Transition Help - Duration/Predecessor/Constraints

[KatherineSt]

Hi all, We are about a month into our live launch, and struggling with helping make our project teams make the leap from our legacy system. They are used to a very simplistic PM system that had no concepts for predecessors/durations etc. They input their start date manually, input their due date manually and ran their projects from there by hand-calculating durations on very tight SLAs. Workfront is light-years beyond our legacy system in terms of functionality and intelligence, and unfortunately it's giving our people heartburn. Dates appear to change on their own, durations seem to behave inconsistently depending on the status of the predecessor task etc. We've been able to explain the perceived 'weird' behaviors each time, but it's causing a lot of frustration as we sort things out. Is there anyone out there that's been in our shoes with advice to offer, or anything they built for their teams to help them grasp things? Appreciate any advice in advance. If anyone happens to be local to the Chicago area, I'm also cheerfully willing to bribe folks with lunch to chat through ideas. Katherine Katherine Stibley DMD Marketing Corp.

[MartinVi]

Personal Hi Katherine, I read through this and wondered if you worked for Grant Thornton, as this was our experience (and we still sometimes struggle). So what did we do? We provided guidance on which constraints to use along with a an easy reason for using them Fixed Dates - 2 dates in which the task must be done by - Predecessors Do not work with this Must Start on - Only put in the start date and the duration - Predecessors Do not work with this Must Finish on - Only put in the End date and the duration - Predecessors Do not work with this As soon as Possible - use if you want to use Predecessors I have put in an suggest to allow for Companies to choose which constraints are available. I hope this helps Predecessors Explain that you can just use a previous task number that the task is reliant on. then let them know they can be clever by adding +XD, +XM (which x is the number) so 4+4m would be reliant upon task 4 but would have a 4 month latency. Duration Make sure you have the Calendar set for the hours worked aligned with your hours worked. otherwise you may see hours rather than days in the duration. Quick tip make sure they do not change the sort from Task number otherwise it will put them in a panic as it looks all wrong. We also created a Grant Thornton view so that it was easy to see what was going on in the tasks view, removing columns that were not used.. Hope this helps. Kind regards Martin

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"https://gtukms.gtukint.com/Person.aspx?accountname=GTUK%5CMartin%20Vines"> Martin Vines | Project Manager | Information Systems For Grant Thornton UK LLP Benham 5 | Southampton Science Park | Southampton SO16 7QJ T (direct) "tel:+442380381104"> +44 (0)23 8038 1104 | T (internal) 51104 | T (office) "tel:+442380381100"> +44 (0)23 8038 1100 | M "tel:+447901110627"> +44 (0)7901 110627 E Martin.Vines@uk.gt.com | W "http://grantthornton.co.uk"> grantthornton.co.uk Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to Grant Thornton UK LLP ("GTUK") is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales (registered number OC307742); registered office at Grant Thornton UK LLP, 30 Finsbury Square, London EC2A 1AG. It is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority for designated investment business. GTUK is the UK member firm of Grant Thornton International Limited ("GTIL"). GTIL and the member firms are not a worldwide partnership. Services are delivered by the member firms. GTIL and its member firms are not agents of and do not bind one another and are not liable for one another's acts or omissions. This email is confidential and may be privileged. It cannot be guaranteed to be secure or free from error or virus. All email communication with GTUK is monitored and a record is kept. If you are not the intended recipient please accept our apologies. It is intended for the addressee only. If you are not the addressee please do not use it in any way. If received in error please inform the sender and delete all copies. Thank you for your co-operation. Anything in this email which does not relate to GTUK's official business is neither given nor endorsed by GTUK. To the extent permitted by law, GTUK does not accept any responsibility for any use by anyone other than the intended addressee. Where relevant, please note that, unless expressly stated otherwise, any written advice contained in or attached to this email is not intended and cannot be used by any person for avoiding any US penalties that may be imposed under the US Internal Revenue Service Code. For further information please visit our website "http://www.grantthornton.co.uk">grantthornton.co.uk ------Original Message------ Hi all, We are about a month into our live launch, and struggling with helping make our project teams make the leap from our legacy system. They are used to a very simplistic PM system that had no concepts for predecessors/durations etc. They input their start date manually, input their due date manually and ran their projects from there by hand-calculating durations on very tight SLAs. Workfront is light-years beyond our legacy system in terms of functionality and intelligence, and unfortunately it's giving our people heartburn. Dates appear to change on their own, durations seem to behave inconsistently depending on the status of the predecessor task etc. We've been able to explain the perceived 'weird' behaviors each time, but it's causing a lot of frustration as we sort things out.  Is there anyone out there that's been in our shoes with advice to offer, or anything they built for their teams to help them grasp things?  Appreciate any advice in advance. If anyone happens to be local to the Chicago area, I'm also cheerfully willing to bribe folks with lunch to chat through ideas.  Katherine Katherine Stibley DMD Marketing Corp.

[kynabaker16]

Hi Katherine, Have you checked out the "https://community.workfront.com/discussions/community-home?CommunityKey=445f8c7f-a236-4ef9-bd0f-82f6a8a087df" Chicago group on here ? Last I saw they are looking to put together an informal meet up of Workfront customers - that might help you meet people to bounce ideas off of too! - Kyna

[EricaBa]

We are in a similar situation and are working to continue to help our PMs understand how it all works together. We are sending tip of the day emails to various groups- here's a recent one on the topic -- we reference some customized views that we built so PMs can see constraint and start/end time of tasks which helps them see all the things that impact timing in one view. Highly recommend. Subject: Duration Frustration Some of you have expressed some frustration with short tasks pushing across two days when you want them to start and complete on the same date. When you are having this issue, here are some things to check/try: Hit refresh a few times and see if it's just a system lag that's causing the days to break oddly. Change your view to "Standard + Constraint" and if you cannot see the TIME in the planned start date and planned completion date, customize the view, click advanced options, and then change the field format to include the time (see screen grab 1 enclosed). When you see the start and end times (screen grab 2 enclosed) you'll notice that the task may not be starting until 4:30pm so even if it's a 1 hour task the system is going to push it to the next day. You need to investigate why the task is starting so late - so look at: predecessors - if your task has a predecessor, the system will not allow this task to begin before the predecessor is complete task constraint - that setting may be impacting how the dates fall assignments - if you have an assignee who has a unique schedule or is in a different timezone, the task timing will flow to make sure they have the planned hours to work on the task (note this is NOT the case for their PTO, just their standard working hours). Check the schedule on the project by going to edit project. The project schedule should be the default schedule for the home office leading the project. One note - we could create a Launch schedule that assumes 10 hour days or whatever makes sense if we think that would be helpful for project planning in launch mode. The reality is that we don't schedule around an 8 hour day when we are in launch mode so this would help us not have to fight the system when we're doing that type of project planning. Does that appeal to all? Erica Baitler Precision Effect Inc.