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[CLOSED] - Alerts to Project Owner when Time Off Calendar entry impacts tasks

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MarieKe1
Level 10

3/13/17

This post has been closed as a duplicate. All votes have been moved to the original: NOTIFICATION WHEN RESOURCE IS SCHEDULED FOR TIME OFF

We encourage our staff to use the time off calendar because it will help our tasks/projects be more accurate but there are 2 issues with the calendar:

1. There is no notice to the Project Owner. As the PM, I think my project is fine until one of my task assignees takes off an extended time. The assignee updates the calendar, which pushes out my project - but I "never" get a notice or alert!

2. As the admin, I have fielded many calls from PM's who cannot figure out why the "system" is not calculating the dates correctly. The PM has already spent a great deal of time trying to determine what is going on. Often I find it is caused by the Time Off Calendar --- the assignee is not in the office during the planned task completion time, so the planned completion date is pushed out.

16 Comments

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MarcMo
Level 10

3/13/17

Some ideas on where to show this:

  • On the task info page, right next to the planned start/complete dates. Something that says the date is impacted by the user calendar.
  • In the constraints area - specifically note which dates are unavailable, per the user.
  • On the Icons list, there could be an icon that is normally green but goes red when the requested dates conflict with the user calendar.

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DavidCo3
Level 10

6/27/17

1000% agreed with the original issue and Marc's suggested solutions. This would make such an improvement in our PMs' trust and confidence in Workfront.

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EricLu2
Level 10

6/28/17

This would save a bunch of time figuring out why the dates don't work out the way the PM thinks they should. The PTO addition to the duration is elusive and easily forgotten. Put the flag in there, it becomes obvious. Obvious is good.

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DavidCo3
Level 10

6/29/17

Hi all. As a partial workaround whilst we wait for some enhancements, I have produced a calculated field which displays how many work hours late a task will be compared with its original planned completion date (based on the planned start date plus duration). Just put this field on a task form (and attach to tasks), then add it in a view or report and then filter for any tasks with negative values in this field.

SUB(DIV(Planned Duration,60),DIV(WORKMINUTESDIFF(Planned Start Date,Planned Completion Date),60))

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glenncat
Level 2

3/26/18

We have this issue as well. We are not using fixed constraints and often have time off added after a project has been built, pushing the completion date beyond what we promised to the client. And we are not notified that it shifted. It's a great tool when initially building out a project as it works around people's time off. But when time off is entered after a project is built it shifts the whole timeline.

We previously built a project and then set all constraints to Must Finish on to avoid this happening, but have moved away from that, to keeping constraints at 'As soon as possible'.

It would be a great help if some notifications were built in, best case scenario, it doesn't automatically shift the timeline, it causes the project lead to have to 'accept' the changes or reassign.

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Exp_-_ChandlerS
Level 2

6/6/18

Thank you for this idea, We would love to invest in building this notification, and believe strongly in it. We are trying to figure out how to best get this on the our development schedule, considering everything else we have prioritized. At this point, we don't have it scheduled, but will continue to work in that direction. Because of that we will mark it Not Planned, but will continue to work to find a way. Please continue voting for it if that is something that you are interested in. Thank you,

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Kelly_Wehrmann
Level 10

3/21/19

Chandler, there seem to be a lot of "high" demand Ideas related to time-off that are being labeled "not planned", which is surprising considering the high vote count on some of them. Why? Also, why is the vote count on this one 0? I have a note that on 10/11/18 it was up to 54 votes.

TIME OFF CALENDAR
https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115001218367-Time-Off-Calendar
03/21/19 - 137 votes; not Planned

NOTIFICATION WHEN RESOURCE IS SCHEDULED FOR TIME OFF
https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115001222987-Notification-When-Resource-is-Sc...
03/21/19 - 120 votes; not planned.

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