Multiple Deliverables

[CarolPe]

We are a creative in-house services team made up or project managers, writers, editors, designers and production. We submit a Request for each deliverable. However, often times we have 10 different deliverables tied to one project. It's a pain to fill out 10 different Requests for each deliverable. Because we count how many projects we do, if we submit one Request and list multiple deliverables/assets in the one Request, it only counts as 1 deliverable. Any suggestions how we can submit one Request with multiple deliverables and have it count for each of the deliverables? We want to be sure each deliverable shows as an Active project, as well as account for it in our Reports. Thank you in advance. Have a great Labor Day Weekend.

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Hi Carol. I've been thinking about this question for a couple of months, and am designing a solution for it. I'd appreciate your take on it. At the crux, there is "common" information that would ideally be entered only once, and then "unique" information (in your case, for the 10 separate deliverables). The requests would each go in as separate Issues, but all of them would be tied together with some type of control number (such as a Job Order, PO, or some type of calculated field such as Client+Date+Sequencial number). In most cases I've learned of, "that's enough" -- each request can then be whisked off and dealt with as need be. In some cases, all must be reported on as a unit so that when they are all done, they can be dealt with (e.g. invoiced and delivered). And in a few cases, the requests need to be converted into Projects and/or Tasks for control purposes. Which of these sounds most similar to your desired workflow? Regards, Doug

[CarolPe]

Hi Doug. I hope you had a great Labor Day weekend! In regards to the multiple deliverables, I would very much like to be able to submit one Request, that lists, for example, 10 different deliverables, which all may or may not have the same Planned Completion date. NOTE: Deliverables can be fliers, brochures, postcards, infographics, PPT, banner ads, emails, etc. Once the team is assigned to the 10 different deliverables (the team would be a writer, editor and designer), the one Request would become Active and each deliverable would be started with different work-flows (whisked off and dealt with as need be). Currently, if we submit one Request that lists 10 different deliverables, they all have to have the same workflow with the same Planned Completion Date, which is not ideal for us. And, though we worked on 10 different deliverables, its currently counted as 1 project (and not 10 individual projects as we’d like). We track the number of projects we produce. We do not charge back for our time and/or services. I’d like the one Request with 10 different deliverables to converted into Projects and/or Tasks for workflow purposes with different Planned Completion Dates. And, I’d like for these 10 different deliverables to show in my “Active Projects Report” as 10 different deliverables, and one 1 deliverable as it current does today. Thank you Doug and let me know if you have any further questions or if you need more clarification. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on whether this is doable or not. Thank you. Carol Peck Senior Production & Process Director Creative Marketing Solutions Gartner Tel +1 203 316 6509 Mobile +1 203 979 3296 carol.peck@gartner.com

[AnthonyIm]

Here is a thought. It is something we do for our Health business units. We have a template with one task called Launch/Deploy. This is added to a project once or multiple times (depending on the number of deliverables). We do this so that we can create reports and calendars based on the Template Task ID. Hope that is helpful.

[CarolPe]

Thank you. Would it be possible to send me your template that you use with the one task? Carol Peck Senior Production & Process Director Creative Marketing Solutions Gartner Tel +1 203 316 6509 Mobile +1 203 979 3296 carol.peck@gartner.com

[AnthonyIm]

Sure. It is just one task with no duration or planned hours.

[CarolPe]

Thank you Anthony Carol Peck Senior Production & Process Director Creative Marketing Solutions Gartner Tel +1 203 316 6509 Mobile +1 203 979 3296 carol.peck@gartner.com

[Amy_JoBr]

Carol, Any luck figuring this out? We are also an in-house creative group and have the same need. Thanks!

[CarolPe]

Hi Amy Unfortunately, we have not yet figured it out and I’m not sure it will be doable. As I stated, we would like to fill out one ‘Creative Brief’ that has multiple components (i.e., brochure, flier, header, banner, etc), and have Workfront be able to count each of those components from the one CB. If we do figure it out or hear from someone with insight, I’ll be sure to let you know. Thanks. Carol Peck Senior Production & Process Director Creative Marketing Solutions Gartner Tel +1 203 316 6509 Mobile +1 203 979 3296 carol.peck@gartner.com

[pco88]

We have several project templates based on deliverable type. We also accept requests with multiple deliverables and pull in the templates into the project as needed. If you do it this way, then you can run a report on how many times the template was used so it counts as your deliverable report. However, based on your earlier post, you want the request converted to several projects. It can still work with deliverable templates. Each of the deliverable template must have a custom project form associated only with the deliverable, picking up only the fields needed for the deliverable from the request form so that when the request comes in with let's say brochure, flyer and poster, you can convert each request to a brochure template project, a flyer template project and a poster template project. Each of these projects will keep the contents of the request forms that is only relevant to the deliverable. Each project can then have different timeline which is also based on your deliverable templates. You can then tie all of those projects together by having a custom field on the project form, maybe a docket number. With this, you can now then run a project report and it counts each project as deliverable.

[DavidCo3]

Hi Polly - that's interesting and could be very useful for us. I have a couple of queries: I know that if you have a project view or report and include the 'Template Category Name' field then you can see the multiple custom forms listed which have been attached to the project. My understanding of your solution is that you have a unique custom form on each template, and that by adding the deliverable-related templates and their custom forms to your project, you can see the deliverables per project. My question is - how do you report on them in order to see home many projects have 'Deliverable ABC' and how many have 'Deliverable XYZ'? Some of our projects have just one deliverable, and some have many deliverables and we would like to be able to report on this across all of our projects to see how many of each deliverable type we are working on. You said that you can "... run a report on how many times the template was used so it counts as your deliverable report" but I can't see how you can do that. Thanks, David.

