How To Automate Company-Specific Job/Project #s?

[EmilyHa]

Greetings! Has anyone here successfully implemented their specific company's project #s into WF (without having to manually enter them and without using WF's job #s)? We have to use our company's specific job #s, so using WF's wouldn't help us. And my understanding is that WF doesn't have a way for companies to easily program their own job #s (without hiring a software consultant). If I could figure this out this would be a HUGE WIN for me :). TIA for your help. Emily Hausman Tri-County Metro Trnsp Dst Ore

[BridgetCu]

Hello Emily, We were able to have a concatenated formula created that has been added to our custom forms. It mostly gives us what we need, but it doesn't self-add to the project title (it's only on the custom form, if that makes sense - so we have to copy it into the project title per our own internal preferences). Our job numbers must include YEAR_CLIENT DIVISION_NUMBER. With our formula we get 2018MK-XXXX ('MK' = initials for requesting client division, for example). Best, Bridget Bridget Cusick Project Portal Coordinator, Marketing & Communications Catholic Relief Services bridget.cusick@crs.org Baltimore, MD

[ljanz]

We had the same issue and also ended up using a custom form CONCAT field to get the specific project number in WF. I have noticed a few drawbacks with it though. Like what Bridget said, it is only shown in the custom forms, so it's not in the main overview section. But you can set up a view to show the project number in a column, so that's helpful. The other issue I have found is that if you ever want to re-categorize it, the old number stays on and the one gets added to it. So best to never have to re-categorize a job after it has been converted to a project! Our project number is set up like this: ##-##-#####-## The first 2 numbers is the department which is decided by a dropdown selection with a value number assigned to it. The second two numbers is the project category/campaign which is also decided by a dropdown selection with a value number assigned to it. The next series of numbers is the project reference number that WF assigns to it. The last 2 numbers is the current year. Leah Janz Metro Transit

[randyr6740755]

Our job number use our client code+Workfront reference number so they end up looking like "ABCD123456". We have a custom form attached to each Company (client) that has a client code and other client information. When a user opens a job and selects the client, the project ID field concatenates the (Company.Client Code,Reference Number) and creates the job number. I would love to be able to display the job number on the project page header near the project name but so far have not figured out a way to do that. Randy Roberts ZPA - Zimmerman Advertising LLC

[BrandonHa]

We also use the CONCAT custom formula to create our job numbers. It works well for us, however, the issue that I've found is that each task within a particular project contains a new reference number. For me, the biggest problem with this is that our project numbers are jumping exponentially. If a project has 100+ tasks, then the project itself contains 100+ reference numbers. Does anyone know if there's a setting to make all tasks under a single project have the same reference number? Also, if anyone figures out how to automatically get the project number into the title of the converted project, please PLEASE let me know. That would be awesome. Thank you! Brandon Hamm Bravo Group

[KristenCo]

I love/hate this topic. We also have a concat project code field that calculates slightly differently across our work types. We snapshot the calculated value (called Generated Project Code) and paste it into a static field (called Project Code) when we set up the job. Early on in our implementation, we also pasted it into the project title but then realized that was visually cluttered so we decided to configure our email notifications so that the static project code will appear first in the subject line of the email. Project code also appears on the tasks in MyWork. Our project code references 4 digits of the request issue number, but that number is not sequential--which causes some grief for users who were accustomed to the last four characters being sequential over time. (The first characters are YYMM so that part stays relatively constant). We were shown a way to get Workfront to count the issues and +1 so that we could get a sequential number. We have not implemented that yet however. We have a test of it running and it seems to work well enough. Kristen Cook ESPN CreativeWorks

[ljanz]

" I would love to be able to display the job number on the project page header near the project name but so far have not figured out a way to do that." SAME!! Leah Janz Metro Transit

[ljanz]

I also don't like that the tasks have individual reference numbers for that same reason. And I also would like to know how to automatically get the project number into the title of the converted project. Is this an idea on the Idea Exchange? We should vote for this. Leah Janz Metro Transit

[BrandonHa]

Hi @Kristen Cook , I'm curious, how did you get the project code to show up in your email notifications? And, is it in each notification related to that particular project? I think that that would be very beneficial for my team. If you get a chance, let me know. Thank you! Brandon Hamm Bravo Group

[KristenCo]

Now that I think about it, I definitely had this functionality when we were in our own old Workfront instance for sales and marketing. We customized the notifications in the notifications setup area. However, now that we migrated into the main ESPN instance as of 2 years ago, we had to forego that feature, otherwise all users companywide would have had a strange email subject line (that would have a space for a nonexistent project code). However, it's possible that today I could customize that for my admin group only. Thank you for reminding me about that. I'll check with my system admin. If you don't mind having all your users see the project code in the subject line, i can probably get screen grabs from my admin of where to do that. Kristen Cook ESPN CreativeWorks

[sljonas]

We took a very simplistic solution. When we convert a request to a project we edit the name of the project. We use a standard 4 digit code to identify the Cost Center and use the reference number of the project. We took this approach knowing that our project numbers would not be sequential. It's been working thus far. Stephen Jonas Manager, Communications Resources & Programs Hawaii Medical Service Association

[BrandonHa]

Part of me actually thinks that being able to readily see the project number on all related emails might be beneficial to all users (for referencing and searching). If you wouldn't mind, Kristen, I would really appreciate those screenshots. Take your time though! Thank you! Brandon Hamm Bravo Group