Project Briefs - How have you integrated this in WF and What is your process?

[NarothneeJe]

Hi everyone,

Currently, we have created project briefs as a custom form at the "program" level of a project where it lives in "Program Details".

Reference: https://prnt.sc/vvnr46

The issue is, we work individually on projects at the project level so it's not efficient since we have to always go back to the program level to reference the brief.

Reference https://prnt.sc/vvnsn6 > Reference: https://prnt.sc/vvnu86

Ideally the brief of a project lives within each project (in the left hand pane) and when updated, updates for all programs.

Let me know how you are briefing your team in Workfront, and how the workflow is for you.

Thank you very much!

[AnthonyIm]

Hi - have you looked at creating a Project Campaign Brief custom form that would use Calculated Fields to reference Program info?

Like on our projects, we have a calculated field to bring in the Portfolio Name and Program Name in case we need them on Matrix reports.

It is easy as you just do Program, a period, and then the label name of the field.

Examples:

Program.Name

Program.Campaign Description

Hope that helps.

[NarothneeJe]

Hi Anthony,

Thank you for the feedback, I will follow-up with WF on your suggestion to see how we can take advantage.

Best,

[DebbieSc]

Interested to know how others handle this as well. We currently use the Program method as well, but it does cause additional clicks to go find that information when you are working within the projects of that Program.

[NarothneeJe]

Hi everyone,

Just a quick update that at the moment, WF does not have the ability or solution to allow custom forms created at the program brief level to display on the projects as well.

Thank you!

[AnthonyIm · Accepted solution]

Hi @Narothnee Jean-Pierre‚ - here is a solution I just remembered from my 2018 Leap Presentation. Originally I did it because we couldn't export a custom form, but I think you could use this to help your situation.

Create a project report with all the Program's custom fields referenced you want, follow the instructions in the attached deck, add the report to a dashboard, go to setup and then layout template, and attach the new dashboard to the project in the access level.

This means anytime you are in a project, you can go to this dashboard and it will pull in the information for the program of the project.

I will warn you, the report sucks when you have to make any edits. But my team found it very helpful until we got the ability to export the custom form last release.

[NarothneeJe]

4 months later....lol.......thank you Anthony!

This is the approach that we are going with. It is a pain in the butt, however it makes the most sense for us.

The only drawback is if any information is updated on the program level, it does not update automatically on the projects.

How do you combat this? Do you just delete the forms at the project level and place them in again?

Best,

[NarothneeJe]

4 months later....lol.......thank you Anthony!

This is the approach that we are going with. It is a pain in the butt, however it makes the most sense for us.

The only drawback is if any information is updated on the program level, it does not update automatically on the projects.

How do you combat this? Do you just delete the forms at the project level and place them in again?

Best,

[NarothneeJe]

4 months later....lol.......thank you Anthony!

This is the approach that we are going with. It is a pain in the butt, however it makes the most sense for us.

The only drawback is if any information is updated on the program level, it does not update automatically on the projects.

How do you combat this? Do you just delete the forms at the project level and place them in again?

Best,

[AnthonyIm]

No! When you build the report, do it as a project report, but use Program fields (i.e. Program >> Name). That way you are always looking at real data on the Program instead of custom data on the project which only updates when the project is edited.

Let me know if that makes sense.

[NarothneeJe]

Hi Anthony,

Hmmmm.......I think I understand, but I am wondering if we are using the report in the same way because we don't use a dashboard to view the briefs, we use the actual "project details" of a template.

Would it work the same way? What I was told by Workfront is this (in alignment to how we run our projects):

Our projects live within programs. Think of programs as the SOW and the projects as the deliverables.

Because of this, the "program brief" lives at the program level (created a program custom form). When creating the projects, in order to have them pull the information from the program brief, I have to create a project custom form (project brief) as a calculated field and duplicate all fields of the program brief custom form.

Once the project brief custom form is done, I would need to add it to our templates so it can pull the same information.

And because it's a calculated field, any changes done to the program brief will not automatically update the project briefs.

Let me know what you think. Thank you!

[AnthonyIm]

Hi - so the trick is that you do need to still do a project report (not a program report). But I just did a quick test to double check, and I was able to do it referencing the Program's fields without having to put them on the project's custom form.

[ryanbrogz]

We have the Project Brief positioned at the Program level on a custom form as well. When building Project level reports, I link out to that tab specifically with a URL instead of displaying that information on the report itself. It's not perfect, but that more detailed information is just a click away for users, and they don't have to leave the report UI.

My steps were:

1. I took the contents of the custom form and made a basic report, reflecting the exact same as the custom form itself. Just did a bunch of sharecol so it looked decent visually.
2. Took that report and added it to a dashboard
3. Added that dashboard as a new tab at the Program level for all of our layouts.
4. I then built a URL to that tab in a hidden custom form calculated field on the same Program level Project Brief custom form.
   1. Calculation should be something like "https://YOURDOMAIN.workfront.com/program/view?ID=")+ID+("&activeTab=content-dashboard__THE ID NUMBER OF THE TAB")
   2. You can get the ID number of the tab using the inspector in your browser.
   3. The ID is the same across every program and every role.