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Legacy Resource Grid vs. Resource Planning

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Level 2
Hi there, I currently rely heavily on the legacy resource grid due to the benefits below and am wondering how people have adapted their resource scheduling/planning tools to adapt to the legacy resource grid going away. For background, I currently manage projects for a Creative Services Team consisting of graphic designers and copywriters. Resource grid tool features I use frequently: -View at a glance who is over allocated for for the week and can drill down to see who is over allocated per day. Current scheduling tool seems to only show overallocation per day -View project names in a list per user and drill down to the task level only if I want to. This is a cleaner view for me when trying to figure out how many projects each person has quickly -View completion date for each project at a glance under each user and percent complete of each project -Export an excel sheet of the resource planner which is useful for management reporting since often times I need to show projects by designer, when they're due and how far along they are. I'm curious if people have had the same issues with the new planning/scheduling tools or if there are ways to customize the view and export as a spreadsheet so I don't lose current the functionality of the legacy resource grid that I rely heavily on when planning and scheduling. Thank you, Andrilita Rodriguez
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Level 10
Hi Andrilita, I think you've hit the nail on the head regarding these two points: "-View at a glance who is over allocated for for the week and can drill down to see who is over allocated per day. Current scheduling tool seems to only show overallocation per day -View project names in a list per user and drill down to the task level only if I want to. This is a cleaner view for me when trying to figure out how many projects each person has quickly" The new Resource Planner gives you a weekly view of allocations (hopefully once the bugs are fixed in 18.2 at least), and the Scheduler/Working On Calendar gives you the daily overallocations, but you don't have the ability to seamlessly move between both as you can in the Legacy Resource Planner. It is also great to be able to see the project-level summary of allocations per resource at a daily level and then be able to expand down to task level. No such functionality exists. I'm sure @Lucas Eric can give you his three cents, as he's a fan of the legacy resource planner. Regards, David Cornwell

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Level 10
Love this discussion thread! Feedback we have received from users about Scheduling and Resource planner and really it boils down that there are just too many extra things with the other tools. My Resource Managers/Department Leads just want to see hours for the day or week and who is over-allocated. Talk to product last week at Leap, they are working on some settings to get close to that but they won't be coming until later in 2019 after they start decommissioning the resource grid. We also really need the ability to put the resource grid on a dashboard. Since there is no easy way to see what my resource managers need, we have RM dashboards so that they can get the info they need in one place without having to go back and forth between different tools. As David mention, the project level summary is very important for us as well. We do our resourcing at the project level (i.e. have the same art director or developer on the whole project). Because of this, we actually create fake people that act as roles for us so that we can see the number of unassigned hours for that role for that project over the time frame of the project. If you look at my example below, we can see there are 12 hours of unassigned Copywriter work for that first project: 6 this week and 6 next week. And looking at my team, it looks like I'm the best person to be the copywriter on that project. Yes, the Resource Planner would still work with this work around, but it couldn't be on dashboard so it is another place my RM has to click and it as so much extra info that we can't see more than 4 weeks at a time. Anthony Imgrund FCB

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Level 10
Hi: Likewise, I was at LEAP last week. I attended a session by Dan Perkins that motivates me to go back and check out the new planner again. It appears that they have features they've added, or I just missed on the initial rollout. I'll take a look and post observations. We produce the resource report and send it out as a scheduled report regularly. I don't think the new planner allows that. That will be an inconvienence. More to come! Eric

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Level 3
When will the resource grid be taken out? We rely heavily on it as well. Emily Byrne The Starr Conspiracy - TSC

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Level 10
I thought it was disappearing at the end of 2018... I'm gathering commitments from fellow peasants to charge the castle on the hill with pitchforks and burning torches. I don't mean flashlights (for my British friends). I mean a bundle of twigs burning, whose correct name shall not be mentioned. �� Eric

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Level 2
We are also very concerned on how we will be able to work without the grid. We are in it all day every day managing over 70 resources and their allocations. We can't do this in the new tool, it's too messy and not easy to see who needs our attention the most.

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Level 10
Hi Emily, when talking to product at Leap, 18.3 is when they want to pull it out. However, my last meeting with them that Thursday (so at the end of the event), they said they are thinking they have to push it back. I REALLY, REALLY hope that they do. I know that they are looking for value-to-value parity and not function-to-function parity, but for us, getting rid of the resource grid will truly disrupt our workflow. And if work can't get done efficiently, there is value lost. Anthony Imgrund FCB

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Level 10
Anthony : I agree. If they don't have the same functionality in the new planner, it will drive us to use Excel. They already drove us to determining the correct cost of a project using Excel. Driving us to do resource planning through Excel is another bad move, from our perspective. Thanks! Eric

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Level 3
I agree with all of your comments. We need for the new resource planning tool to at least mimic current functionality. Removing current functionality will cause is to also revert back to excel. Theresa Gibson Reed Technology and Information Services Inc.

