New Resource Planner

[DagmaraGa]

I have watched new webinar and was reading thru supporting articles but still cant find the answer for my question.. I've run new Resource Planner for my whole team to see our team allocation. It doesn't seem to be accurate. For some reason it does shows Planned Hours for only couple of team members and lets to expand a list of projects just for those two users ( screenshot below) It's worth to mention that every single person from the list works on projects and has got some Planned Hours on them. Any idea/thoughts why doesn't it show a project list for the rest on the team?? Dagmara Garwell BAKKAVOR LTD

[BMO-bvs]

@Dagmara Garwell , this has been bothering me too, but I haven't dedicated any time to digging into this since we don't currently rely on WF's resourcing tools. I reread the prerequisites help page again for the new resource planner and went through it step-by-step, each time revisiting the planner and every change I made led to the same result -- almost no users were assigned any planned hours, same when viewed by role. But I'm an admin, not an actual project manager. So I tried logging in as a PM and lo and behold, way more planned hours showed up -- but only when viewed by Role and by Project. Yet, they still don't seem close to accurate to total number of planned hours assigned to that role or project. When viewed by user, it was all still practically blank which I don't understand. This I admit is confusing me... Will each individual resource planner only get to see a view of the planned hours that they themselves are resource managers for? Correct me if I am missing something here, but seems to give a very skewed perception of exactly how much time a particular role has. Does anyone have any hints to give as to how this is supposed to be used? I feel like I'm missing something here. Barbara Sedlack BMO Financial Group

[Exp_-_VazgenBa]

Hi folks, Thanks for giving the new Resource Planner a try! The behavior you have encountered is a problem that we are aware of, which is related to the data count that is being loaded into the Resource Planner from user assignments in the system. Since you are actively using the system for assignments, there is quite a number of data for the system to load to calculate Planned Hours for and it reaches the limitation to prevent performance degradation. We are working on rectifying this problem via performance improvements and logic changes on the loading code which are planned to be deployed to production in 18.2. In the meantime, since Role and Project-based views load data only for the projects you are Resource Manager on, this problem will be much harder to encounter there and you should be able to use those views to get assignment information for those users. Thanks, Vazgen Vazgen Babayan Workfront

[MelissaPa1]

We are having the same issues. The Planned Hours for a user do not match from view to view. I am looking for the view (any view) that shows all planned hours for a particular user, on a given date, including tasks and issues. Melissa Pasquale Engrain

[DavidCo3]

Hi Melissa, We have the same issue with the new Resource Planner due to our volume of data exceeding the current capability of the resource planner. I really hope that Workfront can fix this prior to 18.2 as this is really broken. I don't want to have to wait until mid this year to even start trialling the new tool with our data. For the meantime, you will need to use the Legacy Resource Planner. This should work as long as you have Flash enabled in your browser. Regards, David Cornwell

[DagmaraGa]

Hi Melissa, Yeah we've got the same issue. Some of our users are shown on the Resource without any Planned Hours which is not correct... Dagmara Garwell BAKKAVOR LTD

[AmandaLe1]

We are also encountering the same issue and hoping to use this tool ASAP. If anyone has any updates, please share! Amanda Levine Liberty Mutual Insurance Company

[DavidCo3]

Following on from my prior comment, the flash tools seem to be getting flakier. I was getting Whoops errors when trying to access the Legacy Resource Planner on Friday. If we have to wait until mid-2018 for the data load bugs to be resolved in the new Planner, some effort needs to be put into ensuring the old flash tools keep working solidly until then. David Cornwell

[DaganPe]

Thank you all for keeping this updated - I was having the same problem and was spending hours searching through all the training material thinking I had done something wrong in setup. I should have known to check the discussions first ;) I will continue with the Legacy version for now. Thanks! Dagan Peterson Mountain West Farm Bureau MIC

[Exp_-_VazgenBa]

Hi everyone, As an update on this, resolving this issue is top priority for us in 18.2. Unfortunately given the extensive nature of changes required to resolve this, it will be extremely risky to to deploy it via a patch. Therefore we target this to be fixed with the production release. David, I'm sorry to hear you experience issues with the legacy tools. I can assure you that no changes have been made to the Flash tools and the data they use, the new Resource Planning tools are completely separate. Still, if you experience Whoops errors in those, it might be related to a different area in the system. So it would be best to submit this to Workfront Support so they could investigate and identify the root cause. Thanks, Vazgen Vazgen Babayan Workfront

[DavidCo3]

Thanks Vazgen. I did raise it with Support, but then the issue went away so I closed the ticket. Then, it came back again...and went away again...it's OK at the moment though. David Cornwell

[DagmaraGa]

Was the reason of not seeing Planned Hours for user found? I just run it again and the same issue appears. It shows Pln Hours only for one user even if all of the users from PMO team works on projects... Dagmara Garwell BAKKAVOR LTD

