Project Charter vs. Business Case

[SusanPf]

Any PM's use project charters within Workfront or do you utilize the business case and add a custom form if need be? Any input would be wonderful!

[EricLu2]

Hi: We do a project charter outside of WorkFront. We don’t use the Business Case for much, because by the time we create the project in WorkFront, its already been approved by the business. Sorry! Eric

[Mohini__Mini_Si]

We converted our Project Charter, which used to be a Word Document, into a custom form and use the request queue for all projects that are to come to us. We aren't leveraging the Business Case area at the moment.

[MargaretVa]

But are you able to print a nicely formatted version of your Charter? Margaret VanGulden Cross Mediaworks, LLC

[Mohini__Mini_Si]

So far we haven't had the need to print our Charter, but for other requests that need to be printed we just run a report and export it and that's been working well for us so far. Mohini (Mini) Sinha Excelsior College

[NickVi2]

Hello, We are also considering converting our project charter from a Microsoft Word template to a custom form within Workfront. Creating the custom form is pretty straightforward. Where I am struggling is trying to figure out how the project manager can send the project charter ( custom form) to the project sponsor or any other user for approval within WF. Is there a way to route a custom form for approval? I am not seeing a way... Does anyone have any tips or recommendation on how to do this? The only workaround I can think of is right clicking on the custom form, saving it as a PDF, upload it to WF and route the PDF to the user for approval. I have submitted a "https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115008511733-Routing-Custom-Forms-for-Approval" new idea if anyone thinks it's a good idea, please vote. Thank you! Nick Vivanco

[MarcieLo]

Hi Nick, We actually recently made the opposite change. We were using a custom form for our Project Charter because it made the completion of the document easier for our PMs. However, the custom form is harder to export and get approved. We switched to a Word document that we send within Workfront to be approved or commented on. When you add a document and tag someone in it, you can check a box requesting approval. It does not have to be a PDF. This process is working well for us because we have the nice exportable Word document but can also facilitate discussion and approval through Workfront. Marcie Long Members First Credit Union

[Dr_DougWi]

The debate between custom form and Word form is quite common. Both are correct depending on desired use. However, custom forms in system design should be used more often for reportable fields that do not change over time. For example, the key reporting fields project name, short description, sponsor name, project owner name, desired deliver date, and some key other fields would want to always be available directly instead of being in an attached file. Information fields supporting justifications, historical reasoning, proposed team members, and other non-reporting fields would be better in an attachment. In practice, both should be used. Review the Workfront fields for what is available on the project. These include project owner, project sponsor, rough budget, planned dates off the task plan, planned hours estimate off the task plan, and others. Custom fields like fiscal year, fiscal quarter, funding sources, general ledger codes, and others are added for summary reporting needs. The word document then gets these fields and others that have been exemplified in many Internet examples. It is important to delineate the custom form fields will be those that rarely change for essential reporting while the document fields may vary over time. I love this topic when looking over how many project management teams work to solve this common usage debate. Doug Williams