Project Level Assignment/Hours Feedback

[AnthonyIm]

Hi - not sure if I'm supposed to do a separate thread or not, but... I have. LOL! I have talked to several people in the organization about this idea of project-level assignment and hours. And while, of course, it would save a TON of time for the project owner, we aren't sure that it would be too helpful when you think about things like day-to-day resourcing and letting project team members know what to work on for a specific project - especially at our larger agencies. Here are two thoughts on it for us here at FCB: Ideal: It could be a setting that is on a role level on a project. This would be great for Account people and Project Managers who have hours allotted to them but they might not be assigned to tasks themselves as they are just daily working on the project. Okay: If the setting was on the project level. So if a certain client or team has small, short projects and just throwing hours on there to block the time and duration without having to create a project and then 1 task inside the project to block the time. (We've tried bucket projects before but a project has to be created so you have the right job number attached to the work for timesheets/hours). Doesn't work for us: Having the setting at the group level. It is very unlikely that every project for an entire agency would want this option. Hope this helps. If you have more questions you'd like me to get answers to, let me know. Anthony Imgrund FCB

[Exp_-_VazgenBa]

Got it, makes sense and thanks for the feedback, Anthony! To throw another idea in the mix, let's assume a user is assigned to a project initially, before the tasks are created, but then gradually breaks down effort into tasks. On an example here, let's think of a project with 20 hour estimation that lasts 5 days. Equal distribution in Scheduler will book the user for 4 hours each day. Next a task is created with 2 day duration and 4 hour estimation. Equal distribution on task will show 2 hours each day for those two days. The end result in Scheduler will be 2,2,4,4,4 with both project and task being visible with their respective durations. What do you think of this approach? Would that map with your workflows? Vazgen Babayan Product Manager Workfront

[DavidCo3]

Hi Vazgen. So in your example, are you saying that for whatever tasks you add, any allocation they have for a given day will replace whatever project-level allocation was previously on that day? In your example this has changed the overall planned hours from 20 hours to 16 hours. Just thinking how this would work on a much larger project where there will be multiple tasks and resources working per day. If you started off with a project-level assigment of 200 hours for the week (40 hours per day).....say you create a 2 day task with 2 hours per day, will this 4 hours replace 80 hours-worth of project-level assignments even though you might really still expect 200 hours to be required that week? I REALLY like Anthony's project-level assigned hours for project managers and other simiar resources. Our PMs each have a project management task in their projects for this purpose. They need to keep adjusting it as their project plan duration changes, and it often causes problems with project condition if they don't report enough % completion. Moving this to a general bucket of planned hours (to which they can log actual hours) on the project level would be fantastic. David Cornwell

[TanjaHa]

yes, this makes sense for me. Best regards Tanja Tanja Haller Panalpina

[Exp_-_VazgenBa]

So the idea is to have Work Per Day for each assignment. In the case you mentioned, 2 hours will replace project Work Per Day but only for that specific assignment. So if there are 4 people working on that 200 hour, 10 day duration project with 50 hours each, it can look like this User 1 Project - 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 User 2 Project - 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 Task - 2, 2, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 The update of the project total planned hours was intentional. The idea was that when tasks start to appear and breakdown occurs it results in a more accurate estimation than the one on the project level. What are your thoughts on this concept? Vazgen Babayan Product Manager Workfront

[AnthonyIm]

So in your User 2 example... do the task hours trump the project hours? So did the user's total planned hours drop by 6? I'm curious if I say I have 200 hours of an art director on the project and then create tasks for the art director in my project schedule, what happens if my tasks only equal 180 hours. Is the total allocation for that user on my project 180 or 200. Anthony Imgrund FCB

[Exp_-_VazgenBa]

What would you expect in this case, Anthony?
"https://www.workfront.com/" style="color:rgb(0,161,208)"

[SusanKa]

