External Company Set-up Help

[TegwynSt]

Hello, we are basically an in-house agency but send final deliverables to several outside vendors...ads/print/signage etc. we typically add them as reviewers and provide them access at template/project level....they do not set tasks (we do for them) but they can download /upload and send updates. we have internal copy centers and we are about to roll out requests being assigned directly to them - so we have to provide them work and planner licenses but I am running into access issues because mktg request queue is where bulk of our work come in. we were set to have them added as a third form and directly assigned the issue to them....some of form is hidden for "customers" and so now they can't see it either and I'm giving them prob too much access. I am now thinking wee should be adding them as a company with their own request queue so they don't see EVERY project. and access lays there. but I'd still keep one of their teams as vendor to allow them access to project that have to come through creative first. right now I just have vendors as external users or reviewers ---is adding them as a company best practice??? any feedback is appreciated....we never addressed this during roll out. Tegwyn Stockdale Workfront System Admin / Production Coordinator BayCare Clearwater, Florida

[TegwynSt]

External Company Set Up question Part II - since we never went down the portfolio>program>project (and I'd assume the request queue project would be here)....since I did start a vendor portfolio would it make sense to have 3 different vendors in there and have them as sep companies assigned to it's own program and a request queue for each....I don't want them to see each others stuff so should they be own portfolio? or I handle that in request queue correct? working backwards at this point but good opportunity to understand and learn hierarchy for future... Tegwyn Stockdale Workfront System Admin / Production Coordinator BayCare Clearwater, Florida

[Richard__Carlson]

I'm not sure if I'm able to address all of your concerns but I'd be happy to share how it works for us - believe me, it's not perfect. We have external reviewers but they have unpaid licenses and therefore cannot be assigned tasks. If we were going to assign them tasks we would need to make them a worker. If they are workers we will provide training on how to use the Home section and if we have built reporting for them we would review their customized reporting with them also. There are easy ways to set up request queues to be seen only by certain people. In essence, you create a new project, go to project -> queue setup -> publish as help desk queue -> then configure who can see the queue. You can choose a specific, a specific group, or specific people. After that you can attach custom forms to the request queue. The actual help desk 'projects' don't need to be in any specific portfolios in my experience, they kind of live on their own. Our requests go into a queue based on the answers provided in the queue / forms. One important thing to note is that the request queue uses Issue Custom Forms , make sure that you create an equal Project Custom Form to transition the custom form data from issue to project. We use templates to attach the correct forms and then name the templates with descriptive names to communicate what they're for. Richard Carlson

[TegwynSt]

Thanks so much Richard Carlson for your response, I have a lot of request queues currently set up for digital, csc, mktg intel....but these are all internal. even though almost all of our external people only have review licenses we still force them into tasks (with caution warning and all - we just set tasks to complete for them). i know not ideal... we don't create "companies" for them, so this will be my first---I even went portfolio and program road and because they are not being routed, but manually assigned, the request queue isn't option (probably should have set up that way but there are 3 custom forms involved also with a lot of calculated custom fields I'm not inclined to break apart ....and they start off going to an internal request queue....which leads me to wonder if you can attach forms or link to a second request queue....idk about that one either ! I'm never 100% sure what I'm doing is right a lot of the time but usually figure out something that works lol--- so fingers crossed! TY Tegwyn Stockdale Workfront System Admin / Production Coordinator BayCare Clearwater, Florida