Plotting planned hours over time | Community
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A
Anonymous
August 29, 2020
Question

Plotting planned hours over time

  • August 29, 2020
  • 6 replies
  • 3139 views

I am trying to figure out if there is a way to plot the planned hours of a project over the life of a project. Like the Utilization info will give you, but for the life of the project. (The Utilization chart is limited to a week or a month and I can't export the data to Excel to recreate the chart.) I would love to see just one project but it would be great if I could layer project on top of project to see how they all stack up. But let's start with the first baby step.

Does anyone know how to plot the planned hours vs. the day or week of the project for the entire life of the project? Hours on the y-axis and weeks on the x-axis. It would also be great if I could export the data.

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    6 replies

    Doug_Den_Hoed_AtAppStore
    Community Advisor
    Doug_Den_Hoed_AtAppStoreCommunity Advisor
    Community Advisor
    August 29, 2020

    Hi Matt,

    That is a tricky challenge, but our Capacity Charts solution handles all that, and more, plotting Capacity, Planned, and Actual hour (x-axis) over time (y-axis) for whatever timespan and measurement you choose (eg 1 year, by week), accounting for schedules, time off, roles and people, for as many Projects as you choose (via filters), grouped and stacked as you see fit (eg by Role, by Project), rendered in real time from right within Workfront, with a leading “thumbnail” summary, followed by full page individual charts and an optional data table, and downloadable as pdf or Excel.

    Regards,

    Doug

      A
      Anonymous
      September 1, 2020

      Doug, this looks great. Pretty much exactly what I need, but the price is way out of my range. I am going to have to see if I can find a different solution. Thank you again. I will keep his in mind if my organization grows big enough to be able to afford a tool such as yours.

      M
      ManuelBa
      Level 4
      August 30, 2020

      Hi Matt,

      great question - we also need a different view for the planned hours. Could this view be helpful to you?

      Here used in a project dashboard:

      S
      SaraTo1
      Level 2
      August 31, 2020

      I can never figure out how to get the dates to appear on the X axis! Do you mind sending a screen shot of the graph setup? Thanks!

      M
      ManuelBa
      Level 4
      August 31, 2020

      It's a task report with the following details:

      A
      Anonymous
      September 14, 2020

      Manuel, thank you for your reply. Unless I am misunderstanding, this will still group hours to the planned start date.

      If I have a task that is 40 hours and 5 days long, I want the report to show 8 hours a day not 40 hours on the planned start date..

      M
      ManuelBa
      Level 4
      September 14, 2020

      Unfortunately, you are absolutely right :-( All information I got from Workfront indicates that only the native planner view allows to cut down the tasks. I'd love to find a way here, as the planner doesn't fit our needs.

      Doug's solution is excellent, albeit expensive.

      Doug_Den_Hoed_AtAppStore
      Community Advisor
      Doug_Den_Hoed_AtAppStoreCommunity Advisor
      Community Advisor
      August 31, 2020

      Thanks for the details, Manuel: that approach works well for tasks with short (i.e. <1 day) durations, since the Planned Hours will all be "lumped" into either the Start Date or End Date, depending on which you've decided to Group By (Planned Start Date, in your case). To avoid double-counting Summary Tasks, I also recommend filtering to only numberOfChildren = 0 assuming that those "leaf / bottom / child" Tasks is where the Planned Hours are configured.

      Matt and Sara, if your Tasks are mainly of a short duration (and/or close enough), Manuel's technique might be all you need; but if your Tasks are longer and you need the concept of having the time "spread" throughout the duration, you could either try an Assignment report (provided you assign all tasks, ideally 1:1 to a single role and user), or as I'd mentioned above, consider our Capacity Charts solution, which handles all that and more (e.g Schedules, % Role apportionment, PTO, etc.)

      Regards,

      Doug

        M
        ManuelBa
        Level 4
        August 31, 2020

        Hi Doug,

        great remark! Indeed, the task duration remains an issue for our solution. In our case, the have a monthly tasks for each user and do monthly reporting.

        I love your Capacity Chart add-on, it's the perfect solution! However, the pricing makes it interesting only for a high number of users.

        S
        SaraTo1
        Level 2
        September 14, 2020

        Workfront does spread out planned hours based on duration and # of users/job roles, I am not sure why the thought train here is it lumps it in the beginning? You can also distribute the % of planned hours among the users assigned. Have you explored the Resource Planner tool? That will show by Project, the Planned Hours in each Week, month or Quarter of the duration of a project. You can see multiple projects at once depending on your filters, export, see by User or Job Role. You will need to setup Resource Pools, but there are lots of help articles on how to do this.

        M
        ManuelBa
        Level 4
        September 14, 2020

        I always got the statement from Workfront, that the hours are all in the beginning and are only distributed when the resource planner loads. Consequently, we couldn't find a way to have the information used in a report.

        The resource planner is probably helpful in some environments, especially when the employees are managed on a day-to-day basis. As we plan in 'days per month' over a timeframe of '>6 month', the resource planner doesn't fit the needs and unfortunately it cannot be adjusted. Consequently, we need to access the information with a report.

        M
        ManuelBa
        Level 4
        September 21, 2020

        After a presentation by Doug I got convinced that he has the perfect solution available… basically, it's now just a matter of the business case to justify the extra spent.

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