Moving to Tracking Time in Workfront

[AmyWe1]

Hi everyone - I'm looking to hear your experience in using Workfront for time tracking. While we use Workfront for project management, we currently use a different system for tracking time. We'd like to bring everything into Workfront. In our current system, users track time only at the project level. With the move to Workfront, we'd love to be able to track time at a task level so we have better data to work from. Has anyone else done a similar move before? How did it go? What works well with Workfront time tracking? What are some pitfalls we should be wary of? If you're doing task level time tracking, how detailed are your tasks? How did you approach the change management with your organization? Any suggestions, thoughts, or guidance would be greatly appreciated! Amy Westlake Practice Manager, Global Delivery Practice Apptio, Inc. Bellevue, WA

[JillCa]

All, We do time tracking to determine billing for our customer projects. We encourage no time at project level, only at tasks and issue level, selecting appropriate hour type to help categorize the work. Then Project Managers create a monthly billing record per project, and add appropriate hour entries each week, working towards month end billing. Time tracking works fine in Workfront. I would review the set of hour types, and be sure you have the categories and information you need. Train employees well on using these hour types. Create reports/views to review compliance and to summarize hour entries. Billing records in Workfront are somewhat primitive and limited in scope and use. Think through what you ultimately need from the time that is logged, and determine how you can get it. Also – tasks and issues will need an hourly rate to show up for adding to a billing record. I've heard of others that log time in Workfront, then export all hour entries to another tool for billing. Anyone else have other uses/ideas? Thanks. Jill Jill Cameron Business Analyst Metafile Information Systems, Inc. (800)638-2445 jac@metafile.com

[VicAl]

We've been tracking time in (IT) projects in WF (Task/Issue level), but we haven't been militant about it. However, we are starting to roll out standards that require our IT staff to log time to their tasks/issues. We're actually directly in the middle of creating an integration between WF and Maximo to send our time from WF to Maximo (who also sends it to JDE) (don't ask J ). JDE is where our project budget and actuals are held. So if we can complete this integration our staff will only have to log their time once. And I agree we want to get task actuals vs project actuals. So they've already coded it, and we're testing it out now. The biggest issue so far is when you add time in WF and then try to remove it (say you made a mistake and logged the wrong task or something). Our code needs to account for that. They're working through a solution, but something to think about. Vic Alejandro, PMP, CSM | IT | Sr. IT Project Manager Denver Water | t: (303-628-7262) | c: (303-319-6473) "http://www.denverwater.org/"> http://www.denverwater.org INTEGRITY | VISION | PASSION | EXCELLENCE | RESPECT

[AshleyUp]

We are just rolling out a new process for time tracking. We used to have monthly timesheets, now we are moving to weekly. Each Friday users will be emailed (Reporting/Report Actions/Send Report/Repeating Deliveries) a report we created showing the hours they entered for the week by project with instructions to review, update and submit their timesheet. If they have not submitted their timesheet by Tuesday morning, an email (Email Notifications/Reminder Notifications) will be sent saying their timesheet is past due with instructions to review, update and submit. Sample communication to staff: You will notice several improvements to your Workfront Timesheets. We will utilize a weekly timesheet vs. monthly -This change will allow us to better document the time spent on project work, will create better awareness as to what it takes to complete a project and will serve as a future resource when estimating hours on similar projects. Friday reminders -Each Friday at approximately 10 a.m. you will receive an automated email showing you the hours you have entered for the week. We ask that you review what you have entered, update as needed and "submit" your timesheet. The automated email will contain the necessary instructions to do this. Tuesday Past Due reminders -Each Tuesday at approximately 3:20 a.m. you will receive an automated email if you have not submitted your timesheet for the previous week. This is your reminder to review your hours for the previous week, update and submit. We are also offering a refresher training that will cover WF tips. Ashley Updike Centris Federal Credit Union

[DagmaraGa]

WF is our only and main place for tracking time in our IT Department. We have created separate Hour Type for each team. We do it on weekly basis. Every Friday timesheets should be submitted for approval so line manager can approve by the end on Monday. If not, users being chase to do it. We've got Dashboards created for line managers which shows all info about tasks and timesheets being updated. We have got report as well which shows if someone log hours with using wrong hour type - like Task Time/ Project Time which we do not use. We do pull information about Actual Revenue from Workfront and keep tracking all Finanse so we do need have accurate time logged against all projects. We use Billing Records option. At the moment we are testing Business Case tab of a Project so we could use is asour quote for business as well. Dagmara Garwell BAKKAVOR LTD

[AaronGo]

