Custom Notification and Reporting and Baselines (3 things in one)

[JillAc]

Hi I have 2 questions I hope the group can help me with 1) I made a custom notification that goes out to remind you have a task to start, since there isn't one that is in the system. It's working pretty well except for one thing - it doesn't link to the task or project referenced. I cannot figure out how I might make this happen, and hope someone can provide some direction as to how that might work. 2) I want to start to learn how to do custom reports and a little more sophisticated stuff. I intend to take the webinar courses but I keep signing up and missing them due to conflicting meetings -- mostly because I'm still training everyone on Workfront and boy is that time consuming. I'm wondering how the people here who have such advanced skills learned the code. Is it similar to some other code that already exists? I can't even figure out how to get a column to sort alphabetically. Is there a reference to some of the more common codes that are used? How can I get started on my own as it will be months before I'm able to take the 3 webinars? 3) Baselines -- I've tried to follow the instructions to set up baselines, and I have it auto-populating when a Project goes Current but I'm still not sure it's right because I can't find the report that is linked to baselines. The help instructions say to run a Baseline Report. I can find no such thing in my default Reports and no link as to what this means. Is there any deeper instruction on this? I am desperate to start tracking Planned vs Actuals by task/project because our projects are 3-5 months long and if I don't start capturing the baselines I'll be way behind in getting any intel out of this. Any direction? Thank you so much for helping me. This group has been AMAZING, it brings tears to my eyes :) Jill Ackerman

[TerryHy]

Hi Jill, to quickly help you with your third item...if you go to Reporting --> Reports --> New Reports and scroll down, you will see a "Baseline" report. I have not used this report myself yet, but it is in the list of available reports. As for your second item, the way I got my feet wet with using text mode was information (and code) offered by the many Community report forum gurus - I learned a lot that way (although I am still by no means an expert with text mode!), through trial and error on my own, sessions taken during Leap last year, and webinar classes offered by Workfront. Also, about 6 months or so ago, I took the Advanced Reporting class, but that was after we had been in Workfront for over a year. During our first year of implementation, I mainly wanted to focus on getting my foundational knowledge of Workfront down before heading off into advanced text mode. And, I am still learning... Terry Hynd EBSCO Information Services

[AnthonyIm]

Hi Jill, 1 - I have not done any custom notifications so can't help you there. 2 - Reporting and data structure is not the easiest thing in the tool. I totally understand your frustration, but don't worry, it will come to you. The classes are a huge help, but you do have to be able to block out the time to actually take them and I know that is hard. For me, personally, it got easier once I understood how the data was structured in the tool: what fields were on the object type, what could be referenced (what has a one-to-one relationship with it), and what type of collections are available (objects that have a many-to-one relationship). You might want to look at the API Explorer to help you out. We didn't use API until just last year but I have been using this since we start in 2014: https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/220633507-API-Explorer Not sure if you will be able to go to LEAP, but I'm doing a work session on reporting. I'm showing various custom reports my users have found useful and the coding that goes with it. I also show some tips you can do (like sorting by a column that isn't in the report). I think it is on Monday at 4:20pm if you are interested. 3 - I believe the automatically saved baseline only happens when the very first time you go from Planning to Current and only if the projects starts with Planning. Back in the days where you couldn't change the status when copying a project, we found that people who copied a project to Current, couldn't go to Planning and then Current to get a baseline. And for reporting purposes, I've never found a need to report on the baseline alone. Most of the time, people want to compare it with the current plan. I have a task view called "Baseline Compare" that shows Task Name, Default Baseline Planned Hours, Task Planned Hours, Default Baseline Planned Start Date, Task Planned Start Date, Default Baseline Planned Completion Date, and Task Planned Completion Date that my users can use to see how their current project has slipped compared to the original baseline. (SIDE NOTE: When you select the column while still in Edit View, you can go to Advanced Options and change the name of the columns. Like I do Name, B Hours, P Hours, B Start, P Start, B Due, P Due so you don't have such long column headers.) Hope this is helpful Anthony Imgrund FCB

[VickiCa1]

Hi Anthony, Your view for Baseline dates is awesome! Thank you. Do you report on a program or portfolio and see how many times multiple projects slip? Thanks, Vicki

[AllisonLi1]

The Training team is offering an Introduction to Text Mode Reporting class at Leap, if you happen to be coming. It'll get you started on the basics of advanced reporting and put you further ahead when you are able to take the 3-part Advanced Reporting series. The Training team is working to get the Advanced Reporting classes up on Workfront Ascent as video modules you can complete at your own pace. I don't have a timeline for that yet, unfortunately. There is quite a bit of advanced reporting information on the Support website. And, as someone mentioned, there's a whole forum on Community. Allison Lippert Training Manager Workfront allisonlippert@workfront.com

[AnthonyIm]

Hi Vicki, The baseline reports/views I've done are just at the project level. They know this particular project went astray and are trying to figure out where it went wrong. However, you could do a report that was just the parent tasks (or maybe just milestones) grouped by Program and then project for an entire portfolio. That way you could see if this was a constant thing with a particular portfolio. Maybe do "summarize by" for the columns (sum for the planned hours, minimum for the start dates, and maximum for the completion dates). It is a neat idea. Anthony Imgrund FCB