Notes on a task with view within project

[JillAc]

Hi I had a user ask me today if there was a place he could make notes on a task so that he could scan a project to see things like "waiting for Ralph to reply" or "Submitted request for photo on 4/9" What I hope is to put a note field as a column in the Project View and it would be specific to the task in that project, and also be editable straight from the project. The only field I can think of to use is Description, which probably would work, but wondering how other people do this. Thanks Jill Ackerman

[SkyeHa]

Description field would work if you weren't using the description field for anything else. If the lines were all that short, a single text line field in a custom form would work as well. -skye

[JillAc]

I have not done very much with custom fields and using them in various views and reports. We are a simple folk over here! This works nicely, though I have to go into every project and add the form to all the tasks and make sure that the people are using all the same View in order to see it. A bit of work, but a good solution. I'm guessing I can make a report to show all the tasks that are in active projects so I can add the form to all the tasks at once. Thanks!

[SkyeHa]

>protip< If you are only using the custom field in one custom form, you don't have to do that. i.e., if I made a new field for a user, and put it on a task custom form for them, I would just add the column to the project view. When he wants to use it, he just inline edits the cell and it will pull the custom form at that point, populate it, and put it on the task for you. If you were using the custom field on a few different forms though, then yes, it would be safer if you attached the custom form to each task. -skye

[JillAc]

Wait what? To create a field it has to be on a form, so are you saying you make a fake/unused form for the field ( or use it for multiple fields that you can add over time as needed) and then don’t attach the form to anything and you can still access the field in a task list? I will try this magical field creation tomorrow first thing. Thank you!

[SkyeHa]

um... close. Steps to duplicate:

1) Create your field as normal

2) Create your form and put the field on it as normal

3) don't attach the form to anything, but it's not a fake form and it's not "unused"

4) create your view or report with that field as a column in it.

5) inline edit: this will force the form onto the task and it will be "used" at the point you save your edit. You can go back to the task and look: it should be there, being "used." :) [if you delete the content, the empty form stays on the task as well...]

I know I used to have problems because sometimes I would put a field on two forms, and then I never did figure out how Workfront knew which form to pull in, because it would sometimes pull in the wrong form. So it's better if you take care not to mix your fields into multiple forms, I think.

[JillAc]

Ok haha, we internally call forms and processes that don't appear anywhere but for internal use "fake." I guess it's just me! In any case, it works as you say, which is amazing. However, nobody but me can actually edit the field inline in the Task List. I've changed the permissions on the project/task object to "contribute" but that didn't work. Any idea where the permissions are so that anybody who is on the project is allowed to edit the custom field? Jill Ackerman

[EXP_-_DustinMa]

Hi Jill and Skye, Skye's solution is perfect! However, your users have to have been shared on that form to be able to attach it. (Either shared via group, team, etc.) Note: setting the form sharing to visible system-wide does not accomplish this. I hope this helps! =) Dustin Martin Assigned Support Engineer Workfront

[SkyeHa]

yep, I agree with Dustin. The relevant link is here (step 15 https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/216668788-Creating-Custom-Forms ) and it's one thing you really need to understand about access to forms. (The other is in step 14, because sometimes people's section breaks get messed up)

[EXP_-_DustinMa]

Adding one more note onto this.

Because we don't let you edit notes in the update stream, that's why you need to use Skye's workaround. =)

We have been looking into ways to see if we can make comments on the update stream editable, but I don't know if/when that would be changed in Workfront. I also have heard rumor that we're looking at a refresh of our reporting area, though that's all I've heard.. no hard dates, no hard commitments, so keep an eye on workfront.com/release for any news that comes out in relation to it.

And off-topic, please don't be afraid to utilize the Idea Exchange, it's extremely useful for us as a company to help improve the product!

Thanks again!

[SkyeHa]

I would love it if reporting were a whole lot more editable for sure. I've gotten comments about "can I bulk edit my Work on It button", "can I even HAVE a Work on It button", "can I log my time in a report",... basically a lot of users would like a report that works the same way the My Work area used to work. -skye

[SkyeHa]

Oh, PS @Jill Ackerman : if for some reason your team operates in this way: Review/request/external license folks will not be able to edit this custom form. -skye

[JillAc]

Ok so the combination of these two things seemed to work to give editable inline access:

1 - Tasks have Manage access in the project

2 - The form was shared with the people who would edit the field.

One or the other of the above didn't work, had to have both things set.

Thanks!

[Heather_Kulbacki]

This sounds like something I would love to use with documents.

I'd like to create a document custom form, then create a new tab on my project templates to house a report that pulls in all documents from a particular folder on any project created from those templates. Then be able to edit the columns within that report to put the custom onto the documents.

My question... can I create a report that pulls in all documents from a particular folder?? I looked just quickly and didn't find folder name as a filter option. I wouldn't want all documents from a project on the report, just those from a particular folder.

[SkyeHa]

this is the closest link I can find to what you're asking but it looks like it can only do a single folder... is it close to your use case? -skye

[Heather_Kulbacki]

Skye, That worked perfectly!! Since I'm adding the report onto a dashboard within each project and I only need to pull from one folder within that project that's exactly what I needed. Currently my report won't let me inline edit the fields I need to edit, whether my custom form is already attached to my document or not. But getting only the files I wanted seems like a great pre-9am win!

[SkyeHa]

Heather, glad to hear. I'm bummed that the document reports are too rudimentary to provide any inline editing at all but glad you got halfway to your goal. :) -skye

[JimBr1]

I added a field 'update' to a custom form we routinely attache to all - well most all - of our tasks and a view that exposes that field.

Then I got to thinking - could I create a FLO with Fusion that could read that data and post it to the task update stream. Well after about an hour of work, I have a working prototype running for one PM to see if it works as expected/hoped for. If it works we can make notes 'on the fly' which will in turn be posted to the project as we are driving our team to use a Workfront driven meeting (via a dashboard) and one of the long term complaints/resistance to adoption was the need to open the task and add the update. This would in effect kill that objection.

Fingers crossed.