User Group Follow-up (Sep 29, 2020) - System Admin Best Practices

[KristinFarwell]

The purpose of this thread is to continue the conversation from the System Admin Best Practices User Group on September 29, 2020.

Many thanks to everyone who came to our virtual meetup! Special thanks to @Anthony Imgrund‚ from FCB for sharing his favorite Sys Admin life hacks!

A PDF of the presentation is attached to this discussion, and you can watch the recording here.

Share and tell time! What was the best thing you learned from the session? What is something you wish you’d known when you were a new System Admin?

Thanks again. If you have any feedback (good or bad), please don’t hesitate to reach out. You can find the schedule for all upcoming User Groups on the Events page on Workfront One (one.workfront.com/events).

[kynabaker16]

I saw several people mention that they would like a "summarized list of release notes to copy and paste" for their users. Our documentation team would love to explore what that means to you. If you would be willing ot jump on a very quick zoom and share - please let me know and I'll set something up.

[MoniqueEvans]

A thousand percent I'll jump on that call and show and example of the email I usually send to my users every release so they get an idea of how I go about creating it.

[Sheri_Whitten]

Count me in!

[EricaFo]

Same, happy to provide feedback as well. 😊

I would also love to see examples of how other admins send out the comms to their teams. @Monique Evans‚ @Anthony Imgrund‚ @Sheri Whitten‚ 😁

[AnthonyIm]

Hi - I use Mailchimp because I like to see who actually reads it ;)

https://mailchi.mp/b2d6461d85e3/fcbs-workfront-instance-updated-with-20203-release?e=af896a4c30

[AnthonyIm]

Hi so I tried to skim through the chat to see unanswered questions asked:

Tracy Parmeter asked: This is like Anthony wrote this for me. I am currently in the situation where I need to add a new dept and have been researching where to start. Should I first create a group with those people and then create the layout templates for what they can see? Want to make sure their requests don’t get mixed with our requests. Is that as simple as creating a dashboard that pull their requests in to it? Plus sometimes the members of this new group need to be assigned work on our projects. Will that still be possible

I definitely create the group first (since you can assign groups to layout templates, which Group Admins can help you out with).

As for the requests... are they sending requests to your team or are they sending requests to their own teams?

If it is to your team, you can do filters, groupings, reports, etc., to separate out the requests. Like for grouping by primary contact's home group, I use

group.0.name=

group.0.valuefield=owner:homeGroup:name

group.0.valueformat=string

If it is their requests to their team, I would recommend doing a separate queue. In the Queue Details area, you can select that only people in that Request Queue's group can see it. That way they have their queue and don't even know yours exists. :)

[AnthonyIm]

@Florence Crumpler‚ asked Thanks for the great info Anthony. Are your users familiar with project management? I deal with marketers who don't always understand how to project manage.

Well... not really. Most of our PMs are old traffic people or account people that moved departments. This definitely causes issues when it comes to things like predecessors, tasks constraints, duration and planned hours. As mentioned on the call, I'm a huge fan of templates for agencies like this. However, I do then add an extra training that is literally called "Retrofitting your Template to Your Gantt". (Since in these cases, they create a Gantt chart in Excel first for the client before going to Workfront.)

It is an interactive training and we literally take a template and talk about how to change durations and predecessors to get to the dates you want without changing all the task constraints to Must Finish On. The problem does come down to new hires. One agency had me do the meeting on Teams and then recorded it so they can show new hires.

Does your company have a Learning & Development budget? For our huge agency, we talked to them and they did put in some PM basic trainings into their sessions. Might be something to look into.

[TealeMcCleaf]

I mentioned during the meeting this morning a Milestone report that's created using textmode to pull the data based on the task name rather than a milestone ID. Here's what it looks like....

