Workfront

Is this the meeting? 

Or how do we get access? 

Hi @christasimpson This is a text-only event, so the only access needed to participate is a Community account. Feel free to start posting your questions in this thread by click the 'Reply' below! 

Best practices for notifying users about key WF updates? 

Hey @christasimpson ! I would say utilizing a regular communication, so your users have a "normal" spot to expect updates - this could be an email, updates in a meeting, an internal webpage, office hours, or all the above! I like to vary my touchpoints, since everyone's a little different in how they prefer to get their information. It also doesn't hurt for the information to be shared more than once, as someone may be distracted one day and miss the update/how it impacts them. For big changes especially, it's good to communicate early and often. This page also has some compiled best practices on communication. 

Expanding on Leslie's thoughts: I would encourage you to communicate where your users are. In my case, we're a Microsoft company, so Teams is a great place to start. I thought carefully about what qualifies as a key update because I wanted to balance the noise I send out and make sure I could handle the load.

Hello and welcome! It is!  Let us know what questions you have regarding Communication Methods for Adoption. 

Is there a way WF can auto adjust task due dates when assignee has logged Time Off on WF calendar but plans to delegate tasks? Currently, this action is just pushing out workflows, often past delivery date needed, which makes sense.  From what I've seen WF doesn't adjust Task dates even for Delegated Tasks until the actual delegation dates are live/real time (regardless of being set up early). So this is negatively impacting PMs ability to accurately communicate and conduct advance planning to best align to deliverable due dates. Any thoughts on how to better manage this situation?   IF we changed process and just asked users Not to log Time Off in WF, that would solve our planning but then we lose that info from WF calendar but could always rely on Outlook for those who send PTO notifications in that email system. Thanks for your thoughts. 

Hello! Yup, we had to navigate the PTO and reassigning of tasks as well back in the day.  We handled this a couple of ways.  In regards to automatically recalculating, we did use that function in Workfront a lot.  Just in case anyone else needs it, I'll post the links here:

• Recalculate Project Timelines
• Configure timeline recalculations for projects 

I will say that we had to use the manual recalculation most of the time because our Time Off and re-assignment requests came in fast and furious, so it was just easier for PMs to make the changes on the fly.  For us, it was faster for users to an an update saying, I'm going to be off, please reassign my tasks to "x person," bulk edit to reassign and then recalculate. Another option (which is riskier, but also easier on your PMs), is to have your users reassign their tasks to the person that will be covering for them.  Fusion might be able to do a lot of the automation, but I know that for me and Leslie, this was way messier than an automation could handle because when the one person would go out on PTO, they needed to delegate work to different people, depending on the project. And of course that resulted in some updates to bring the folks up to speed, etc. so our PMs required an update, then make those changes, and tag the new person. This might be a GREAT topic for one of our Connect events though!

Yes, make it a topic! I know the delegation tool allows you to indicate one person but we also may have cases where different projects go to different people.

Hey @monicadibo Yes, this event is text-only and occurs solely on this thread! Feel free to post your question below.

@monicadibo Is the task that is due on a weekend a delivery task? If so, could that be set up as a custom field selection instead? If there is actual work that needs to be done on a weekend, you would have to create a separate schedule that includes both holidays and weekends and attach that schedule to the project to accommodate that timeline. 

Interesting. Can you point me to info about the custom field for a delivery task? We have projects where every task ultimately is some kind of delivery. Are we following best practices for our project task lists? We want to make sure there accountability at the individual level but the list of tasks becomes quite long...

Agreed! That's why I like the Custom Form (Date) field, and then we add those to a Workfront Calendar. I briefly show this on the Social Media Calendar on the Top 3 Video.  Let me know if that might work?
[VIDEO] Top 3 Fave Calendar Hacks 

Agree video would be good, but I would love to see the PDF.  Can you please send me the link?

Just went back out and it looks like it is back up here:

Webinar | System Admin Essentials: Establishing a ... - Adobe Experience League Community - 599301  

It looks like you may need to "register" for it before you can get to it but once I did it was there!

Solved my own problem, who would have thought...