Jumping in here late responding to the question for Anthony : ) ("I'm curious if I say I have 200 hours of an art director on the project and then create tasks for the art director in my project schedule, what happens if my tasks only equal 180 hours. Is the total allocation for that user on my project 180 or 200.") --- I think you'd still have 200 hours, with 180 allocated to a specific task and the remainder still associated at the project level. And if you went over 200 hours in your tasks there would be no general hours associated with this role at the project level. The project level assignments are bucket hours that the tasks then pull from if you want to break it down further, but it's not necessarily a limit. I'm not sure this is the best use case (open to suggestions) but that's how I'd expect this to work. Susan Karns Momentum Worldwide Inc

[Exp_-_VazgenBa]

Thanks Susan! I think it makes sense in the way you describe it. It would also preserve both the bottom/up current calculation of hours and have it work with the new top/down approach. Thanks for the feedback! Vazgen Babayan Product Manager Workfront

[Exp_-_VazgenBa]

Hi everyone, So while we're at it, how important it will be to have this kind of functionality in the system? If you were to rate this from 1 to 10 with 10 being "I need this right now" and 1 being "I don't need this" - how would you rate it? Thanks Vazgen Babayan Product Manager Workfront

[DavidCo3]

9 - though we would probably only use it for specific use-cases like assigning buckets of Project Management resource at the project level. We would likely not break it down into tasks inside the projects. David Cornwell

[SusanKa]

Hi Vazgen, my team would give this an 8, ideally also being able to contour at the project level. Susan Karns Momentum Worldwide Inc

[AnthonyIm]

So sorry for the delay, this started a whole bunch of lovely conversations within our various business units. Here is what everyone has settled on as the ideal. Let me know if you have any questions. Anthony Imgrund FCB

[Exp_-_VazgenBa]

Thanks a lot, Anthony! This coincides with what we were thinking for the solution. One case though - if the project is 40 hours over 4 weeks and there is one task underneath with 20 hours over the same 4 weeks. There are no 0 days to distribute the rest of the project hours on, so it will mean that the task hours actually override project hours and the end result will be 20 hours. My opinion is that it is fine but I wanted to get yours and others' ideas on the matter as well. Vazgen Babayan Product Manager Workfront

[AnthonyIm]

Yeah, that makes sense to me. If you have tasks every day of the project, those are more important than the basic project ones. :) Anthony Imgrund FCB

[Exp_-_VazgenBa]

Thanks for the quick reply Anthony! It really helps in my research. Looking forward to meeting at Leap! Vazgen Babayan Product Manager Workfront

[SusanKa]

Just sat with this for a bit and I think this could be quite confusing because it sets up a scenario where the the expected results are different. - If the task hours are less than the project hours and there are some days with zero hours, the total project hours still remain (40 hours in your example) - If the task hours are less than the project hours and there are no days with zero hours, then the project hours are overwritten (20 hours in your example) As a user I'd have to really think about making updates to any task hours on a project. I don't quite have a solve just yet but think finding a solution where the behavior is consistent is key for usability. And if it nets out that this is indeed the best solution, there needs to be an easy way to see project and task hours side by side to clearly see the relationship (aka without having to toggle back and forth). Will continue to think on this! Susan Karns Momentum Worldwide Inc

[AnthonyIm]

To be honest... the way our project schedules are, there is a very, very small chance that someone is going to be booked very day for an entire project. No one is on every single task. But, if that were to happen, for a resource manager perspective in the scheduler tool, they would want the hours from the task as that is work/effort that was determined for that one line item, so that is more accurate than a broad swatch of hours. One thing that has come up in our talks about project-level hours is revisiting the idea of budgeted hours that Workfront has for comparison in the utilization tool. However, for that to work, there does need to be some work done with that on the business case. Needs to be a whole lot easier to set budget to schedule Would need an option to set budget hours to Project-Level Hours or Task-Level Hours Needs to capture hours for roles not in the resource pool (the old resource estimate did this, but the new planner-type resource budget tool does not) Anthony Imgrund FCB

[AnthonyIm]

So again, team was talking... And it seems that there is still some hesitation when it comes to shared services or limited resource departments versus roles like Project Manager or Account Executive. Curious if there can be an option for the Project Owner to decide if only the task hours win out or if project hours should be used. Anthony Imgrund FCB