[CarolPe]

David, great questions for Polly and I too would like to know the answers. Please be sure to keep me in the loop. Thanks in advance! Carol Peck Senior Production & Process Director Creative Marketing Solutions Gartner Tel +1 203 316 6509 Mobile +1 203 979 3296 carol.peck@gartner.com

[pco88]

This is similar to Anthony's suggestion except it's more specific to the deliverable. The Parent task on each of the template identifies what the deliverable can be. Eg, Template Brochure has parent task Brochure, Template Flyer has parent task Flyer etc. You can then run a task report that only picks up how many specific Brochure, Flyer tasks there are. In Reply to David Cornwell:

Hi Polly - that's interesting and could be very useful for us. I have a couple of queries: I know that if you have a project view or report and include the 'Template Category Name' field then you can see the multiple custom forms listed which have been attached to the project. My understanding of your solution is that you have a unique custom form on each template, and that by adding the deliverable-related templates and their custom forms to your project, you can see the deliverables per project. My question is - how do you report on them in order to see home many projects have 'Deliverable ABC' and how many have 'Deliverable XYZ'? Some of our projects have just one deliverable, and some have many deliverables and we would like to be able to report on this across all of our projects to see how many of each deliverable type we are working on. You said that you can "... run a report on how many times the template was used so it counts as your deliverable report" but I can't see how you can do that. Thanks, David.

[DavidCo3]

OK, thanks Polly - will try that. Cheers

[DebbieSc]

This seems like a basic need for all of us, to be able to count deliverables without having to create separate projects for each of them, which can be very cumbersome and time consuming, especially when it comes to deliverables like digital assets for social media and the like. I realize this conversation is five years old, but I am not finding many answers in the way of counting design deliverables (within a larger project). Has anyone discovered a solution?

[AnthonyIm]

Debbie - how are you doing your projects? If you don't want to use template task ID as mentioned above, you could use a custom form field to say "deliverable" and mark that on the launch date (or maybe parent task if you group like that). You can easily make a view for the PM to "tag" the deliverable task. Then you do a task report and count up the tasks marked deliverable, and you should be good.

The biggest thing, is you need to somehow tell Workfront what is a deliverable, and then you should be able to report on it.

Hope that helps

[DebbieSc]

Sounds like I need to look up a Template Task ID to understand how it works and whether it would be something I could utilize to solve my problem. I had considered creating a custom form with the choice of "deliverable" and have it available within a column on the project (at task level). But as I understand it, both of these solutions still require a separate task to be created for each of these deliverables. Another challenge is - I don't think I can force the project owner to choose that drop down, which makes for less than accurate reporting, considering human error.

So for example, I have an article project to be posted in several locations on Social Media. So the Article is the Project in this case, and currently I am using the word "Design" in the task names for IG, TW, LI, FB and running a task report based on the number of tasks with Design in the name. It's not a great solution, but I am getting by with it.

However, it gets taxing for the specialists (who are creating their own projects) to list out each design deliverable as a separate task. It's also time consuming for the designers to interact with all those separate tasks.

What I would love is to be able to add one design task in any given project, and yet be able to identify (and report) that within that project there were 17 unique design deliverable (without listing 17 separate design tasks).

Am I asking for the impossible?

[AnthonyIm]

So to clarify, you don't have at least 1 task for each deliverable? Usually in my timelines, I have a parent task or launch task or something for each one so that is where I was heading.

But if you don't, maybe you can just put on the project custom form a Number of Deliverable field. (Just make sure it is a number field and not text)

Then you can do Sum or Average of deliverables by group, company, owner, portfolio, program, etc. on a project report.

just a thought

[DebbieSc]

Here is my current method:

The Project accounts for the article deliverable from the writing team.

Parent task within that project is something like Graphics Package. Child Tasks: Design IG story 1, Design IG Story 2, Design FB, Design TW, Design LI and so on if there are other unique design tasks.

I do a monthly report on the number of projects by division and department, showing the project owner. Then I create a separate bar chart report that shows the number of "Design" tasks (deliverables) by owner.

This method is working except it is dependent on the project owner remembering to include the word Design on any new tasks they create. I have a template to start with, but they often have to add tasks.

We'd like our projects to be simpler with fewer tasks to interact with, so this is why I was looking for a solution that would allow us to task the designer once (Graphics Package) and yet be able to count the number of deliverables they created for that project. It sounds like your solution of creating a Number of Deliverables field might solve this.

Any chance you might share a report with me that shows how you count/report on your deliverables? Maybe if I saw that report (or the filters at least) it might help me visualize your solution.

[AnthonyIm]

Thanks for the contexts! :)

Since your team starts with a template, my suggestion would be to have a custom form attached to the tasks and mark them as deliverable. (It can be something like "Is this a deliverable" and then say Yes).

If your Project Owner needs to create a new deliverable, ask them to just duplicate a task that way the deliverable field/question is still marked yes.

If you are afraid they will still just add tasks, you can also create a view for your Project Owners that includes the column so they can inline edit and double check. (And with NWE, you can now make a certain view the default view on a layout template so it there right away for your POs.)

This way, you can easily report on those tasks and the Owners can name it whatever they want for their teams/clients.

Hope that helps. :)

[DebbieSc]

Okay, thank you for your help. It's actually comforting to know that I have come up with a good solution by using the word Design to build a report to count those deliverables. Unless I can think of a better way to show these results in a visual report, I may just stick with what I have built.

Because even if I build a custom form so "deliverable" can be chosen, this option is still subject to human error, as the specialist may forget to take that action. All this said, I may stick with my "Design in the task name" option after all.

I appreciate you talking this through with me. It helps to have someone to bounce ideas off of.