Booking group or team time-off

[SergioIt]

When a resource books a time-off, Workfront blocks any "booking request" for such a resource during the time the resource is off. I really like that! Is there a way to book a team or group time-off for the time when the company is off for Stat Holidays? In MS project, you can modify project working time to exclude any activity in those particular dates. Can this be done in Workfront? Thank you. Sergio Iturri | Project Manager & Scrum Master siturri@nonlinear.ca | work: 647.776.2559

[DavidCo3]

Hi Sergio, Yes - you can do this using Schedules, which are maintained in the Setup area. You usually create schedules for each country (or state) where timezones and/or public holidays vary. Public holidays are setup as 'Exceptions' to the regular working day schedule. Regards, David.

[SergioIt]

Thank you David, that was it. Thank you. Sergio Iturri | Project Manager & Scrum Master

[EricLu2]

Hi: If you have a project-specific calendar, however, you have to create a calendar just for that project. The problem is that the calendar assigned to the individual overrides the project calendar. The project calendar is used to calculate dates when no user is assigned to the task. When a user is assigned to a task, the dates are calculated based on the primary user’s calendar. I don’t think WorkFront merges the project calendar and the user calendar - does anyone know? Thanks, Eric

[DavidCo3]

Hi Eric. My understanding is the same as yours. The only point to add is that there is also the option in the project preferences in the Setup menu, where you can choose whether to use the schedule of the project or the schedule of the primary assignment in the scenario that there are multiple people assigned to a task. And I will also put in another promo for one of my feature requests which is for Workfront to allow you to configure project-specific schedule exceptions (e.g. to make one weekend a working weekend whilst leaving the rest of the weekends during the project as non-working). :)

[AnthonyIm]

Eric is correct. If you create a project-specific schedule (or even a specific schedule for a team. Anywhere where the user has a different schedule than the project), you should know that if there is 1 assignee, the assignee's schedule trumps the project. Always. If you have more than one assignee, you can in your setup area (Setup -> Project Preference -> Projects) select an option for "When multiple users are assigned to a task, use the schedule of the..." to either be the Primary assignee or the Project.

[LauraRa1]

Eric, can you tell me more about this project calendar? Is it one of those reports where you add it as a dashboard within a project and it only shows information for that project? If so then how are you setting it up and what data do you get? Laura Ray Project Support Analyst Bakkavor Information Systems Bakkavor Group West Marsh Road, Spalding, Lincolnshire, PE11 2BB, UK Direct: +44 (0)1775 763 010 www.Bakkavor.com // Laura.Ray@Bakkavor.com< [cid:image002.png@01D235A9.C21A89F0]

[EricLu2]

Hi - I completely agree that project specific schedule exceptions are really really important. For our technology projects, we frequently go-live or test on weekends. Our normal calendar does not permit work on weekends, but we need exceptions on nearly every project that puts technology into production on the weekends. I second that terrific idea! Eric

[EricLu2]

Excellent point about the configuration option to choose whether you use the Primary user’s calendar or the project calendar. I forgot about that. Thanks for pointing that out! Eric

[EricLu2]

Laura - We have a number of calendars for each time zone, mostly (time zone calendars). Some of our calendars are for a specific team (team calendars), like the Finance team - they don’t work on projects on Fridays or the first week of the month, or in December or January. We gave them their own calendar, which we associate with the users on that Team. We mostly have time zone calendars and a few team calendars. What we do to create a project specific calendar is: 1) We take an existing Time zone calendar and copy it; 2) We put in the project specific work dates, etc.; 3) We associate that calendar with the project; Keep in mind that the calendar is used to calculate dates ONLY when there are no users assigned to the task OR when multiple users are assigned to the task. We have the Setup-Project Preferences-Timelines setting set thusly: [cid:image002.jpg@01D235BA.02B23BB0] We try to assign multiple users to every task, so that it doesn’t use the calendar of the user, it uses the Project-specific calendar we built and assigned to the project. Frequently, we just assign the PM with zero assigned hours to the task to force it to use the project-specific calendar. This is how we work within the boundaries and capabilities of timeline calculation and calendars. I found that WorkFront uses one and only one calendar at a time: 1) If you do not specific a calendar on the project, there is a system default calendar it uses for date calculations; 2) If you specific a calendar in the project setup, it uses that calendar to calculate the timeline for all tasks that have no user assigned; 3) If you assign a single user to a task, it uses the calendar assigned to that user. If the user has no calendar assigned, it uses the project calendar. Keep in mind it also factors in Time Off that user might have declared elsewhere; 4) it looks at your Setup-Project Preferences-Timelines Multiple User setting (see above) to know whether to use the calendar of the primary assignment or the project calendar; At no time does WorkFront merge calendar data. Ideally, we would be able to: 1) Make exceptions to the project calendar; 2) On a project by project basis, override the individual calendars and force all dates to use the project calendar; Does this help? Thanks, Eric

[LauraRa1]

Oh, good stuff! Hadn’t thought about schedule issues for tasks with multiple assignees but it now makes sense why it makes you designate a primary assignee. Very thought provoking, I’ll have to play with it. Laura Ray Project Support Analyst Bakkavor Information Systems Bakkavor Group West Marsh Road, Spalding, Lincolnshire, PE11 2BB, UK Direct: +44 (0)1775 763 010 www.Bakkavor.com // Laura.Ray@Bakkavor.com< [cid:image003.png@01D235E1.F11D2AE0]

[EricLu2]

Btw, line 4 below should say: 4) If you assign multiple users to a task, it looks at your Setup-Project Preferences-Timelines Multiple User setting (see above) to know whether to use the calendar of the primary assignment or the project calendar; Sorry about that… Eric