Is there a way to automatically update task durations in Workfront based on the priority you set on a project? Or even by the selected priority on a task?

[Kiesner10]

It would be nice to have this feature as my team often times has projects that require different levels of complexity. The projects that are more complex would need longer duration for certain tasks (and vice versa).

I don't believe there is any easy way to update these durations currently, but I figured I would ask and add as a potential idea for enhancements.

[Kundanism]

Hi @Jack Kiesner‚

I don't think Workfront has such feature. Because I asked this question 2 years before and they mentioned no plan to add such feature.

Basically, this is quite excellent feature because resource manager can easily change the prioritization in the resource planner.

Mvh

Kundan.

[TealeMcCleaf]

Hi Jack,

Workfront doesn't have an OOTB solution to do this, however, I was recently challenged by a new team onboarding into Workfront to provide just that solution. Their use case is, a user submits an issue and they triage it within 24 hours, determine the Priority of the work and set the Planned Completion Date. So I created a report that would provide them a view into new submitted issues with calculated columns to show the PCD based on the Priority. Then I also created another calculated field that shows the new PCD based on the teams inputs into two fields, Business Need and Complexity. I added a Priority Calc field to their custom form to provide a custom Priority to build this last column.

Here's what I did...

1) Add weekdays to PCD

displayname=Adjusted PCD

linkedname=direct

namekey=plannedCompletionDate

querysort=plannedCompletionDate

textmode=true

valueexpression=IF({priority}='0',ADDWEEKDAYS({plannedCompletionDate},5), IF({priority}='1',ADDWEEKDAYS({plannedCompletionDate},7),IF({priority}='2',ADDWEEKDAYS({plannedCompletionDate},9),IF({priority}='3',ADDWEEKDAYS({plannedCompletionDate},11),IF({priority}='4',ADDWEEKDAYS({plannedCompletionDate},13), " ")))))

valueformat=HTML

You could change this up to show a new Duration.

2) Add weekdays to PCD based on inputs from Business Needs and Complexity fields to generate the results in the custom Priority Calc field.

Priority Calc custom field =

IF(Complexity="Low"&&Business Need="Critical","P0",

IF(Complexity="Medium"&&Business Need="Critical","P0",

IF(Complexity="Low"&&Business Need="Medium priority", "P0",

IF(Complexity="High"&&Business Need="Critical","P1",

IF(Complexity="Medium"&&Business Need="Medium priority", "P1",

IF(Complexity="Low"&&Business Need="Low priority", "P1",

IF(Complexity="High"&&Business Need="Medium priority", "P2",

IF(Complexity="Medium"&&Business Need="Low priority", "P2",

IF(Complexity="High"&&Business Need="Low priority", "P2")))))))))

Then I created a column in the Issue Report to add weekdays to the PCD based on the Priority Calc field results...

displayname=Adj PCD Driven by Custom Priority

linkedname=direct

namekey=plannedCompletionDate

querysort=plannedCompletionDate

textmode=true

valueexpression=IF({DE:Priority Calc}='P0',ADDWEEKDAYS({plannedCompletionDate},5), IF({DE:Priority Calc}='P1',ADDWEEKDAYS({plannedCompletionDate},7),IF({DE:Priority Calc}='P2',ADDWEEKDAYS({plannedCompletionDate},9), " ")))

valueformat=HTML

Adj

So the user receives a report daily with the fields to input or review and can see the new calculated PCD and make updates to the Duration or PCD in the report to drive the actual PCD of the Issue.

Of course, this still requires a manual touch to perform the update on whatever object you associate it with but I hope it will provide a good workaround for you in the meantime.

Best -

Teale