On Time' vs 'At Risk' Project Condition

[PavlinPa1]

Hello, I'm just curious... Why would a project condition be set and displayed 'At Risk' before the actual Start On date of June 20th? (Just to put this into perspective... the project was activated today, June 18th and it's already At Risk even before it got started...) Any thoughts? Best, +Pavlin Pavlin Panayotov Littelfuse, Inc.

[VicAl]

I'd like to hear what Workfront says on this one. I don't know the answer, but for this reason we change all our Condition Type fields to Manual and set the Condition ourselves. Vic Alejandro, PMP, CSM | IT Program Manager Denver Water | t: (303-628-7262) | c: (303-319-6473) "http://www.denverwater.org/"> http://www.denverwater.org INTEGRITY | VISION | PASSION | EXCELLENCE | RESPECT

[PavlinPa1]

Hi Vic, Thank you for your reply. Also, I'd like to keep the Condition Type set to Progress Status. By setting it up to Manual, I believe that we're hiding a miscalculation in the system for proper calculation and set up of the Project Condition. Thanks. Workfront Support - Please voice your opinion on this challenge. Thanks all. Cheers, +Pavlin Pavlin Panayotov Littelfuse, Inc.

[VicAl]

Hi Pavlin, Yeah I agree. But it wasn't worth the battle for me just to be told it's "by design". �� Vic Alejandro, PMP, CSM | IT Program Manager Denver Water | t: (303-628-7262) | c: (303-319-6473) "http://www.denverwater.org/"> http://www.denverwater.org INTEGRITY | VISION | PASSION | EXCELLENCE | RESPECT

[ChristineFe]

I am curious, what is the task constraint? I only ask because that happened to me once and for some reason it got set as a different constraint then I normally use. Christine Fecik Creative Traffic Manager Workfront System Admin Elekta

[ELIZABETHGE1]

Could it be the template of days/hours and lack of predecessors? just thinking 29 days but there 31 total says including weekends... or 23 without counting July 4th holiday of business days Elizabeth Geldhof Whirlpool Corporation

[ELIZABETHGE1]

Is it because the days are beyond working days and possibly US holiday (if your calendar is set up) extends the amount of time provided? I think you only have 23 days versus 29 days between now and then. Elizabeth Geldhof Whirlpool Corporation

[AileenTa]

Hi Pavlin, This has also bothered me about the projects, I've solved it by changing the "Planned Start Date" of the project which is tied to the date the request was submitted. Aileen Taylor Cell Signaling Technology

[NormaAwad]

Hi Pavlin, We have several campaign owners who use Workfront to plan their campaigns and the issue with these condition types came up several times. We found that if the constraint type on the tasks is not set to "As soon as possible", it increases the chances of having an At Risk project condition. The project condition is useful to keep though so I don't agree to set it manually, as a project manager, it is useful to see that my project is slipping and I need to pay closer attention to it. Thanks, Norma Norma Awad Esri

[PavlinPa1]

Hi Elizabeth, I've got tasks that overlap duration. Hence, having 29 days in 23 day time span. Also, Holidays (like 4th of July) are taken into consideration. Predecessors are set accordingly. Task constraint for all tasks but one is As Soon As Possible. Only one is Must Finish On. Thanks. Any other thoughts? Thanks a million, +Pavlin Pavlin Panayotov Littelfuse, Inc.

[EricMa]

Hi, all. My suspicion is that Workfront doesn't look at the Project Start Date at all when determining the project condition. Rather, it looks at the task durations, % complete, planned completion dates, predecessors, etc., and calculates the project condition--regardless of whether the Start Date is in the past or the future. (I agree that doesn't make a lot intuitive sense--but then it doesn't make sense to me either that changing the project status to "Requested" automatically changes the condition to On Target.) In your case, I'd assume you're already seeing an "At Risk" condition because all of your tasks are at 0% and at least some have planned durations that indicate work "should have" already started in order to hit the completion date. My two cents... ~Eric Eric Manning Language Line Translation Solutions

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Oh, this one's chock-full of intrigue! From help.workfront.com, I suggest "https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/217239547-Understanding-Project-Condition">Understanding Project Condition for an overview, "https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/216636598-Understanding-Task-Duration-and-Duration-Type">Understanding Task Duration and Duration Type (to answer Christine's background question), "https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/217297147-Task-Constraint-Overview">Understanding Task Constraints (to Norma's ASAP advice), and "https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/217240367-Recalculating-Timelines-for-Projects">Recalculating Timelines for Projects (as a reminder that time marches on). Pavlin, as an experiment, I'd then suggest you: - Temporarily change the one non-ASAP Task to ASAP - Recalculate the Timeline of your Project - Check whether doing so resolves your At Risk condition - reverse the first step - Recalculate the Timeline of your Project again - Check whether doing so causes your At Risk condition Regards, Doug Doug Den Hoed - AtAppStore Got Skills? Lend a hand! https://community.workfront.com/participate/unanswered-threads

[JillAc]

This topic leads me to a question that's been on my mind. What views or checks do you have to find out where your project timeline is going off the rails? I use the Status Icons where the first one turns red when it's late, but it isn't useful to find out when you have too many days of Durations and not enough days in the schedule – which is when the Due Dates at the end of a chain of tasks start to pile up, but it can be very hard to spot. I would love to know how to spot this quickly. Thanks! Jill

[VicAl]

The way I spot it is by updating the tasks in my plan each week to ensure the plan is up to date. Then I can compare the Planned Completion Date to the date I've committed to. If I'm a day off on a project that's due in December, I don't worry too much. If it's a week late, I starting crashing the critical path etc. to see what adjustments I need to make. Of course this only works if you have a through plan with Predecessors, etc. If not, you don't have a valid critical path to tell you how late you are. You also have to have the Schedule From set to Start. If you use Schedule from Completion you're not able to tell how far behind you are because you've locked the end date. Your comment on Tasks piling up at the end made me think you might be using this setting. And tasks piling up at the end is the result of this setting and it constrains the information you want/need. Another way to get an idea is to display the Project Completion Date column next to your Planned Completion Date column. Project Completion Date gives you Workfront's estimate (based on your % Complete etc.) on when this Task (and Project) will be done. If you compare it to the Planned Completion Date it should give you an idea how late the task (or project) is. Vic Alejandro, PMP, CSM | IT Program Manager Denver Water | t: (303-628-7262) | c: (303-319-6473) "http://www.denverwater.org/"> http://www.denverwater.org INTEGRITY | VISION | PASSION | EXCELLENCE | RESPECT