Anyone using workload balancer in a creative environment?

[JanetSt1]

Anyone using workload balancer? Trying to start utilizing it in an in house creative studio. Would love to discuss with anyone using it and how your creative studio is structured.

[AnthonyIm]

Hi Janet - we are using it. We were HUGE users of the Resource Grid (the old Flash-based tool) so for us it is an easy transition. We are going through all the dashboards and replacing the old Grids with the WLB and the added benefit is that people are way more willing to switch over to the New Workfront Experience now that they have it. :)

With that said, the tool isn't perfect yet and Vazgen have some more features coming out this year (like drag 'n drop!!!), but it has been great for us.

One thing I should note: For "unassigned work", we have been using a fake person approach, so we haven't really looked at or use the unassigned section. I know there are things coming for that part too, but don't have all the specifics as that isn't important to us. ;)

[PaulCo1]

Hi Anthony, I thought you could assign tasks to a "role", add planned hours and then this would appear in the unassigned section on WLB, I'm sure it worked like that about 6 months ago, my team and I found that really useful, as a quick snap shot of all unassigned tasks to a "designer" or "Animator" etc.

[ChristineZh]

Has anyone figured out what happens once a project timeline is built out, planned hours are input and resources are assigned and the project gets kicked off – what happens when a PM needs to request additional hours or update a task's planned hours that has been perfectly balanced by the Resource Manager in the Workload Balancer? How does a PM communicate these needs to the Resource Manager? (I'm dreading the idea of creating a separate queue for resource requests) Also, if a PM makes updates to their project, how does the Resource Manager know which changes were made to which task?

[AnthonyIm]

Usually the PM would do a status update and tag the Resource Manager so they were aware things on that project changed. That was pretty much enough for the RMs I worked with. They lived in Workfront and half the time already fixed everything before the PM even finished the update. LOL!. Definitely don't do a separate request queue. More work on the PM, more work for RM, and not necessary as the task is tied to the project and already updated (as well as any other tasks if it is a waterfall project with predecessors)

[ChristineZh]

Thanks Anthony! This was really helpful. Based on your input, we've decided to have the ownership of updating planned hours to primarily live w/ the Resource Manager and like you said, have the PM make the request in the project updates section. We'll also add in a Dashboard in the resourcing area that will consolidate all PM updates from each week.

[AnthonyIm]

Unless there is a super tight budget, we normally broke out the roles and responsibilities to be the PM is in charge of dates, and the RM is in charge of hours.

[ChristieSi]

We have switched over to the Workload balancer and we are finding our creatives are not really enjoying it. Visually its not easy to follow especially when one of our creatives works on quick, short projects so her project list is completely off the screen. Would love to see how other creative agencies are using it.