Bulk Edit Milestones

[RandyHa]

Is there a way to bulk edit Milestones? That is to say, can I assign a specific Milestone to a group of tasks at once? The setup requires a report to list the tasks across multiple projects: 1. Task Name, for example, happens to match some criteria such that only one task from each project qualifies 2. Each Tasks' parent project is assigned the same Milestone Path When I do this, I get a report of the tasks, one from each project, that I wish to assign the same Milestone. The projects are already on the Milestone Path. If I select one task and EDIT, I can set the Milestone. However, if I select multiple tasks' checkboxes and EDIT, the bulk edit window is missing the Milestone dropdown in the Settings section where it should be. Why? This leads me to think I will have to go through hundreds of existing projects to assign the Milestones. Please say it isn't so!

[NRYNR]

Been there, done that. Sorry to say but it is so. To make matters worse, if you create a task report and pull in the milestone ID or Name, it's not in-line editable. I'd recommend configuring a report where the milestone tasks are sorted so you can do the manual edits easier. Delegate to someone else from that point if you can. Narayan Raum Delivery Lead/System Administrator Workfront Center of Excellence SunTrust Bank

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Hi Randy, I invite you to consider our Excel Updater solution would allow you to make the Milestone edits you need in Excel then upload them. "http://store.atappstore.com/product/excel-updater/">http://store.atappstore.com/product/excel-updater/ Regards, Doug

[NRYNR]

I like Doug's solution much more!

[RandyHa]

Thanks, Doug. Good idea. Actually, it gives me another idea. I might be able to do this with a kickstart export/import.

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

You're very welcome, Randy -- glad it helped. Another thought...if you used a Template for these Projects whose Milestones you now want to switch to a different Task, you could change the Milestones on the Template, and then sync them out to the desired Projects using our Sync Template solution. "http://store.atappstore.com/product/sync-template">http://store.atappstore.com/product/sync-template Good luck, whichever path you choose. Regards, Doug

[RandyHa]

Well, my Kickstart idea probably won't work either. I have used Kickstarts successfully many times in the past, but according to the online support description of this process I cannot use it to update existing records--only to add new ones. It would seem that the only method forward would be to leverage the API, and at that point I might as well use Doug's tools or delegate the updates manually.

[DavidCo3]

Hi Randy, This is the sort of thing that - if you are already an Azuqua user - you could build yourself quite easily for these sort of one-off updates. i.e.. Put a list of the task IDs you want to update into something like Google Sheets / Smartsheet / Airtable. Get Azuqua to read these from your source. Process these using a 'List For Each' card to call a sub-FLO (process) which has a single card (action) to update task with the required milestoneID (each milestone has its own unique ID...you just have to find out what it is by adding milestoneID in your view when looking at a list of tasks). Below is a sample of this card. If you're not already an Azuqua user and/or you're not interested in building it yourself then Doug's solution would be the way to go as I assume it does the same thing in a more user-friendly way! David Cornwell

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Thanks David; interesting! With Excel Updater, Randy could either (similarly) look up and then populate the milestoneID column with the milestone GUIDs, or (easier) use the "pound set" approach in a specially named column (e.g. #setmilestoneid MILESTONE name) and then type the English name of each Milestone in the cells below (e.g. Milestone 1, Milestone 2, etc.) Regards, Doug

[RandyHa]

Thanks! These are both, great external solutions. While either would work, I also got my answer about doing this without external integrations. It's not possible. For that route, I like the "delegation" answer, although that technique can burn you if you use it too much! ;-)

[Madalyn_Destafney]

@Randy Hanson‚ - have you please submitted your original post to Innovation Lab? I found this bc I was going through this same thing, I was trying to edit a ton of existing projects/tasks to have milestones and though you can attach a milestone path in bulk on projects, it doesn't apply the actual milestones to those projects (even if using a template that has them attached). So then I tried a task report to bulk edit the specific tasks to attach the milestone and you can't either! WF really needs this.

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Hi Madalyn,

If the Projects you're updating were created from Templates, I invite you to consider using our Sync Template solution to update the specific Task Milestones (and/or our Excel Updater solution, which can also do so, albeit less elegantly).

Regards,

Doug