Hey there!  I feel like you might be talking about the Chris Berry presentation back in 2020, right (Expanding and Scaling Your Workfront Instance) ? We might have a copy still available, but it was taken down after the acquisition due to a change in video platforms.  We did another one in July of this year that might help? 
Webinar | System Admin Essentials: Establishing a Workfront Center of Excellence (June 21, 2023) 

If you'd still like a copy of the original session, just send us an email at CSatScale@adobe.com. Thanks!

Thanks Cynthia. It looks like it's back up again but I will email just in case it's going to come down at some point. I'd love to have it on hand as we embark on our work on a COE here.

I think it's always a good idea to put the right information in front of users at the right time.  And given a lot of users seem resistant to change and thus resistant to using filters, views and groupings, versions of the same reports is a good option to consider.  I often try to take into consideration different learning styles, which would mean some text and some with visuals.

Another option is to opt to offering training sessions on how to use filters, views and groupings. This ultimately means less maintenance and more freedom for users over all. 

@monicadibo From a maintenance standpoint, utilizing the same report for multiple dashboards will alleviate any extra efforts when changes need to be made. However, if your users are resistant to change like @Colleen_Grenon mentioned or different data needs to be made visible, then copying a report and adjusting the name to reference the details, would be your best option. 

Similar to what @Colleen_Grenon and @NicholeVargas have said, it's valuable to meet your report viewers where they are. I find that higher level leaders need information delivered as easily as possible, so I spoon-feed them dashboards.

Hello!  Just to make sure I understand, are the comments that come in after the proof is locked changing the proof?  Or are they more general comments on the initiative?  If the comments are requesting additional work on a locked proof, could the comments be added as general updates? I've created Custom Form Fields for that kind of thing in the past (at the Task level) and then built a view where you can see any comments added. 

Hi @Camiloconsultant  - if you use a document form with a custom field for comments, you can view it when you are in the document details area, which, from a usability standpoint, is likely an obvious spot for comments.  Additionally, if you use a document report for approvals,  you can then pull that custom field onto the document report you can see these comments mixed in with the document approval.

Additionally, if you drop that report on a dash, which is then put onto a layout template at the project level, it will self-filter for documents on that project (you can do the same with dropping at a program > shows all documents in the program or on a Portfolio > shows all documents on a program). 

All good ways to help with usability and adoption

Hey @monicadibo - we're very interested in the future of this, too, but we don't have any direct insight. There's an event that just started (happening now) on YouTube Live about the New Home with the product manager and there's a discussion thread. I will add your question there and tag you!

@monicadibo Work delegation is in this quarter's release. Depending on your cluster it's available now or tomorrow. I suspect proof delegations is still a separate function.

@AndersonDeLima Would you mind sharing more details to elaborate on this? When you talk about being able to find a field name, are you referring to knowing which field to select in a list or report? 

Hi @NicholeVargas Let’s say I am on the Issue Details page, and I want to find what is the specific Field Name of a particular area. Is there a quick way to do this right on that page/location? This will help me create Reports, Troubleshoot, and work with Fusion faster since I will know exactly the field I am looking for.  Thanks!

I don't believe clicking Inspect will tell you the name of the field for use in reporting or Fusion, you would have to reference the API Explorer. For the most part, field names in the API are pretty similar to the names in the UI. There are some exceptions to this rule like an issue is called an opTask and planned hours are called workRequired, but things like Planned Start Date = plannedStartDate and Description = description. 

@roryrh The announcement center is a centralized location for System Admins to receive communications from Workfront (ex: release updates, upcoming events, etc.) or send announcements to all or specific users within your organization. Since in-app notifications are not customizable, you can guarantee that users receive a notification within Workfront from these communications. Our team wrote the blog, You can send custom messages to your users with the Announcement Center, that I'd recommend you check out. 

Keep in mind, when it comes to user adoption, it's always best to meet you users where they are. So, while the Announcement Center is a great option, you may want to consider leveraging the tools your users are already familiar with (Slack, MS Teams, email, etc.) to ensure that communications are being read. 

For anyone who might be interested, I was able to find more information in the article below.

https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/workfront-learn/tutorials-workfront/administration-and-setup...