[DavidCo3]

Hi Dagmara, Per Vazgen's last post, this is still a known issue and won't be resolved until the 18.2 release later this year. Until then we are meant to use the Legacy Resource Planner......but it's broken again and has been down for the last 2 days so far ("Whoops" errors again). Support are currently investigating but right now we have no resource planner operational in Workfront. This is super frustrating for an 'enterprise' work management system. Back to reporting outside Workfront again..... Regards, David Cornwell

[DagmaraGa]

Hi David, Thanks for pointing it out. I thought it would get fixed within this release. And i just tried to run - and it's same issue. Dagmara Garwell BAKKAVOR LTD

[DavidCo3]

At least our legacy resource planner is working again after the update last Friday. Hope it stays that way! David Cornwell

[Exp_-_VazgenBa]

Hi everyone, As an update to this post, the issue with the Planned Hours not populating correctly should be currently resolved in Preview sandbox along with a large number of performance improvements on the User-based view. Please feel free to test out the functionality there, we would really appreciate any feedback on the changes! Thanks, Vazgen

[DagmaraGa]

Hi Vazgen, Thanks for letting us know! i just had a quick look and it does work now! brilliant :) can't wait for the functionality to be working in Live Environment. Dagmara Garwell BAKKAVOR LTD

[AlexiGl]

Hi Vazgen, Thanks for the opportunity to provide feedback. I hope you don't mind getting what you asked for - I have quite a bit to share! ;) I have my filter set to show only current projects, but closed projects are being displayed in the view. The area that lists projects and tasks isn't wide enough, so project names are cut off, making it hard to see at a glance which projects the user is working on. I'm very confused about which tasks show up under the user. Why is a task being displayed if the user isn't assigned to it? When I view the Resource Planner by User, I expect to see what they are actually assigned to, so that I understand what bandwidth they have today, later this week, and beyond. We need a daily view - as a digital agency, our clients move fast, and we need a granular view to keep up with their changing priorities. The task is no longer a hyperlink, as it was in the Legacy Resource Planner. Can that be added back? It's very useful to be able to go into the task so I can re-assign, check for status updates, adjust the due date, etc. "https://s3.amazonaws.com/higherlogicdownload/WORKFRONT/UploadedImages/CKbb1TRESoe6bHwngoka_WF_Resource_Planner.png" target="ThumbnailFullImage" title="Image link"> Appreciate any thoughts you can share on my points. Thanks! Alexi Glines iProspect

[Exp_-_VazgenBa]

It's great to hear that, Dagmara! If you have time, can you please fill out the following survey to let us know the thoughts about the different specific pieces of functionality of the User-based view compared to the production version? https://goo.gl/forms/AOwa4dPxTK3yVRcO2 --------------------- Thanks for the feedback, Alexi! The points 1 and 3 look like issues, the filters should filter out projects and only the tasks assigned to the user should appear under it. I would kindly ask you to raise it with support so they could investigate further. For the column width point, as another option, would you be willing to sacrifice one column of data showing on the right to make room for the names of the projects? Regarding the daily view, can you please describe the scenario of how you will use that view? Thanks, Vazgen Babayan Product Manager Workfront

[AlexiGl]

Hi Vazgen, Thanks for your quick reply! I've already submitted a ticket for issues 1 and 3, and am waiting back to hear what they say on that matter. Regarding your other points: Yes, I'd be more than willing to sacrifice a column of data to get a wider view on the task/projects. (That being said, the Legacy Resource Planner has an adjustable width there - can that not be replicated?) I currently use the daily view of the Legacy Resource Planner everyday. When new requests come in, I need to see what tasks that team members are working on today, tomorrow, and through the end of the week. So for example, when a client submits a 5-hour request and asks for it to be delivered by EOW, I use the daily view to see if the assigned resource has enough bandwidth to take on such a request. Maybe they don't have 5 hours free on one day, but they have 2.5 hours each on two days. So I schedule the task out accordingly. Does this make sense? Let me know if you have any other questions or need further clarification. Cheers, Alexi Alexi Glines iProspect

[Exp_-_VazgenBa]

Hi Alexi, Great idea on the resizeable area! The idea to sacrifice hour data for the project names is a good one, I will be interested to hear what community thinks about the idea. The example you have described is actually perfectly suited for the Resource Scheduling with its ability to show the daily total Planned Hours. It can show the Planned Hours for each user by day for up to 6 weeks interval and at the same time allows you to assign the task to the user from the same view. Even more, it allows you to contour Planned Hours for the tasks, which gives even more flexibility in fitting the work to the right time. The Resource Planner is targeting planning phase with the plans spanning weeks or even months/quarters of duration while Resource Scheduling allows to manage such short term requests and focuses more of a support for operational activities. Thanks, Vazgen Babayan Product Manager Workfront