Classic -> New Experience Nightmare

[NRYNR]

I was losing sleep over this six months ago when I tested things, but had hopes the experience would have improved. After some testing, we're finding that New Experience pages load 5-6 times slower than in Classic. Try to CTRL+ CLICK an open more than one tab at a time and things get even slower. We've all become quite accustomed to pages loading quickly when popping out into new tabs. But speed isn't the only problem. I'm also getting trapped in iFrame hell where the focus of the cursor is constantly grabbed by each report on the dashboards we use. So getting to that last report at the end of the dashboard is quite an interesting ride. We also use the "Allow embedding of Workfront in an Iframe" feature, which still loads Workfront in Classic for some reason. Perhaps things are better for the users with super high-speed fiber internet connections, but a huge part of our work force is remote with varying internet speeds. However, Classic is fine even when in the most remote places with just a single bar on a Verizon MIFI.

So what gives? Now that Workfront is an Adobe product, perhaps it's time to reconsider kicking Classic to the curb. There's not one feature we NEED in New Experience, yet we're seemingly being forced to use it because of all the features customers WANT.

Is anyone else dreading the day they have to move everyone over? For those of you who have already switched, do users simply normalize working at a much slower pace? Is leadership okay with productivity declining? Am I the only one who finds the experience to be a complete disaster?

• Dashboards ~25 Seconds to Load vs. 5 seconds in classic
• Dashboards - Every report is an iframe with scroll bars, grabbing the focus of the cursor if there's a pause resulting in endless scrolling.
• Issue ~30 Seconds to load instead of < 5 seconds in classic.
• Program ~20 Seconds to load
• Project ~30 Seconds to load instead of < 5 seconds in classic.
• Task ~20 Seconds to load overview instead of < 5 seconds in classic
• iFrame - When loading Workfront in an iFrame, it still loads in Classic... confusing.
• Custom Forms Report - We're no longer able to edit forms from a report. Once edit is clicked, navigation takes us to Setup, a huge productivity killer for a team of >5 editing forms all day long.

[TamBo64]

Ditto, thus far

[KellyFo]

Hey folx - I have complete empathy by anyone experiencing slow loading speeds whether it is in WF or any page on the internet in general. But, I feel like WF clearly and regularly communicated the upcoming transition to NWE and the pending decommission of Classic well over a year ago. It is just not feasible for any company to support all the previous versions of their product. If so, I know some people who would still be carrying around an iPhone 5 and complaining how slow and incompatible it is with newer apps.

I do wonder if some people are experiencing slower load speeds due to using Classic and NWE at the same time, and I also wonder if a clean sweep of their instance might be needed? Possibly purging unneeded objects could help the situation.

[Christina_Jarosz]

Kelly - this was one of the first things we tried - purging the classic from our instance since we are all on NWE and it's no success. The load time is still agonizingly slow.

[CalvinFold]

1. We had Classic turned off for our instance; we're 100% NWE. No change.
2. We're only 2 years in, 200 active users, 1200 or so total users, so not a big deployment by WF standards nor much time to clutter or over-complicate, or have any real legacy baggage.
3. WF claims to be enterprise-class and scalable, so speed should never be an issue.
4. This isn't a matter of hating on the new app and emotional attachment to the legacy one. Classic is in many, many ways just more efficient due to better performance and tighter UI. Way better performance.
5. WF has clearly told us, and since we didn't have a choice, we jumped into NWE ahead of time so we could start complaining. Unlike Narayan, I don't have the option to threaten to leave WF…or honestly some days I would.
6. WF has so many other "WTH?" issues we seriously considered bailing before launch. If this speed issue was in-place at that time, that might have tipped us over the edge. Some of the things I've had to add Idea Exchange's for baffle me; and this speed thing is equally aggravating.

[Christina_Jarosz]

I agree totally to this post. If I knew then what I knew now.....it's been a total change in experience.

We are frequently having project meetings, launch meetings, resource meetings.....with multiple groups of people over zoom/teams. It's extremely tiresome to keep apologizing and saying "I'm sorry, WF doesn't like Teams so it won't load for me....should I email that to you?"

It's given a terrible impression to our executive team.

Case in point - we have discontinued the use of our dashboards since they don't load adequately and now data dump into PowerBI which is easily and more quickly accessible.

Likewise, we are exploring the Box integration so we aren't dependent on WF's document loading.

We've already given up on using any kind of WF Proof at this point.

[KellyFo]

Again, I totally empathize with this. I got honked off when my Google Assistant didn't respond to my command to play music from Spotify fast enough this morning.

This is just me trying to help out, but do you, or anyone here, have an idea(s) of why it is slow for some and not others that is on the back end that WF could address?

[CalvinFold]

"I got honked off when my Google Assistant didn't respond to my command to play music from Spotify fast enough this morning."

