Is it possible to monitor for users copying projects?

[AdamCnote]

I see in this post from 2021 that it wasn't possible then, but is it possible now?  Is there any way to build a report to show if a pr... - Adobe Experience League Community - 517703

We're in a scenario where audit is reviewing work from the past year and wondering why some projects have tasks with actual start and actual complete dates in the past, before the project was created.  My hypothesis is that those projects were copied and that Workfront doesn't clear out the actual date fields when a copy happens.  

[KierstenKollins]

We were not able to find a way to monitor when a user would copy projects. We ended up turning off the copy ability in the access level settings to prevent this go forward & to maintain a clean system for our automations and reports.

 

[AdamCnote]

Darn.  Thanks Kiersten

[Sven-iX]

@AdamCnote I can only think of using Fusion to intercept the "create" event and check for the name starting with "Copy of"

depending on your business rulez

• prohibit copying as Kiersten does
• trap the copy event and take action (Fusion)
• trap a new event and check for tasks with actual dates - and remove those dates (Fusion)

Sadly there is no project field that says "copied from XYZ" so reporting won't help

[AdamCnote]

Thanks Sven.  Fusion is deemed too cost prohibitive for my org so it sounds like we have to choose to either accept that copied projects may have inaccurate data, or remove this functionality from our user's toolkits entirely.

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

AHAH! Thanks @Sven-iX!

Your excellent recap of this years-old "detect copy" challenge for @AdamCnote just gave me an idea.

I'm going to test it out right now, and will report back shortly with a reply to this post. Stay tuned...

Regards,

Doug

[Sven-iX]

Oh i know! 

Calculated field on the project :

IF(ISBLANK({DE:project origin}),IF(LEFT({name},8)="Copy of ","Copy","Created"),{DE:project origin})

Do I win anything    @Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore 

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

There's a bit more to it, @SVEN, but you're on the right track.

My POC is going well -- better than I expected, in fact, but due to what I suspect is a bug -- so when I write it up, yes, you win honorable mention

Regards,

Doug

[Sven-iX]

LOL I noticed - not so easy these set-them-once fields I'm looking forward to what you're cooking up!

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore · Accepted solution]

Indeed @Sven-iX,

All set: at your convenience, I invite you to review my How To Detect Copied Projects (aka "Project Genealogy") post.

That a satisfying side trip: thanks again!

Regards,

Doug

[Alex_Di]

Hi @Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore 

Is this something we could use the new business rules for? 

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Interesting idea  @Alex_Di,

Once you've set them up, you could try to incorporate the Project Genealogy and/or Project Original Or Copy parameters in your new business rules features...but because calculations are "after the save", I suspect it might be more fruitful to replicate the concepts in the business rules (and reject the save if they don't satisfy your business rule).

Regards,

Doug

[AdamCnote]

For anyone reading along, while testing out Doug's solution (which works great!), I noticed my hypothesis that WF doesn't overwrite actual start dates is incorrect.  Once the newly copied project becomes active and tasks get updated, the actual start date is overwritten with the current date. ... I'm not sure why I have projects with actual dates that precede the entry date, but I guess I can rule out copying.