Here's the textmode code for the column:

column.7.displayname=PESA Milestone

column.7.width=90

column.7.textmode=true

column.7.sharecol=true

column.7.value=<strong>Status: <br></strong>

column.7.valueformat=HTML

column.8.valueexpression=IF(CONTAINS("PESA - Pre Expected", {name}),IF({status}='CPL', "Complete",IF({status}='INP', "In Progress", IF({status}='NEW', "New"))))

column.8.type=iterate

column.8.listdelimiter=<hr>

column.8.sharecol=true

column.8.usewidths=true

column.8.valueformat=HTML

column.8.listmethod=nested(tasks).lists

column.8.textmode=true

column.9.sharecol=true

column.9.textmode=true

column.9.width=1

column.9.valueformat=HTML

column.9.value=<hr><strong>Planned Compl Date: </strong>

column.10.valueformat=HTML

column.10.valueexpression=IF(CONTAINS("PESA - Pre Expected",{name}),{plannedCompletionDate})

column.10.displayname=PCD

column.10.type=iterate

column.10.listdelimiter=<hr>

column.10.textmode=true

column.10.listmethod=nested(tasks).lists

The users have a template to standardize the task name and instruct others not to change it and then reporting can be performed across the portfolio of work.

I've also do this with milestone ID's like this...

Here's the column code for this:

column.24.displayname=Materials Ordered

column.24.sharecol=true

column.24.textmode=true

column.24.value=<strong>Planned / Actual Start Dates: <br></strong>

column.24.valueformat=HTML

column.24.width=150

column.25.listdelimiter=<div>

column.25.listmethod=nested(tasks).lists

column.25.sharecol=true

column.25.textmode=true

column.25.type=iterate

column.25.valueexpression=IF({milestoneID}="5b75771200550abc95f3699371fad380",CONCAT({plannedStartDate}, ", ",{actualStartDate}))

column.25.valueformat=HTML

column.26.sharecol=true

column.26.textmode=true

column.26.value=<hr><strong>Planned / Actual Completion Dates: <br></strong>

column.26.valueformat=HTML

column.26.width=150

column.27.displayname=

column.27.listdelimiter=<hr>

column.27.listmethod=nested(tasks).lists

column.27.sharecol=true

column.27.textmode=true

column.27.type=iterate

column.27.valueexpression=IF({milestoneID}="5b75771200550abc95f3699371fad380",CONCAT({plannedCompletionDate}, ", ",{actualCompletionDate}))

column.27.valueformat=HTML

column.28.displayname=Work Breakdown Structure

column.28.sharecol=true

column.28.textmode=true

column.28.value=<hr><strong>WBS / # of Open Queue Items: <br></strong>

column.28.valueformat=HTML

column.28.width=150

column.29.displayname=WBS

column.29.listdelimiter=<div>

column.29.listmethod=nested(tasks).lists

column.29.sharecol=true

column.29.textmode=true

column.29.type=iterate

column.29.valueexpression=IF({milestoneID}="5b75771200550abc95f3699371fad380",CONCAT({wbs}, " / ", {numberOpenOpTasks}))

column.29.valueformat=HTML

column.30.sharecol=true

column.30.textmode=true

column.30.value=<hr><strong>Percent Complete: <br></strong>

column.30.valueformat=HTML

column.30.width=150

column.31.displayname=Percent Complete

column.31.listdelimiter=<div>

column.31.listmethod=nested(tasks).lists

column.31.textmode=true

column.31.type=iterate

column.31.valueexpression=IF({milestoneID}="5b75771200550abc95f3699371fad380",CONCAT({percentComplete},"%"))

column.31.valueformat=HTML

Hope this is helpful. 😊

[EricaFo]

@Monique Evans‚ mentioned that they have a user "deactivation" dashboard and checklist. I would love if you could share examples of what this includes or if anyone else has something similar. 😊

[MoniqueEvans]

Thanks for the reminder! My "Transitioning Users Dashboard" has 7 reports and depending on the level of user I'll run a couple or all of the reports. For example a free license stakeholder can't own a project so I don't need to run for projects owned by them, or reports set up to run as them. The reports are all things that need to be handled once the person has changed roles or left the company. It is easier to run while they are still active because their name shows in the prompt but if they are deactivated you'll just need to paste in their User ID and it'll work the same way

1. Open Issues Created by Prompted User - Issue Report
2. Documents Pending Prompted User Approval - Document Report
   1. Working on a Proof Approval version
3. Open Tasks assigned to Prompted User - Task Report
4. Current Projects with Prompted User as Owner or Sponsor - Project Report
5. Project Template User Details with Prompts - Template Report
6. Report with Prompted Run As User - Report Report

[SamanthaWi]

Monique, I most recently saw you present on a call (May 2022 but cant find the thread to ask this) and you mentioned reporting on a report. Can you share your exact filters and what kind of report you built?