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Level 10
Hopefully Workfront can take this opportunity to further utilise the input of the user base to develop the new tools to meet our needs. We have already implemented Power BI (Excel on steroids) for our resource and project reporting. Inevitably there will continue to be a need for BI tools for advanced visualisations, but a lot of what we are doing in Power BI is pretty standard stuff which should be able to be done within Workfront. If I could wave a magic wand, I would ask them to build a resource grid replacement which allows the user to: Zoom in and out from quarter, to month, to week and to day level. Group and filter by standard and custom fields (filtering resources and/or the assignment data based on task/project criteria) Selective expand and collapse of the hierarchy. Custom measures (calculated values) Conditional formatting of values. Export to excel with conditional formatting based on current values Save views combining all of the above and place them on dashboards (and bonus points if you can email a report) Regards, David David Cornwell

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Level 2
I agree with all posts, it will disrupt our workflow as well. I am the only resource manager who doesn't have serious issues with the scheduling tool, until recently...when I discovered it's showing projects in Planning despite that being removed from Project Status filter field. Before that my only big objections were that I am not a fan of gantt view, the colors are intense, and even though it lets you toggle custom project statuses, it actually only filters by project status EQUATES WITH. WF explained this to me like it was obvious, but it is not obvious at all when it has a field for you to add/remove your custom statuses. If it were obvious the field would only allow toggling of default statuses. Then once I saw the Planning jobs I stopped trying to adapt to the tool, at least temporarily. I needed a break. But like I said, that's me. Everyone else involved in resource planning at our organization HATES it. They prefer the resource grid, first and foremost because they find the gantt view too overwhelming. I don't understand why it isn't already an option to toggle different views, it seems like a logical thing for Workfront to make since they allow gantt view toggling in other areas (so they must know it is not everyone's preferred view)...think I'll go post that in the idea exchange, if that's worth anything. I came on here to see if anyone had built a grid view replacement, but I couldn't help commiserating with you guys on this thread. It's frustrating! Sarah Maltas Merrick Towle Creative

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Level 5
I agree all around! The only other thing I would add, and it is minor in nature, is that the new tools require math skills LOL While I don't lack these skills, it is a general nuisance that I have to "calculate" the remaining available hours for a resource per day/week in the new tools while the old Legacy tool just shows me when trying to determine the best start date of tasks. If I have missed this as a toggle feature, someone please let me know! :) Tracy Fox Project Manager / Workfront SysAdmin Sykes Assistance Services Corporation

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Level 3
The planning status thing is infuriating, and totally illogical that you can't choose to turn it off. Makes the scheduling tool unusable for us! I'm yet to get my head around what the planning tool is actually supposed to be used for, despite several attempts...! Stephanie Mulrooney Tomorrow People

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Level 5
And now that I am trying (but not successfully) to get used to the new tools, I have also found that when working on a project to adjust start dates for resources, I frequently refreshed the Legacy Resource Grid (while in the grid using the preferences button) to see if my changes created overallocations in dependent tasks that I could sort out immediately before releasing the project schedule. Alas, in the Scheduling tool the only way I have found to do this same process is literally a refresh of my web browser which wipes out ANY filters I had pre-set meaning I have to reset it all to find the same information/view. Tracy Fox Project Manager / Workfront SysAdmin Sykes Assistance Services Corporation

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Level 3
Can we get someone from Workfront to respond to this thread? A lot of us have questions and concerns with the functionality we are loosing. Maybe Workfront has a plan for all of this. Theresa Gibson Reed Technology and Information Services Inc.

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Level 10
Hi everyone, Thanks a lot for your feedback on this! We hear your concerns and are making a number of improvements both to the Resource Planner and Resource Scheduling. You can see the first improvements for Scheduling in Preview already, I'm attaching a screenshot of the view here. As you can see, we now use the screen real estate more efficiently and are able to show summarized information on a user level by day, similar to how Resource Grid does today. We are working on other improvements as well, and highly encourage you to join our roadmap calls for more information about the direction we're headed. Also, we will be reaching out individually for beta testing and feedback, so please let us know if you'd like to be contacted. Thanks, Vazgen Babayan Product Manager Workfront

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Level 2
Hi everyone - Workfront need to actually sit with users and develop on these ideas. It feels like workfront (badly) are taking the suggestions and implementing something, not sure what, but nothing I would find easy to use. I want to be able to see when users of over and under/ allocated at a glance, at role, project, port, programme level. Over various timelines, daily, weekly, quarterly and annual. - The current legacy tool can do most of this, but it does need improving. For example, other tools allow you to move the resource around in the summary view and apply the changes in at the project level. I need to be able to take a copy of the live schedule for modelling. In this, i want to be able to 'move' projects to profile the best use of resource and then if needed apply this. This should be a programme and port level and notice PM/RM that there project will be impacted. Scott Goddard Consortium

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Level 1
Hi all, I totally agree - the new system does not give me what I need. I'm dreading the day they remove it and truly hope they make some significant improvements before then. I cannot understand why they think the new one is better. I thought it was just me so thank goodness I have been able to see that other people have issues too! Leila Morris Christian Aid

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Level 3
This looks a lot better. I've been using the Scheduling tool a lot more over the past couple of months and (other than the issue with project statuses) I think it does what we need it to, for the most part. One thing it would be really useful to have is a refresh button. I tend to have the scheduling open in one tab, and then if I notice overlaps I go into the projects in another tab to adjust the dates/durations etc. I then have to refresh the whole page to see those changes in scheduling, which means i lose the filters and the dates that I was looking at and have to reset them to get back to where I was. Would also still love to be able to customise colours based on company/programme/portfolio rather than at a project level. And to make the unassigned area follow you down the page, so you don't have to scroll up and down to work out where tasks can fit. Stephanie Mulrooney Tomorrow People

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Level 5
Hi @Stephanie Mulrooney I too use a similar process and have recommended not only an easy way to refresh the Scheduling tab to see the impact of my changes, but to also allow the filters to remain in place. Currently the only way to refresh is to refresh your browser which requires setting the filters again. While I can't remember the version it is being implemented in, when discussing the recommendations with the Product Manager Vazgen Babayan, he did say it was on a future roadmap. Obviously it doesn't help in the current state, but the future is looking brighter :) Tracy Fox Project Manager / Workfront SysAdmin Sykes Assistance Services Corporation