🔓 What's something you discovered that unlocked everything in Workfront?

[MoniqueEvans]

Hey y'all I'm posing a question to the Community to help the plethora of newcomers I've met at recent Scale & WUG events lately:

During your Workfront journey, what is the one thing you discovered that gave you an a-ha moment? 🤩

I've had a few in the past decade and will add mine to the comments below but I'm hoping we can make a this of gems for others to explore and discover earlier in their journey. This could be something really simple like an basic feature (boards view in a project) you didn't know about, or something truly advanced like collection reporting.

[MoniqueEvans]

If you know me, then you know I've solved many problems with creating a custom form and/or a report but I'd be remiss to not share an eureka moment from that journey. I will never forget when I realized you could make a report on more things than the main 5 (projects, tasks, issues, hours, users) and there was a scrollbar with dozens of options. It's so simple and obvious to me today, but a decade ago I had no idea.

Soon after that discovery I created my first assignment report and used the "assignments > assigned to ID" option in a project report. Lives were changed that day. Suddenly we no longer needed to have a custom field listing everyone on a task, and I could start to truly explore how much work was divvied to an individual without changing the workflow or adding additional tasks.

[RandyRoberts]

When I discovered I could circumvent reporting on things that were too many 'hops' away by adding a calculated field on an 'inbetween' object.

[MoniqueEvans]

Calculated fields to bring the information to the level you need it is so underrated. I've spent hours racking my brain trying to figure out how to get somewhere only to remember that I can add it as a calculation to the form and keep it moving. The most popular jumps for me is from Project to Program and from User to Organizational objects such as Home Team, Group, and Managers

[KatherineLa]

The nuance between 'assigned to ID' and 'assignment users ID' is one that drove me nuts until I understood it too.

[ChristinaJa5]

Mine was realizing that I could reduce our data struggles immensely but using an 'invisible' admin form on object types. It solved for alot of reporting struggles. 

Example: 

Challenge: I want to run a report comparing tasks that are alike and look at their durations to know if I need to update my template durations. However, because of so many changes to task names there's not an easy way to accomplish this.

Result: By creating a custom form 'Task Information' I can attach that form to all template tasks and existing tasks. Why would I do this? By adding a field to this form that no one would see by admins, I can 'classify' similar tasks under one identifying label. 

Real Life application: Our new CMO wants to compare how we are executing a specific task over the past five years. The task "Dry Run Testing" has been changed or modified in projects so many times it no longer had easy way to report it. By creating a 'Rptg_Task_Type' field on the task information form I can select from a drop down the tasks that represent this task regardless of name, changes, or anything else. I can also look at the related template task and select the drop down on that, too, for future identification.

Instead of running a report asking for multiple variations of naming or similarities over the years, I can run a report based on Rptg_Task_Type and get accurate information. 

New management wants to start changing how things are classified? Follow same idea for a new field on a task, etc. 

[ChristinaJa5]

Similarly related - create a 'housekeeping' report for any type of object, etc. If you are looking to identify something quickly, create a 'Admin Notes' field for your own sanity.

Use this to help you verify if you've looked at something before. 

Example: I'm doing maintenance on templates. I want to check for their completion mode, the forms they have attached, and the permissions for people to add issues after it's complete. If I run a template report I can 'see' the template reports but how can I tell which ones I already updated? I have a report of 300 templates and I dont want to go through each one to reopen to see where I left off.

Result: Any time I check a template I populate the 'Admin Notes' field with something like 'Checked' or my initials. I filter my report on any templates that do NOT have this Admin Notes field so it will take the things I already worked on and leave only the things I need to still work on. 

This is VERY helpful if you are having more than one person working on the report together. It keeps you from overlapping efforts since you can exclude things already worked on. 

[WibkeKu]

I love this idea. I was planning a template review for our templates and think this will be a great help.

[RandyRoberts]

THIS may help with that.

[WibkeKu]

Thank you for sharing this!

[ChristinaJa5]

Awesome, as always!

[MoniqueEvans]

This is so smart!! Often I rely on Milestones or Template task ID but that gets messy when you need to bring in a couple of them. Using a custom field that no one can screw up, I mean edit, solves so many human error issues!

[KatherineLa]

I need to pick just one?!? 😁

As an admin, I'd say that finding a way to create a report-report that shows me the full code underneath every view/filter/grouping for the report has saved a ton of potential issues. I've been able to build exception reporting based on that to show me where people are pulling the wrong fields, or using filter methods I know won't work the way they think etc. If I'm thinking about modifying a particular field, I can rapidly assess where it's used for impact.

My second favorite (though it's still in testing) is a method of using the new field-level form validation to block creation of projects from templates that are meant to only be appended as ad-hoc tasks. I am determined to make that one work when I have time!

For my users, my 3 favorite impactful tips are:

• Being able to copy/paste things into a document upload from the Clipboard (why is that so buried??)
• Turning on Gantt charts to find missing predecessors
• The meaning and usefulness of the 'Handoff Date' and 'Slack Date' on tasks

It's like Lays potato chips, I can't have just one! 

[ChristinaJa5]

I love this! Can you share the report-report? I've been looking for something that shows me what fields are used in calculations for this exact reason!

[KatherineLa]

Sure thing. These columns would be used in a report built on the Report object. They are NOT particularly human-readable, but they give me the ability to search by API Field name for things that would be hard to find otherwise. 

For all fields

displayname=View
valuefield=view:definition
valueformat=HTML

For everything used in the report filter:

displayname=Filter
valuefield=filter:definition
valueformat=HTML

For everything in the report group: 

displayname=Grouping
valuefield=groupBy:definition
valueformat=HTML

What you will get from those columns is output like this:

That also helps me do things like assess the impact of deactivating a particular Team by looking for any report referencing it somewhere, as an example I used this afternoon. I also include columns for the dashboard(s) the report is on, it's monthly/yearly views, whether it's being sent on a schedule etc. 

In Setup, I also use those columns in the Filter/View/Group area. That allows me to skim and look for weird patterns, people creating things repetitively as well.

[MoniqueEvans]

Highly recommend using the quick filter and/or the browser search features to help you find specific fields or lines of code. Sometimes I export the list so I can super zoom in and go line by line!

[RandyRoberts]

"My second favorite (though it's still in testing) is a method of using the new field-level form validation to block creation of projects from templates that are meant to only be appended as ad-hoc tasks. I am determined to make that one work when I have time!"

I could SO use this!

[MoniqueEvans]

Katherine these are GOOD!! Of course if you have more, you can keep sharing I don't think anyone will complain 😉 I also had trouble limiting to just one idea.

Please keep us posted when you figure out how to block users from using the wrong templates. I'm sure tons of people will be lining up to steal that!

[KatherineLa]

Just finished writing that up here! https://experienceleaguecommunities.adobe.com/t5/workfront-blogs/sneaky-sys-admin-shenanigans-tricki...

[Kurt_Jones]

Early on when I was first learning Workfront a consultant was helping me with reporting and mentioned "you should create a global reporting form" as she had worked with me a lot recently and I kept having new custom fields and calcs that our teams were asking for in reporting.  She explained that I could use that custom form on all my templates so that every request or project (active or not) would have it and if I need to make changes for reporting needs, like calc fields, adding them there would keep me from having to go to individual forms.  That was my "aha moment".

[MoniqueEvans]

I absolutely love this idea! And if your reporting fields are all on one form, it's so easy to maintain! Plus you don't have to worry about the wrong custom form attaching during inline editing!