complete is a native function in Workfront - it is called Task Tracking Mode and can be set at the task (or template task) level. Here is an article with more information and how to set it up: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/workfront/using/manage-work/tasks/task-information/task-tracking-mode.html?lang=en#auto-complete

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DanaBr3

Is there a way to have a specific project template allowed to be scheduled from completion date when the “Schedule From” project preference is set to start date?

There is one project template that would benefit with the option to schedule from completion date, but it seems like the option must be one or the other for all projects in a group. If not, would a task constraint on the final task be the next best option?

Lyndsy-Denk

Community Advisor

While we default to Schedule From Start Date, we have a few that use Completion Date. And we have a few that are a hybrid (technically based on a Start Date, but there is at least one tasks somewhere in the middle with a Fixed Date task constraint).

I think the key is awareness with your project owners because they might be in practice of adjusting the project start or project completion based on your default.

DonnaEa1

Question: I have just signed on Workfront with my new company so I am currently building initial templates. When managing different creative processes- are there any tips on how to categorize templates. In my previous role templates were added so frequently they weren't truly templates. Any thoughts for efficiencies? Templates by work process? Team? Thanks!

jlwmcknight

Level 2

When we initially set up our Workfront instance, we built the templates around common end deliverable or campaign type (integrated, social-only, creative update, video production, etc).

Doug_Den_Hoed_AtAppStore

Community Advisor

Hi @donnaea1,

Like most items within Workfront, thinking through, setting, and following some solid naming conventions for Templates can save you time in the long run.

As a bonus, Templates do also support custom data, so -- although, I'm surprised to ,never have done so my self -- you might consider adding a standard custom form to all Templates to help you keep them organize (e.g. dropdowns for "End Deliverable", "Campaign Type", etc. as @jlwmcknight mentioned).

By doing so, you can then filter, sort, group, chart and organize your Templates (and/or their Projects, which will "inherit" that custom form...spoiler alert...), and easily add additional attributes over time (e.g. new dropdown values, new parameters entirely, etc.) as your use of Workfront expands and changes, without forever having to reword the names of the Templates (which would cause confusion, since it is the Name people will become used to looking for).

Regards,

Doug

KayleeRichard

Level 2

Hi everyone, question here! Does anyone have a best practice for tasks that are held up/go over affecting the remaining tasks of the project? We have a lot of situations where someone does their task late, and because of that, everyone else's start/due dates are skewed. A lot of our projects don't have hard deadlines, just small projects for different elements of work, so people want to have their allotted duration to do their tasks, but its hard for them to have that when the task already comes to them overdue.

Currently, for myself, I have been using a field on my tasks for the handoff date (of the prior task) and then using a calculated field to add my 5 days duration to calculate a "new" due date. So when tasks come to me overdue already, I can still use my allotted 5-day turnaround and not rush work just because someone else completed their work late.

Does anyone have a better practice for this or something that works across multiple teams without causing issues?

KristenS_WF

Level 6

I'm in the midst of pilot-testing a Fusion automation that adjusts the task planned completion date to match the actual completion date when a task is marked complete. This right-sizes the planned dates for subsequent tasks. We haven't seen issues thus far, so I hope to expand it to a larger subset of projects soon.

E

EileenW

Level 3

You got my attention, @kristens_wf! Would love to hear how this is going.

@kayleerichard - this is something that my team has been struggling with since we onboarded Workfront in 2017. Our users tend to not believe dates since some tasks sit in an approval loop too long, then the task is rejected (or approved) and dates aren't automatically updated in the system.

This would be a HUGE solve if it can happen.

MoniqueEvans

Community Advisor

One Tip I haven't seen shared is to autofill custom fields on your templates to save user's time and maintain better compliance. For example, if you have a "deliverable type" custom field and your templates are based on deliverable type, fill in that field with the appropriate response. Now every time a project is made with the "Packaging" or "Photography" template deliverable type is already filled in for that field.

The more you can use that approach the fewer "no value" reports you will have and the more inclined your users are to fill in the few that need their inputs.

NicholeVargas

Adobe Employee

Yes! Take advantage of the "Select by default" option for Dropdown, Checkboxes, or Radio Buttons, one less thing to have your users select, and easy reporting or categorization for you as the admin!

Doug_Den_Hoed_AtAppStore

Community Advisor

Hi @kayleerichard,

To help track, monitor, and manage such schedule slippages, I invite you to consider our Multi Baseline Report solution, which lets you assess “Baseline Drift” by tagging Tasks with custom icons then filtering for Projects, Tasks, and Baselines of interest.

This video explains shows it in action, and if you're interested in more details, you're welcome to contact me via email at doug.denhoed@atappstore.com

Regards,

Doug

jon_chen

Author

Community Manager

Hey everyone, that just about wraps up our Coffee Break on Project Templates and Timeline best practices! A huge shoutout to everyone that contributed to this Coffee Break - and please join me in thanking our Customer Success at Scale team @cynthiaboon, @nicholevargas, and @lesliespier for leading this session. If they have not gotten around to your comment or questions, please be assured that they will respond by the end of today.

Please note that entries into the Sweepstakes for the Workfront swag item are now closed. I will be selecting a winner by the end of this week (Friday, February 23rd EOD). I'll be sending out an email and a Community direct message to the winner - stay tuned and best of luck!

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EileenW

Level 3

@jon_chen @cynthiaboon @nicholevargas @lesliespier

This was a whirlwind of information. Thank you all for coordinating this event! Just now going back through to see if I missed anything. 🙂

jon_chen

Author

Community Manager

Hey Everyone,

Thanks again for such an informative Coffee Break session.

I wanted to circle back to this thread to announce the winner of the first Coffee Break Sweepstakes - please join me in congratulating @lauracr!

Please be assured that there will be more opportunities to participate in Coffee Break Sweepstakes. Be sure to stay tuned on the Workfront Community for these upcoming sessions!

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