Resource Planner Performance Beta
The new Workfront Resource Planner enables you to ensure that your people are working on the right work, at a right time, and helps to prevent burnout. You can manage demand by job role or user, providing visibility into the availability of the team members, as well as prioritizing strategic work to ensure the top priority work is assigned the resources it needs to be successful. Additionally, the Resource Planner can help you:
budget your resources by job role or user both system-wide and for an individual project;
view the data by Hours, FTE or Costs;
simulate a scenario when the project can be moved into the future
and much more!
These new capabilities will fully replace the Legacy Resource Planning functionality in the near future.
Our Product team is also focused on ensuring the resulting functionality is performant and meets your business needs. For that reason, we are currently working on performance-related improvements and are conducting a beta program to make sure that our final product meets your expectations.
Format of the Beta Program
Current Improvements Released to the Preview Environment
Functionality That We Would Like You to Test
Feedback about Testing the Performance of the Resource Planner
Format of the Beta Program
The performance improvements will be deployed to the Preview environment with our upcoming Beta releases. We will update this page when new functionality is added to Preview and you can follow it to know when you can start performing targeted testing.
For more information about the Resource Planner, including the necessary prerequisites, and how to access it, see "https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/sections/115001049327"> “Resource Planning.”
Because these features are released to everyone in their Preview environment, we encourage everyone to participate in this beta program. We estimate that the maximum amount of time needed for testing is about 5 hours a week. We welcome any amount of time you can invest in this testing.
IMPORTANT The Preview environment is refreshed every week with the Production data. To save time, we recommend that you set up all the necessary information for working in the Resource Planner in the Production environment first which will allow you to avoid recreating the data every week in the Preview environment. Setting up the correct data for testing Resource Planning will not affect your work in the Legacy Resource Planning tools.
For more information about the prerequisites that must be in place before you can start using the Resource Planner, see the "Understanding Prerequisites for Resource Planning" section in "https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003216187"> "Getting Started with Resource Planning."
Current Improvements Released to the Preview Environment
The following improvements have been released to the Preview environment since the opening of this Beta program:
Improvements to the User View introduced in 18.2 Beta 1 Release:
When you first access the Resource Planner, the User View is the new default view, replacing the Project View.
You do not need to be a Resource Manager to view information in the User View.
We have introduced new limits for how many users, projects, roles, tasks, and issues display in the User View. Use filters to ensure you display only the information that is pertinent to you.
Filters have been improved to pull information after polling the entire Workfront database, instead of only polling the results on the screen.
Users lazy load (they display slowly, as you scroll down the page, instead of displaying all the results at once).
You have control over how many projects, roles, tasks, and issues you display for one user at one time.
We have added the option to see the User View in full screen.
Improvements to the Project View introduced in 18.2 Beta 5 Release:
We have introduced new limits for how many projects, roles, and users display in the Project View. Use filters to ensure you display only the information that is pertinent to you.
Filters have been improved to pull information after polling the entire Workfront database, instead of only polling the results on the screen.
Projects, users, and roles lazy load (they display slowly, as you scroll down the page, instead of displaying all the results at once).
Faster and easier prioritization of projects by drag-and-drop.
We have added the option to see the Project View in full screen.
Improvements to the Role View introduced in 18.2 Beta 5 Release:
We have introduced new limits for how many roles, projects, and users display in the Role View. Use filters to ensure you display only the information that is pertinent to you.
Filters have been improved to pull information after polling the entire Workfront database, instead of only polling the results on the screen.
Roles, projects, and users lazy load (they display slowly, as you scroll down the page, instead of displaying all the results at once).
You have control over how many projects, you display for one role at one time.
We have added the option to see the Role View in full screen.
Other improvements introduced in the 18.2 Beta 5 Release:
Quick access to Projects and Users from all views.
For more information about all limitations in the Resource Planner, see "https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001018914%C2%A0"> "Understanding Limitations in Displaying Information in the Resource Planner."
For more information about how filters work in the Resource Planner, see the "Understanding How Information is Filtered in the Resource Planner" section in "https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001729974"> "Filtering Content in the Resource Planner."
For more information about the 18.2 Release, see "https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001909853"> “2018.2 Release Activity Overview.”
Functionality That We Would Like You to Test
While participating in this beta program, we would like you to focus on the areas of functionality listed below. We would like you to tell us how you rank the current functionality when comparing it to the Resource Planning tools currently in production, as well as to your expectations.
Please send us feedback on the following:
Loading the Resource Planner for the first time
Saving Budgeted data
Switching between Week/Month/Quarter time periods
Switching between the Role/User/Project views
Switching between Hours/FTE/Cost data types
Navigating through time periods using the Next, Previous, and Today buttons
Exporting the data from the Resource Planner
Using the menus inside the Project and Job Role Options icons in the Project and Role views (for example, Set Planned Hours as Budgeted, Total Users’ Budgeted Hours)
Changing the project priority by giving a project a new priority number
Changing the project priority by dragging and dropping it to a new spot
Make the same observations on the Resource Planner which displays on the Business Case of a project.
For details about the functionality that has already been released, see "https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002788714"> “Understanding Currently Released Resource Management Functionality ”
Feedback about Testing the Performance of the Resource Planner
We are looking for separate sets of feedback based on your configuration of the Resource Planner. We are also looking for separate sets of feedback depending on which release you are testing the functionality for.
Depending on which view you use in the Resource Planner and what release you are referring to, please submit a separate survey for the following:
User View
Compare the current functionality in Production with the functionality in the 17.3 release: "https://goo.gl/forms/VHvL7Kb0vsNo6yo83"> Survey Link
Compare the current functionality in Preview with the current functionality in Production: "https://goo.gl/forms/AOwa4dPxTK3yVRcO2"> Survey Link
Project View
Compare the current functionality in Production with the functionality in the 17.3 release: "https://goo.gl/forms/qjgROLMKo0hIr2Wq1"> Survey Link
Compare the current functionality in Preview with the current functionality in Production: "https://goo.gl/forms/wCtwj6ZkzTFZqSA02"> Survey Link
Role View
Compare the current functionality in Production with the functionality in the 17.3 release: "https://goo.gl/forms/ztio5oZ6LUNmHPyu1"> Survey Link
Compare the current functionality in Preview with the current functionality in Production: "https://goo.gl/forms/Vn3iaRGuDcRAh4UN2"> Survey Link
For more information about functionality release in the 17.3 release, see "https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001051834"> "2017.3 Release Activity Overview."
We will update this page when new functionality is added to Preview. Consider testing the Resource Planner and submitting a survey with your findings after each functionality release.
