Insights on Resourcing Best Practices

[ChristineZhu]

Hi! Is there anyone out there who has been fully resourcing in WF/new WF experience that can share out what's been working for them? We are trying to bring resourcing in, but are still struggling to figure out what happens once all of the projects, tasks/assignments, planned hours, etc are in there. Can someone walk me through how they utilize the Planner along w/ either the Scheduler or Workload Balancer to make updates to allocations based on shifts in timelines or priorities? Also, can someone speak to how the Resource Manager is meant to be aware of any changes a PM may make to planned hours? Are you guys relying on Project and Task statuses to trigger an approval? The Planner doesn't highlight any changes that have been made. Is the only way for a Resource Manager to communicate the approved hours for a task to enter in the Budgeted hours? Thank you!!! Christine Zhu Chobani

[NickVa1]

If someone is willing to take Christine through this, I would like to request joining this call. We're in the same boat of implementing the official resource planner/workload balancer features, and could benefit from a live demo. Thanks! Nick Valeriote

[EllenRa]

If this comes together, would also like to attend... We have ~30-40 resources that we need to schedule and have been unable to do so in WorkFront. At the moment we are working with a small group (production studio team or ~8 people) to update and track their time on projects but it's not working well as things change quickly and when making changes the system alwasy defaults back to spreading time back evenly over the duration and is very time consuming. We are looking for a way in which to hold the hours to the task, make changes at the Resource Manager level and with 20+ PMs not putting the resourcing in their hands yet. Maybe someday but we'd just like to get the talent in the system and make sure everything is stable in WF. We are working to provide guidelines to the PMs on process to get resources on projects. At this time we are tracking a majority of our resources on a worksheet. Interested in being able to make all the changes needed in the new Workload Balancer as the system is updated. Best Ellen Rayme Creative Services

[CalvinFold]

Anyone who puts this on, sign me up, especially if it's in the "Classic" environment, not the NWE. Right now our RMs are struggling with WF taking more time to do resourcing and figure out workloads than doing it offline. Could be our PMs peculiar way of using WF, but honestly we're not sure. Kevin Quosig

[ChristineZhu]

This is clearly a need and should be addressed by someone on the Workfront end. There's a lot of documentation on functionality, but not how it all fits together! Christine Zhu Chobani

[kynabaker16]

Hi all, It sounds like there is a lot of interest for a discussion or something around this topic. I'm chatting with various experts internally on the best way to get what you need created and/or distributed to you. So while I don't have any answers for you now, I just wanted to let you know that we are taking a look at this. Thank you, Kyna

[ChrisBudgen]

I'd like to participate as well :-) Chris Budgen Emakina Group

[PatrickHa4]

Thanks, Kyna. I appreciate your and Workfront's attention & commitment to your Customers! Pat Harrell Seed Company

[kynabaker16]

Hello all, Great news! We have an upcoming Ask the Experts webinar happening around this very subject! https://experience.workfront.com/s/ask-the-experts Resource Management Essentials Wednesday, March 18 at 8:00am PT Learn how to use Resource Management to anticipate future problems, needs, or changes, and take control of your business outcomes. Check that out!

[EllenRa]

Thank you Kyra. I believe you may have had this event last year and I did attend but thought it to be at a higher level of resourcing, more projecting forward 3-6 months out, no? Either way, I will attend again. For us, our task scheduling is in hours and hours very on any given day. We may have multiple resources on a task but hours per resource may be different over the same period. Say we need 3 designers over a week for 20 hours, one may be coming off another project and has some hours available during the week while another may not have hours at the end of the week. Need to be able to schedule to enable the resources to complete the task when due at the end of the week. Make sense? Does anyone else have this issue? Ellen Rayme Creative Services

[CalvinFold]

Ellen: yes, we do. The way the hours spread around has been confusing the RM (and me, honestly). We even have weekly meetings where the entire design and production staff meet and we go around the room and everyone verbally states their availability for the RM: busy all week, have some time tomorrow, busy until Thursday, etc. The RM doodles this down as rough information, mentions if that person has specific work coming or is already booked (and they didn't realize it yet), etc. Pretty sure we're still doing this, despite WF in theory should know this info. It's driving the RM nuts splitting between "what works" and "this new thing that just isn't capturing everything." I think it's partially our own fault, but I'd like to see how it "should be done" or "can be done" from end-to-end before saying it's our fault vs. WF's fault (or "WF can't work the way we do" and just bail on the RM features...). Kevin Quosig