You may not realize this, but the above comes off as belittling the situation. One can hardly compare using Google Assistant and Spotify to using an enterprise app whose job is to make project management more efficient and accountable. This is a false equivalence on quite an order of magnitude (several orders based on the size of the companies and deployments involved; I'm a smallish fish in this pond).

As for the question of the why not everyone sees the issue? That would be something we all hoped WF would have tracked down by now.

It could be as simple as some back-end cleanup on some specific accounts, like when I have to reset a WF user account because "it's acting oddly." If it works, it works.

But what many of us are arguing is that the burden lies with WF, not the various customer admins. Many of us have played the ticket game and it feels like we are being blamed and made to go through useless, and flaming, hurdles. I have a fair bit of IT experience and have a fairly good feel for when I am being dodged or dismissed. May not be WF's intent, but that's how it feels.

[KellyFo]

Kevin - In an attempt at a bit of levity, I used the Google assistant experience I had this morning to bring the discussion back to the issue at hand. If this is happening to some WF users, it could be happening to all of us at some point. I can feel your (and others) frustration, and that is not ok with me.

I am a problem solver by nature, and I believe these message boards are available for customers to talk about WF tips, tricks, issues, etc. So when I read this, my first thought was that if we all compare notes, we can find something that might be worth pointing on to WF to see if they could try. I truly believe there is some common denominator that is part of the solution. Yes, it is WFs job to do this. But for the purposes of these message boards I believe, and still do, that this is for customers to help each other. If someone just needs to vent, then that is totally different. I can absolutely listen to a vent without trying to solve.

I am aware of all the tickets that people have already submitted, and I really don't like the idea of anyone feeling dodged or dismissed. If you, or anyone wants to start up a discussion of what things are common and different between us, I'd be more than happy to join in.

[CalvinFold]

Given the plethora of possible causes involved, I'd be curious about the direction of such a discussion myself. But to be fair, where to start; any ideas? 😧

Me personally, it's equal part "vent" and "looking for solutions."

[KellyFo]

I am always down for a vent, or solution convo.

I started a new message post to see if we could start looking for commonalities, etc., and then start sleuthing from there. I hope you'll join!

https://one.workfront.com/s/question/0D54X00006pozEUSAY/page-load-times

[RandyRoberts]

We shouldn't have to figure this out, that's what WorkFront gets paid for.

[KellyFo]

I agree. But sometimes, it helps to have information from a few sources to help pinpoint where it could be coming from. Otherwise, there are endless variables as to why this occurs for some, but not others.

In the spirit of collaboration and teamwork, I proposed gathering that information. Only 1 person responded with information and three people requested to view the Sheet but just lurked.

[ManuelBa]

Seems to get slighly better for us - anyone with the same experience?

[AileenTa]

I just read through this thread and have to agree with every complaint and more regarding the new experience. I had a few users try it out and every single one hated it and switched back. A software update should not take a multiple days of training just to help current users learn it. I frankly doubt that Workfront has any UI/UX testing done at all or that team has no real power to influence the product, the changes Workfront makes all seem to be leadership & developer driven with little to no feedback from real customers. I just dread the migration because my IT keeps beating the drum to get us to move to Jira and the forced change to New Experience will just give them more fuel to set Workfont on fire and remove it completely.

[RandyRoberts]

I actually like Jira a lot… for software development, but not so much for standard project management.

I use both Jira and Workfront and they are 2 completely different animals, not competitors at all. One cannot replace the other.

[AileenTa]

Hi Randy- Everyone in marketing agree's with you but that does not stop our IT department from beating the drum about moving to "one system". Because Jira works for developers they don't understand why it wouldn't work for everyone.

[jerflo]

@Aileen Taylor‚ I agree with you re "a software update should not take multiple days of training just to help current users learn it." Appreciate the unvarnished candor. We are also very invested in making sure the NWE feels easy and familiar. Usability is a top initiative that we've been heavily focused on this year and will continue into next. As the product manager over this critical initiative, I would love to speak more with you about what specifically is causing concern. You can dm me or schedule time with me here: https://calendly.com/jeremyflores.

[AileenTa]

Hi Jeremy- I just set up a meeting for next week.

[kynabaker16]

Hi guys!

I just wanted you to know that our team is very invested in hearing your feedback and are actively working on improvements to solve your concerns. In fact, the head of engineering at Workfront just responded a few days ago on this post to give an update as to what they are working on and give an additional way to connect with the product team. I can promise you that they are taking all the customer feedback very seriously.

Thank you,

Kyna

[RandyRoberts]

When I'm in some kind of training session or demo, I just screenshot the Workfront pages and show the images instead of risking the page not loading. Hey, we don't call it WorkAroundFront for nothing!

[AileenTa]

I thought we were the only ones who called it that. 😂