Boards - Controlling where a card creates a task in a connected project; Making checklists create subtasks; General Information Visibility

[JMitchell44]

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to see if anyone here is having much success with Boards. I have used a few other platforms that have much more complete Board features and while I like how this Workfront is developing this feature, I'm struggling to see how it can be effectively used at this time as the boards seem relatively islanded from the rest of the function within the core project management process of Projects/Tasks.

Controlling where cards insert into a connected project:

• I like how we can connect to an existing template/project. However the board just throws the task added (if you selected task and not issue) into the bottom of the project. This can get messy in a templated world as there are no controls around the naming of the cards, so sometimes you just end up with a random list of tasks with no parent at the bottom of projects.
• What is also concerning is the task that is created is seemingly unconnected if you're looking at the task from the Project views. No icon, no note, no indicator of any kind that that single task line is potentially an entire card with it's own subset of information.

Subtask/Checklist connected Boards:

• I was very excited to see Workfront had initially announced that boards were going to get a big step up in usefulness by allowing a checklist item to to create a subtask and vice versa: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/workfront/using/product-announcements/product-releases/relea...

• Unfortunately, this feature seems to have fallen out of the release and frustratingly completely fallen out of the update communication notes: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/workfront/using/product-announcements/product-releases/relea...

General Information:

• I haven't found a space yet where Workfront seems to interact with customers on new features outside of logging feedback, but even that seems to be broken:https://www.feedbackprogram.adobe.com/h/Error/Info/CommunicationStatusClosed?pId=38732ca0-20a3-4fd8-...
• I would like to be able to see wat feedback has been given and see any kind of product roadmap for the Boards feature. I know visibility in a product company is basically asking for the world, but Boards are a critical feature that Workfront is lagging pretty far behind on and I think the community could help the Product Owners to more quickly target features that are important for the majority of users. 
• This is obviously an opinion, but hyperfocus on "Agile" as the sole driver of board adoption is grossly shortsighted and the product release framing/language makes me believe the product is already firmly down that path.

All that said, is there a big discussion somewhere I just haven't found yet that at least facilitates parts of this conversation?

[RandyRoberts]

We use Boards strictly to organise admin tasks that are too small to create an entire project for. Ours are pulled in from our "Admin Support Request Queue". Having Boards cards pulled in from an existing project queue via the Board Intake feature allows us to report on the issues. It should be noted, there is no mechanism for reporting on Board cards and nothing in the API as of yet.

Boards is definitely not ready for prime time. I have always said "Boards is a great way to circumvent using Workfront… while in Workfront!" I would imagine there are plans to integrate Boards with the rest of Workfront a little more in the future. I'm not aware of any timeline. 

Boards are also very useful for creating a Kanban board for disassociated projects and tasks by using the Board Intake feature. This works really well for teams that need a Kanban type interface but are not really an Agile team.

TIP: if this solved your problem, I invite you to consider marking it as a Correct Answer to help others who might also find it of use.

[PatrickMu1]

Hello,

I'm part of the Boards team and we appreciate your feedback.

We agree, the connecting to Workfront could be improved. In general, we are working to improve how a user views work from Workfront onto a Board. 

A number of customers pushed back on checklist items as subtasks. They liked the checklist items and wanted us to keep it. So we are launching subtasks on a connected card in the very near future, without removing checklist items. You can actually have both on a card. 

For Boards, we have started direct conversations with interested customers and would welcome more customers who would like to provide feedback to influence the roadmap. I sent you a private message with more details. Sounds like we need to do a better job of communicating the options available.

We have run 4 betas so far where we met weekly with customers to give direction. 

And I agree that many of the features have been Agile related. Boards is a workflow tool, where you could run an agile workflow. There is a business decision why the agile feature sets have been added earlier than others, but Boards is a modular feature set that can and will facilitate many types of workflows. 

[JMitchell44]

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@PatrickMu1 wrote:

A number of customers pushed back on checklist items as subtasks. They liked the checklist items and wanted us to keep it. So we are launching subtasks on a connected card in the very near future, without removing checklist items. You can actually have both on a card. 

Hi Patrick,

That's great to hear. I was concerned that it was completely dropped due to how the release notes were written. So from what you note above it will be an either/or situation where the checklist items can be just checklists on the card but you can also create actual subtasks (and connected Task/Subtask relationship) within a project?

If the board gets that feature and the ability to tell where in WF to land the card on a project that would really do wonders to level up the functionality.

Thanks!

[PatrickMu1]

For checklist/subtasks a card will be able to have both checklist items and subtasks since they will be separate objects on a card. And now that users can configure what displays on a card, a user could shut off either checklist items or the subtasks list so you don't have both.

We will work on providing a way to configured where a WF task or WF issue lands on a project. That will be a good improvement.

[ChloeWY]

Hi @PatrickMu1 , my company would be interested in providing feedback for Boards if you're still looking for more customers.  

[PatrickMu1]

I tried messaging you directly in Experience League, but for some reason it's not pulling up your name in the messages. If you can message me directly within Experience League or send an email to muir@adobe.com.

[casslang]

Hi Patrick,

If you are looking for more testers, our team would love to provide feedback on cards. We were part of the New Home Experience Alpha, and love working with the Adobe team in improving functionality and experience.