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Deactivate Unused Objects

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Level 10
"https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018813534" title="https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018813534">https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018813534 TL:DR: Now, when you edit any of the objects below, you can indicate whether they should be active. Objects that are set to Active appear in drop-down menus and type-ahead fields and can be attached to other objects. Objects not set to Active are not visible in drop-down menus and type-ahead fields to attach to other objects. Approval Processes Companies Custom Forms Milestone Paths Portfolios Programs Templates I think this received very little fanfare but it's a big one to me and I wanted to thank Workfront for quietly releasing it last night. I'll be talking to my groups about how best to retire their unused custom forms, programs and templates very shortly. -skye
15 Replies

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Level 7
Thanks SO MUCH for pointing this out. I think I even startled myself with the loud Woo-Hoo! that I was thinking :-) when reading that I can now finally clean up our VERY long list of inactive programs! I can't wait to start in... Terry Hynd EBSCO Information Services

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Level 6
This is big for me! I have been asking for this for a LONG time, and also showed Workfront how we use the "z" titles to shove them to the bottom, much like their demo video. Sad to see it doesn't include Teams yet.... We have a lot of inactive teams that we are not willing to fully delete. Matt Marks Banner Engineering Corp.

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Level 10
haha @Terry Hynd I can relate: I was participating in someone else's demo and when they showed their program details I almost fell out of my chair. Could have sworn that was not there yesterday. Fortunately, the article proves my memory correct--it in fact was not there yesterday. -skye

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Level 10
Matt the next object I want to see on this list is Reports ;) -skye

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Level 10
How timely! I too learned of this an hour ago, and just finished chatting with @Melinda Layten about some of the API finer points, upon which I'll leave to he r to elaborate. Regards, Doug Doug Den Hoed - AtAppStore Got Skills? Lend a hand! https://community.workfront.com/participate/unanswered-threads

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Level 5
Thank you so much for the heads up! This is wonderful, I've now got a bit of work cleaning up our system this morning. Aileen Taylor Cell Signaling Technology

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Level 9
OMG!!! Me too! Now all the "Z's" can just quietly be inactivated!!! Thank you Skye! #ChristmasInMarch Alison Wells, MBA Senior Business Analyst Corporate Information Systems Business Systems Group Community Administrative Support Building (CASB) 2530 Divisadero St, Fresno, CA 93721 Office: (559) 459-7008, Internal: x57008 Cell/Pager: (559) 287-6800 - WARNING/CONFIDENTIAL: - This email, including attachments, may contain information that is privileged, confidential, and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law (including, but not limited to, protected health information). It is not intended for transmission to, or receipt by, any unauthorized persons. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you believe this email was sent to you in error, do not read it. Reply to the sender informing them of the error and then destroy all copies and attachments of the message from your system. Thank you.

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Level 3
This is very good news! Thanks for the heads up, Skye. I second the request for reports. So many I don't want to delete but don't want to see all the time. Michelle Yard Insperity

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Level 3
Hello, I hope you are enjoying this new capability. I'm curious about the ask to add this to reports. The items that we added this to are what I call "attachable" objects. Meaning you attach them to other things for use. You attach a custom form to a project, for example. This new setting affects that drop down when in the act of attaching. But if you go to the objects list page, they are all there and you can filter that list based on this or any other field available. Since reports are not attachable, what would you like this "Is Active" setting to affect? Where should we not show a report when marking it as "Inactive"? Josh Hardman Product Manager, Workfront

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Level 10
hey @Josh Hardman -- it was a spur-of-the-moment comment that I didn't put a lot of thought into. With respect to attachable objects I guess my initial answer would be dashboards. Inactive reports wouldn't show up on a dashboard. On a side note, I have 3000 possible reports to look at and if I had to say something about them, I would say the following: I would like to have fewer reports to look at. 1) My preference would be to be able to download every report that hasn't been looked at since last March. If there was a way to faithfully record views, groupings, filters and textmode in a way that would allow me to remove a report and re-install it within seconds, that really is my preferred solution. 2) Barring this, I'm looking for a way for me to easily indicate or record that a group of reports hasn't really been used in a while. This is normally captured by the "last viewed by" date, up until the time someone looks at it to see why nobody has looked at it. So if for example, I have report X and it hasn't been viewed since last March, I would inactivate it first, and then look at it, or have someone look at it (which populates the date field) or have several people look at it, and eventually if someone needs to reactivate it, that's fine, but if not then after some time I'd be able to delete it. 3) if there are any easy ways to auto-inactivate something, I would like to have this happen. Reports not used for 18 months? Auto-inactivate. Reports created by Joe and shared only with Joe? If Joe is deactivated then report is auto-inactivated. 4) related to 2. Many users don't know or don't really bother to use their filters, and there's not really a nice way to globally set a filter on a set of users, but if I could inactivate reports and have filters default to "active" I think it would be a great way for users to have better access to a list of reports that everyone regularly uses, as well as a warning that if something falls off the list, it will probably be deleted soon. -skye

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Level 9
Hi Josh, I think the "Active" status should apply to the object itself. I would want to be able to filter a list of reports by "Active" status (or better yet make that the default). Same thing for dashboards. The functionality would be similar to Users. When editing a user, you can set them to be inactive. I would like to do the same for a report, dashboard, etc. Alison Wells, MBA Senior Business Analyst Corporate Information Systems Business Systems Group Community Administrative Support Building (CASB) 2530 Divisadero St, Fresno, CA 93721 Office: (559) 459-7008, Internal: x57008 Cell/Pager: (559) 287-6800 - WARNING/CONFIDENTIAL: - This email, including attachments, may contain information that is privileged, confidential, and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law (including, but not limited to, protected health information). It is not intended for transmission to, or receipt by, any unauthorized persons. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you believe this email was sent to you in error, do not read it. Reply to the sender informing them of the error and then destroy all copies and attachments of the message from your system. Thank you.

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Level 10
LOOOOOOOVE THIS!!! Had no idea this was coming (or here). Thanks Skye! And Workfront ��

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Level 10
Hi Skye, I invite you to drop me a line you're ready to clean up your 3000 reports, because (to your list): 1) got it 2) so you don't need it 3) got it 4) got it Regards, Doug Doug Den Hoed - AtAppStore Got Skills? Lend a hand! https://community.workfront.com/participate/unanswered-threads

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Level 3
If I deactivate an approval process that will no longer be needed but is currently being used in live projects, will that impact anything? Jessica Rodriguez Verizon | Print Production System Administrator

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Level 3
I just answered my own question. "Anything you deactivate that is currently used continues to function as it always has, and is not removed or blocked." Jessica Rodriguez Verizon | Print Production System Administrator