Force the use of a Portfolio

[TravisGrogan1]

Is there a way I can REQUIRE users to assign their projects to a Portfolio?

My only solution is to force them to use a Project Template and preassign the Portfolio there.

Any other solutions?

[Kurt_Jones · Accepted solution]

Travis, this is the best practice standard and one of the many reasons for having users start projects via templates.  If you have Fusion you could use that to help update some of the information when a request is submitted.  There is a global setting where you can force users to create projects via templates and not allow any other options so you can guarantee this data is being populated correctly.

[Lyndsy-Denk]

I support @Kurt_Jones suggestion. I'm starting change management to shut down the ability to create projects from scratch. One thing that will help quiet the haters: A template with no tasks. I have a generic portfolio with a program called "Unfiled projects" set as the default, which will help with housekeeping.

[KatherineLa]

Along Kurt's recommendation, I have a stock Portfolio-level form that auto completes with the name of the Company it corresponds to when the Portfolio is created. Then a Fusion module watches every new Project created, reviews the Company name on it, and looks up the corresponding Portfolio if the user fails to complete the Portfolio field during Project creation.

Or WF could finally give us the ability to set the Required attribute on stock fields for Projects. That would be lovely.

[RandyRoberts]

The above suggestions are really good. I would also add, remove the "Projects" icon from the waffle menu via Layouts. Then the user has to go to the Portfolio level to create and view projects (the "create new project" button doesn't appear anywhere else). Any new projects will then be in the portfolio the user created the project from.

Also, you can create a report for projects where the portfolio is blank to call out the offending projects.

If you force portfolios via template, then you will need a template set for each portfolio. This could lead to a lot of duplicate templates as you could not use one template that could go in several different portfolios.

[Madalyn_Destafney]

Team, correct me if I'm wrong but I think I heard the ability to put these native fields like Portfolio/Program in a custom form is coming? Would be awesome if true. 

[RandyRoberts]

I've heard that as well. No timeline though.