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01-03-2022

To continue the 3-part System Administrator series on people, process and technology, this week’s blog will focus on understanding your processes, from the perspective of administering Workfront. Summarized below are four key areas outlining the work management understanding that you need to have based on feedback from others just like you, who’ve not only taken on this role but have created a successful career out of it.


Often the role of System Administrator will include helping to define, manage, monitor and maintain your organization’s way of working. This means that you are part of creating the overall workflow process — maintaining both knowledge and facilitation of how work gets done. To get you started on defining the baseline for your work processes, ask yourself the following questions:


  1. How is the work being requested?
  2. How is work being fulfilled?
  3. How is work being reviewed and approved?
  4. How is work completed and handed-off?
  5. How is work being assessed for value, priority, and performance?


WORK REQUEST AND INTAKE

Creating efficiency and organization in your work intake process is step one. A request queue should be used to capture and centralize work requests. Before building, take the time to define, diagram, and document each team’s or department’s intake workflow — from initial request to completion. Then, one running, ensure a regular weekly time is set aside to review incoming requests for prioritization and action. Best practice: quarterly, review all queues and custom forms - are there improvements or process changes that need to be made?


A successful request queue has the following features: 


  • Project Name - Informative and clearly articulates the queue’s purpose. Use the word “queue” in the project name to signify a request queue rather than a “working” project.
  • Queue Topics - While not mandatory, Queue Topics and Topic Groups can be helpful in adding targeted structure to your intake processes. Name each topic clearly and ensure it is aligned to the receiving person or team.  
  • Custom Forms - Make sure the form captures the information required to accept or reject the request AND to start working on it.
  • Editability - If a custom form is attached to your request queue, in the Queue Details section of the queue project, select “Contribute with Edit Custom Form” from the Advanced Options menu on the “When someone makes a request, automatically grant” field. This will allow the requestor to fill out the custom form and make any updates after the form has been submitted. 


Queue Properties-MCEPWBFT67R5CHXN3GZOXUGHOQB4.png


  • Visibility - Ensure that the right people can see the Request Queue when they go to make a request by selecting the relevant option from the “Who can add requests to this queue?” field in the Queue Details section. 
  • Routing Rules - Set up a Routing Rule for the queue or for individual Queue Topics, so that incoming requests route to the right person or team.   


For best practices around request queue setup, performance and evaluation, review this blog. Learn by example by reading through customer success stories here and find additional best practices for effective queue management here


PRO TIP 1: Create a new status called “Queue” that equates with an Active or Current status as this status will activate the queue as well as help to quickly identify which projects are queue only projects in a list. 


PRO TIP 2: Create a System Administrator request queue for users to request onboarding, training, new user setup, user deactivation, new report creation, edits to an existing report or dashboard, and to submit their Workfront questions or feedback. 



PROJECT AND TASK MANAGEMENT 

Next, understand how your work is being fulfilled, what organizational goals it supports, what outcomes it’s trying to achieve, and how success will be measured.


Projects can be created from scratch or by converting a request, and are most often created by using a template. Because templates are the most effective way to speed up the creation of repetitive work and help drive adoption amongst project managers, begin by using the basic stages of the project management lifecycle as your parent tasks or milestones, identifying the most efficient path from beginning to end. These stages might include: 


  • Initiate - What do we want to achieve? Does it make sense to do it?
  • Plan - How are we going to achieve it? Who will do what? How long will it take?
  • Execute - Are we doing what we agreed to do? Correctly? On time?
  • Close - Did we accomplish our goals/ objectives? Can we do it better next time?


4 Stage Template-MCIA6KIS26YRAQ5JOG4XPI3XLFJY.png


Ensuring that all projects are completed and closed out helps to keep your work environment current and clean. This allows your users to focus on active priorities and allows them to know what has already been fulfilled, versus what may have been canceled or re-worked. You may want to create a report to trigger projects that have been sitting for 10 days or more with no updates or communication, as this work may no longer be required. 


PRO TIP: Audit your projects on a quarterly basis. Look for projects without a template attached (Template ID > Is Blank) or those without tasks (see filter below) to keep your Workfront environment organized and efficient. Add the following text mode filter to a project report to look for projects without tasks: 


EXISTS:A:$$EXISTSMOD=NOTEXISTS

EXISTS:A:$$OBJCODE=TASK

EXISTS:A:projectID=FIELD:ID



REVIEW AND APPROVAL

For many organizations, there is typically a process — formal or informal — for getting sign-offs from stakeholders on every deliverable that goes out the door. This process might include a manager’s approval followed by approval from legal and compliance. Keep the approval process as simple as possible to avoid any unintentional delays. 


There are two different types of approvals in Workfront for projects, tasks and issues — single-use and global approval processes. Approval processes help organize and provide consistency in the way users work together on projects, tasks, and issues, so consider setting these up at the system, or group level for everyone to take advantage of. Below is a list of best practices around creating and managing approval processes:


  • When adding multiple users to an approval stage, if a decision can be made by just one of the individuals or one member of the team, ensure the checkbox for “Only one decision required” is selected.
  • Ensure that there is proper communication shared across the organization around the importance of approvals. Objects with a pending approval cannot be marked as complete, can hold up dependent tasks and delay project timelines. 
  • Mark an approval process as inactive when your organization no longer needs to use it, but you want to preserve historical information about its use.


NOTE: Single-use and global approval processes in Workfront are different than using workflows with the Proofing tool. For more information on how to use review and approval workflows within Proof, click here


OUTCOMES, OBJECTIVES and METRICS

Managing intake and entering projects and completing tasks is just the beginning of your journey with Workfront. In order to review the value of the work being done and to gain insight into performance metrics, start by creating simple yet functional reports and dashboards. Common metrics around intake, project and task management and approvals are listed below.  


  • Demand - How many requests are coming in? Break this down by month, quarter, year, home group, team or queue topic. 
  • Request Turnaround Time - How many days did it take between the Entry Date or Start Date and the Actual Completion Date? Use calculated data expressions and calculated custom fields to count for you. 
  • On-Time Delivery - Is work being completed on or near the planned completion date? Review projects that are At-Risk or In Trouble to identify risks and review patterns to help strategically mitigate future issues. 
  • Approval Duration - How long did the approval take to complete? Look at the approval path start date and the approval path completion date to calculate the number of days in between. Is that number trending downwards? 


Additional key performance metrics can be found in the on-demand Ask the Expert webinar, Measuring Performance in Workfront Using KPIs or by reaching out to your peers on the Community site for more industry-specific ideas.