On a side note i was previously with GameStop and we met at the Nashville LEAP. I have since been let go from GS (massive layoff in 2018) and now I am back on WF with Interstate Batteries. I was very overwhelmed with the PM job and how their instance was set up, so I am trying to do some clean up and get it organizes to my liking. If you can share your steps this would help me get my Sys Admin creds back up to par. It's amazing how much you can forget in a year of not being on WF.

samantha.williams@ibsa.com

[JaimesonWennerstrum]

In the first breakout, we discussed Wildcards <- this link dives into all the different wildcard filters you can add to reports.

Also, here's a snippet of text mode to create a ShareCol with Parent Task Name and Task Name in the same column. If anyone has any other useful text mode they'd like to add, feel free!!

column.0.namekeyargkey.0=parent

column.0.namekeyargkey.1=name

column.0.linkedname=parent

column.0.valuefield=parent:name

column.0.displayname=Parent Name & Task Name

column.0.sharecol=true

column.0.textmode=true

column.0.valueformat=HTML

column.0.namekey=view.relatedcolumn

column.0.querysort=parent:name

column.1.valueformat=HTML

column.1.textmode=true

column.1.sharecol=true

column.1.displayname=Column

column.1.width=1

column.1.value=<br>

column.2.valueformat=HTML

column.2.querysort=name

column.2.textmode=true

column.2.valuefield=name

column.2.linkedname=direct

column.2.namekeyargkey.0=task

column.2.namekeyargkey.1=name

column.2.namekey=view.relatedcolumn

[EileenWom]

This is fabulous, Jaimeson! Can I add these in text mode to any report?

[JaimesonWennerstrum]

Hi Eileen! The text mode works best on a Task Report - if you add to a column, it'll take up 3, so be careful what's to the right of the column you add (I'd recommend adding 3 blank ones to the far right of the report, then copy the text mode to the first blank column). Cheers!

[EileenWom]

Thanks for the info and tip, Jaimeson! Can't wait to try it out!

[Kundanism]

May be best to tryout in Preview Mode, @Jaimeson Wennerstrum‚ .

Just an idea.

Mvh

Kundan

[AndreaDi]

Hi all!

I was the one who mentioned using a calculated field for prioritization.

Steps we took:

1. Decided on Prioritization questions that can both be answered easily by users entering requests/projects, or by Project Managers who are reviewing and assessing projects/requests. The 3 areas we have started with to achieve this are:
   1. The Driving Value
      1. Examples: Organic Growth, inorganic growth, cross-sell opportunities, client maintenance, Employee retention, recruitment
   2. Urgency
      1. Critical, Major, Moderate, Minor
   3. Level of Effort
      1. Complex, Standard, Simple
2. Give those questions weights. Under the custom forms, turn on the 'Show Values' Option, and enter weights. (see attached for screen shots of this)
3. Create report the sorts the projects by a calculated Project Score field. I list the Program and Project names, the answers to the questions and then the Score field. The custom calculation on the Project Score column is:

displayname=Project Score

textmode=true

valueexpression=SUM({DE:Level of Effort},{DE:Urgency},{DE:The Driving Value})

valueformat=HTML

Andrea

Senior Project Manager - Admin

Epsilon - Chicago

[EileenWom]

Thanks for this, Andrea! Can't wait to try it out in my instance!

[EricaFo]

Someone had mentioned giving the managers admin rights to login as a user in their team/group - can you point me to where this is setup/how to set this up? Thanks!

[AnthonyIm]

Hi Erica - when you are in setup, go to a group you have. You can then make someone in that group a Group Admin and then they can log in as anyone who belongs in that group. They can also help manage any layout templates, schedules, and project preferences for that group. In the 2020.4 release they are also going to allow us to tie teams, portfolios, and programs to groups so the group admins can help system admins manage those as well. :)