We've been using the Timesheets since we rolled out, about a year ago. We've seen a couple of issues, first we have an old system our corporate office uses for billing and payroll and second we work a 9/80 schedule. The first issue is really of our own making, we're the only division currently using Workfront (1 of 5) so still have to track with the others as far as billing goes. So currently we fill in time in Workfront and in our old system. We're working on a way to export the data to the old system but we're running into a lot of issues because of the very specific data we need to capture. Our other major issue was out 9/80 schedule. We work 9 hours Monday to Thursday, have every other Friday off and then work 8 hours on the on Friday. Then so we show a 40 hour week each week we report the first 4 hours to the working Friday and the second 4 to the next week. In our old system the calendar was custom build to take all of this into account but Workfront calendar is what it is. So what we do is use an hour type to capture the split on Fridays. And we only capture Task time, we don't do Project time or Issue time. Overall it's been working well for us. It lets you log time right at Object and that makes the time reporting a lot easier. Aaron Godwin Principle CAD Designer - CSWE GENTEX Corporation

[SupriyaPa]

We are in the same boat and will be rolling out time tracking. One of the system issues I am facing is how to avoid project time from appearing in the drop down for hour type. Also, does someone has standards that they have used to roll it out in their team. We are rolling it out saying users need to fill timesheet out on weekly basis. If anyone has any communication on this will be helpful. Thanks Supriya Pandey PMP New York University

[EricMa]

We have tracked all our time in Workfront since we rolled it out (over 8 years ago now). We track only Task Time, along with Sick/Vacation/Holiday hours. Most users use a timesheet profile that must be approved by their supervisor after submission. We are somewhat unusual in that we are paid twice a month (rather than the more common every 2 weeks), so it's very nice that Workfront timesheets support this option. FYI, you can disable Project Time as an option to bill to by going to Setup -> Timesheets & Hours -> Preferences . Then under "General Preferences," uncheck "Log hours directly on projects." Users will be forced to select a task to bill to. Just watch that you don't delete a task that has hours billed to it--Workfront will "helpfully" preserve those hours by moving them to the Project level, where it screws up our reporting. I receive a report every pay period of hours billed to Project Time so that I can fix these promptly. Eric Manning Language Line Translation Solutions

[BarryBu2]

I've had clients use a variety of methods. Personally, I favour logging time to tasks/issues (NOT project) and accounting for a full week (not just project time). Otherwise you're never sure if someone only did 10 project hours or haven't completed their time logging for the week. Whether or not you log time to a project is controlled through Setup, Timesheets and Hours, Preferences. Two key points to note: If you have (for example) a parent task that has three sub-tasks and assign all four to a user, they will likely log all of their hours to the parent task. If you want granular recording, only assign people to the task level you want them to record to. If you delete a task that has logged hours, those logged hours will move to project time. If you've not allowed logging time directly to projects, this will be uneditable. The workaround is (after hours) enable logging to projects, move the hours and then disable logging to project. You need reports/dashboards to track this, and their should be an approval process. Whether that is the person's team leader or the project manager is up for debate, but having both tends to slow things down. I've also seen numerous clients create a report in Workfront that is exported and used to import into a finance/billing/time recording system. If that's your end game, start with the report format you need for importing, and work back from that. Barry Buchanan Work Management Australia

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Sage advice, Barry; thanks for sharing. Regards, Doug

[EricLu2]

Eric – how do you fix hours that roll into "Project Time" when someone deletes a task that has hours charged to it? Thanks! The Other Eric

[LauraRa1]

I can answer that! We just came up against the same problem. Especially since we changed all our hour types to be team specific! The only way we found is to un-submit/approve the timesheet and change the hour type back to the correct one then save/submit again etc. I believe this works Regards, Laura Ray Junior Project Manager Bakkavor Information Systems Bakkavor Group West Marsh Road, Spalding, Lincolnshire, PE11 2BB, UK Direct: +44 (0)1775 763 010 "www.Bakkavor.com"> www.Bakkavor.com // Laura.Ray@Bakkavor.com

[EricMa]

Here's my process for moving "Project Time" back to "Task Time": - Reopen the timesheet in question - Create a new task in the project to "house" the hours, or else determine whether an existing task in the project can serve the purpose (this can sometimes be a tricky undertaking) - Add the task to the person's timesheet - Add new hours to that task in the amount(s) and date(s) that correspond to the Project Time hours (so, for the moment, you're doubling the number of hours) - Save the timesheet (don't close it yet) - Go to the Project and click on the Hours tab - Delete the Project Time hours - Close the timesheet It's kind of a pain, but fortunately it doesn't happen very often. I have a custom Task status called "Cancelled" that I encourage our PMs to use instead of deleting the task--but that doesn't always work. :( Eric Manning Language Line Translation Solutions