Issues vs. Tasks - difference in functionality?

[IanCl]

I am new to WorkFront. I recently noticed that one of my team members is creating Issues instead of Tasks. I have coached them to convert Issues to Tasks going forward. I understand the difference from a process perspective, but i am sure they have different functionality. I was unable to find anything in the training or documentation that discussed this topic. So, what would be the challenges/negative impacts of managing Issues instead of Tasks? Trying to decide if I need to convert ~ 100 issues to tasks or can I get by for now? Thanks Ian Ian Clem New Benefits

[KatherineHa1]

We use Issues to track 'unplanned work'. vs 'planned work' in tasks. It may make reporting a bit more complex - ie, if you're doing a task report the issues won't show. Katherine Haven, PMP VP, Director, Business Technologies - PMO FCB

[KirstenHe]

Issues don't use a timeline in the same way that tasks do. You can have 10 issues that don't depend on each other, but with tasks you can have 10 tasks that need to be performed in a certain order and might depend on each other. So it depends on what the issue/task is actually being used for. Do your ~100 issues all lead to the same goal, or do they each have their own little life cycle. If they're all related and lead to the same end result, it would probably make more sense to use tasks. Kirsten Heikkinen Trek Bicycle Corporation

[VicAl]

Definitely what Kathrine & Kirsten said. I usually explain the differences to our folks as they said. The I add the phrase: They are virtually the same in technical functionality with the following exceptions. An Issue can't have: Predecessors Subtasks And there are 4 types of Issues – and this where they start to glaze over �� .

[catherineh70969]

HI @Ian Clem We use a similar approach to @Katherine Haven in that our users are told issues are for 'unexpected work'. We leverage them to avoid overly granular templates and projects. We also use them to drive review/revision cycles. They are not included in Task Reports, but with text mode reporting it is possible to get some visibility over both. Catherine Hayes Manager, Business Analytics and Program Operations The Channel Company Westborough MA

[Angie_S]

We used to only have issues. We started converting to tasks when we realized we c ouldn't log expenses to issues (which seems weird, doesn't it? Unplanned work usually costs more money, ha ha.). It's also a reporting issue for us - we're trying to report on one object type (tasks) vs. having to maintain reports for both for my manager to see what we are up to. But I also wanted to mention another key difference for issues vs. tasks that I don't see talked about a lot - non-paid license uses can change the status of an issue, but they can't for a task. If that matters to you in any of your workflows, take note! Angie Simon CUNA Mutual Group

[Heather_Kulbacki]

Something else if you use the Resource Planner at all, Issues don't have hours assigned to them. We ran into the situation recently where one of our team was saying she had way more work assigned to her than she could get done in an 8-hour day, but looking at the resource planner it only showed she had a couple hours assigned each day. Digging further, we found someone was assigning issues to her instead of tasks, so she had a lot of work that was not being accounted for in planning the week.

[SkyeHa]

Hey Heather, you can get issues to show up in the resource planner by changing what you see in the settings area (cog in the Planning tool). Issues have hours assigned to them (planned hours) but Workfront just assumed the hours are equal to the duration. If your issue is going to take 3 days to complete, this is 24 planned hours. Not workable for us (we didn't want to go into every single issue and change every single Planned Hours field. We did talk to Michael Swan about the possibility that for request queues, there should be a default Planned Hours amount just like there's a default Duration... but I don't think they put it on their roadmap. -skye

[bpilarski]

We convert all of our issues to tasks because of the need for predecessors and subtasks. I feel your pain, Ian, on needing to take the time to convert all of the issues you have but it's a necessary evil if you want the extra functionalities. I will take the opportunity to again ask WF to give us the option in queue setup to have requests be created as tasks and save us countless hours of administrative work converting. Please upvote: https://experience.workfront.com/s/idea/0870z000000PSCUAA4/detail Barb Pilarski Pittsburgh Penguins

[KatherineHa1]

Heather, there's a setting in the Resource Planner to include hours from issues. See attached!! Katherine Haven, PMP VP, Director, Business Technologies - PMO FCB

[VicAl]

Upvoted!!

[Heather_Kulbacki]

Good to know Skye, Thanks. For the same reason, that wouldn't work for us either. For these particular issues there are a set of tasks for a couple different people (although the issue was only being assigned to one person. As I dug even deeper I found even though the issues were being assigned to this person, the tasks were also beings assigned - sometimes to her, sometimes to someone else, which caused double work to be done. It was a whole hot mess. For us, it would be great if different default planned hours could be assigned to issues based on the custom form or the queue topic. Although I can see where others would want those default hours to be based on something else.

[SkyeHa]

Yep, for me it ended up boiling down to trying to understand the philosophy. So, it seems possible that Workfront doesn't have a good solution for this kind of stuff (default Planned Hours in a request or issue object). When you're specifically talking Resource Planning, and issue objects are defined as "ad hoc" work I see why issue objects are optional and "Planned Hours functionality" apparently has no place in a Resource Planning roadmap. I still kinda want it though. :) -skye

[Kelly_Wehrmann]

Ran across this and upvoted your link....I was actually looking to see if expenses could be added on Issues....surprised you can't, especially since Issues are so easy to enable for groups to create work. I also agree that the overhead to convert Issues to Tasks is NOT fun...and in the case of some of our users, it creates unnecessary overhead they really don't need when it comes to entering and managing quick one-off requests. However, an automated way to do this would be so much better! :) Admin Kelly-Wehrmann SSFCU