Calendar Recommendations

[ShannonBo]

I am looking to build a marketing calendar of sorts that shows different tasks for different projects so that the whole marketing team can have transparency into seeing what due dates are looking like for our active projects, if we have multiple tasks hitting on one day, etc. Any recommendations for best practices on how to build this sort of calendar? I know how to build out a calendar but am looking specifically for recommendations on what other teams and companies do/use and what types of filters they use. Thanks in advance! Shannon Bodick Marketing Project Manager Edina Realty Home Services Plus

[JillAc]

We use a few calendars based on what people have asked for. I started with a Milestone-based calendar so it would be easy to display and control via templates. We do a lot of direct mail which are also complicated to produce at our volume, so the calendars mostly reflect those key deadlines. These are the calendars we have so far: In Market – This is the "all in one" calendar that shows every project and when the consumer will see it. It is based on Milestones. I made a Milestone for each project type/project template so I could have different colors for each type, ie we have Direct Mail In Market, Email In Market, Social Media In Market, Advertising In Market etc Release to Printer -- based on Tasks that contain the words "Release to Printer" which is for the Design/Production team to see their due dates Mail Dates – based on any task that contains the words "Mail Date" so we can see when something has to go in the mail – this is because for 20 years that's how we looked at our activity calendar and change is hard. I'm trying to phase out this way of thinking. Social Media calendar – this is based on a Project that has all the social media events and it displays every task in the project (this is a subset of the "In Market" calendar). It's separated because there are usually 2-3 items each day and it can be hard to view otherwise.

[DavidCo3]

Hi, One thing to be wary of regarding Workfront's calendars is the impact of Actual Start and Actual Completion dates. When a task is first planned you can have the calendar show the planned dates, however once Actual Start and Completion dates exist, the calendar changes to use these. So, if someone starts or finishes the task/milestone early or late, then the calendar shows those dates which can cause great confusion for PMs and resources. This is an excruciating flaw with Workfront's calendars. I have no idea why this logic is hard-coded into it. We just want to show Planned Dates only. If this was possible, we would use Workfront's calendars extensively, but instead we don't use them. Instead, everyone looks at the Team Working On Calendar, however this doesn't have the nice custom formatting options and traditional calendar view of the Calendar report. Please, Workfront.....surely it's not a hard change! *rant over* You can have your thread back now.... David Cornwell

[ShannonBo]

Thank you David and Jill! This is very beneficial to know. David - where would I find the "team working on calendar"? That may be a dumb question. Is that something that's already built or did you build that out? Thanks! Shannon Shannon Bodick Edina Realty Home Services Plus

[JillAc]

Hi David I've seen other people say this about the calendar dates changing from Planned to Actual but I hadn't noticed it. I just went in a dug further and it's true, the dates are changing from Planned. This is BAD. Jill Ackerman

[TerryHy]

We have multiple calendars as well - for Blogs, Emails, etc. But, we do have to keep in mind the potential changing of dates, as David mentions. For example, our settings on the calendar indicate: On the calendar, show: End Date Only When Actual dates aren't available, show: Planned dates (Our filters for the calendar are based on Projects.) Blog Calendar Example: The last task on the project is the same date as the Planned Completion Date (the date of the blog posting). So, let's say on the Blog Calendar, we have a blog post scheduled for August 17 - on the Calendar this shows up on August 17. This is good in that it shows on the calendar the blog posts we have planned. However, if the person assigned on the last task marks their task Complete on August 20 (even though the blog post was posted on August 17), then that blog post now appears on the Calendar on August 20, because now there is an Actual Date. The majority of the time those last tasks are done on the day, but there are some occasions where the project 'moves' on the calendar. I agree with David, if there was the ability just to keep planned dates only, it would be great! Terry Hynd EBSCO Information Services

[AileenTa]

I was also frustrated by the moving dates for our marketing calendar. I finally made a task that is assigned to no one and auto-completes on a specific date that drives to our calendar. This allows my team to get their work done early and just schedule the deployment for a specific date. Aileen Taylor Cell Signaling Technology