BRD/Requirements Documentation

[JasonYo1]

Hi everyone, Does anyone have suggestions on how to utilize Workfront for buidling business requirments documents? Instead of building a Word or Excel document/template it would be preferable to use Workfront directly. However, I cannot find a suitable method of doing this within the platform other than uploading a document to be updated. Unfortunately this requires the document to be downloaded, checked out and then uploaded, checked in by users - creating additional work. Thank you in advance for your suggestions! Jason Young

[VicAl]

Hi Jason, You could create a custom form in WF that has all the fields you would put in your Requirements template. The downside is the fields don't really have Rich Text so it's difficult to make it look nice and if you have diagrams or tables etc. it can be impossible. The other option, and this is what we do here, is keep your documents in SharePoint (or whatever your platform is). And in the Task itself provide a URL link (in the Description field or in Updates) to that document. Then you just click on the link, make your updates and your done. No need to upload/download etc. Same is true for the Templates. We have a URL to our Word Template in the Description of a Task so people can use the proper Template. This also allows you to change the Template in place and it doesn't impact your Task links. WF also has an integration with SharePoint that you can expose the library in your project (so it shows up under your documents tab). But I've found the initial setup a little clunky and requires my SharePoint Administrator to get involved. So I just add the link to the Task and I'm done (no outside intervention needed). Hope that helps.

[TimGr1]

Hi Jason, Similar to what @Vic Alejandro mentions, it's probably better to use a document management solution like Dropbox, SharePoint, or Workfront's Document area but essentially an external document created and then you link it in some way for quick reference. There are integration options as well. I have a need as well for BRDs. What I've experimented with is that I use the custom forms to collect some of the upfront data that I verify with the requestor, along with certain fields to calculate a score of the request so that I can add weight to the priority (reviewed in a separate report), and then I copy and paste the data onto a BRD Word template and do some quick / minor cleanup. I then focus the requestor's time on refinement / finalizing requirements and use cases so that I can then submit it for approval. In a way it marries the two but it is a few steps (not time consuming what you have down the process). I hope this helps to drive an idea. Tim Tim Greek IEHP

[JillAc]

We has the same complaint for our briefs that get updated by several people along the life of the project. We use OneDrive (or you could use Sharepoint or Google Docs) to house the master document. I created a task report for the briefs with a custom field that houses the link, and then put it on a tab in the project, so that it's easily available and can be updated live. Because it's in OneDrive, if someone needs to revert to an old version (ie "you deleted my section what happened to it"), that ability to recover any previous point is available via the web-based Office site. This is what the tab looks like within the project. (hopefully the screenshot is visible; sometimes these don't come through properly)

[NRYNR]

@Jill Ackerman , I'd like to compliment you on your approach to solving for the externally-housed documents. FYI, you can make the link say something like "Click Here" instead of listing out the full URL. Here's some text mode showing you how to create ""https://wf-pro.com/textmode/text-mode-views/#user-friendly-url" User Friendly URLs ". If you're interested in taking this idea further, WFPro Home ("https://youtu.be/NkltOiMptQo?t=108" see it on WFPro Live here ) is a spin on the same concept of using task reports and URLs to get people to the "things" we need them to see, regardless of what the thing is or where it exists. Workspaces in the new experience is an attempt at getting navigation better, but it still lacks the flexibility and simplicity that we need. Narayan Narayan Raum Workfront Admin @ SunTrust Bank, WF-Pro.com Creator

[JasonYo1]

Thank you all for the insights and suggestions. We use SharePoint at our firm so I believe that will be the best option for this issue at the moment. The SharePoint integration looks to be beneficial with document sharing between the two platforms. Thanks again! Jason Young