Project Number Help

Thanks Eric, but all objects have an reference # (projects, tasks, files) and therefore not appropriate for us. We are looking for #s like 170001 (year and increasing digit)

Ah, okay. Yeah, you are right, there is no capability available. Search the forum for this topic, however, I remember people offering ideas on how to generate something somehow. There was prior discussion on this you might want to see. Thanks! Eric

Hi Katharina, You might like to upvote this on the idea exchange. https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115001218447-autonumber-field-docket-numbers

Hi Amy. We actually open projects in Webvantage (a different software tool) that generates a project number. We have it sync to Workfront and it gets populated through a custom form for the job number. This probably won't work for you (unless you have Webvantage already), but the way we have our process set up might be helpful in rethinking your process/structure! We actually have a team of 3 who are our "designated project openers" (AKA Admin Team). We actually do not let anyone else in the company open projects. We created a "new project request queue" with a custom form attached to it. When the project managers submit the request, it is routed to our admin team where someone will pick up the "ticket" and process the new job request. We manually add the 4 digit job description to the end of our project names. For example.. Billing Flag - Client Name - Project Name - ### R - Rockfish - Website Redesign - 1234 We continue to increase the number by one each time. We always know what number we are on because the Admin can easily go to the All Projects tab and view all existing projects and sort by date opened so you can view the last number used to identify the project. Hopefully that wasn't too confusing. If you're interested in this at all, feel free to email me and I can help explain further! In Reply to Amy Zakrzewski:

We've been using the reference number for a project as an identifying job number since our implementation. This was working OK--but after only 6 months in, the number is already 6 digits long, so we're on the hunt for another solution. Does anyone have any recommendations on how you populate job numbers that don't require a manual effort?

Up-voted the solution here: "https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115001218447-autonumber-field-docket-numbers">https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115001218447-autonumber-field-docket-numbers Looks like it's hit critical mass and will be decided upon by Workfront within 30 days. Greg Troester CHG Healthcare Services, Inc.

@Greg Troester , the link in your message just point directly to the main idea exchange page. If you are referring to the autonumber idea "https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115001218447-autonumber-field-docket-numbers">https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115001218447-autonumber-field-docket-numbers we're at 44 votes! Just 1 more vote to get them to consider it. Regards. Polly Co

We had 55 votes and Workfront said that this is something that they won't roll back now. Their reply: Thank you for your interest in this request. We used to have the numbers generated based on the objects, but we got requests from several customers that it was creating problems due to reference numbers not being unique. The requirement was to have unique reference numbers even within different object types. As a result we changed the logic, so it won't make sense for us to change it back. We apologise for causing inconvenience on your side. I just wonder, 4 years ago, whether the user base has changed. Obviously there's demand from current users that's not being met. They can keep their current reference number but there must be a calculated field that can be attached to reference the specific project object only! Polly Co

I agree, Polly. I didn't interpret the request to roll back the functionality - the existing object-independent Ref ID should remain as is. There should be an additional object-dependent Ref ID created. The two are not mutually exclusive. Very disappointing! William English

Our team required unique identifiers for projects and it involved a two letter code that identified the requesting group and the request ID which we wanted to identify the year and month the request was made. With the help of our onboarding consultants we created the following field on our custom form. It takes the requesting group and fills in a two letter tag and combines it with year and month and then just uses the last three numbers that workfront automatically assigns to objects in the system. Field Label: Project ID Format: Text Additional Settings Calculation: CONCAT(RIGHT(YEAR($$NOW),2),if(MONTH($$NOW)<10,"0",""),MONTH($$NOW),RIGHT(Reference Number,3)) IE: UD1802345 New Line Art Accessible Maps I removed all the specifics around our specific requesting groups so you may be able to play with creating a field in your custom form that captures the same data. We just copy and paste that Workfront generated number into project name field so that it is stationary because if you leave it in the custom form...A) its harder to find and B) it isnt static and will change when the month changes. I'd love to chat more if anyone has any questions. Tamara O'Brien Integrated Marketing Communications

Not discounting what you've done for your instance but I think the main requirement is it's a sequential number. If it's just uniqueness, we would and could just use the current reference number but as there is no real logic to reference numbers as it pertains to a specific object, what we're asking for is a field that is sequential and tied somehow to the project/object. Basic use case, when somebody says 18-4512 in relation to 18-3001, we know that project 18-3001 happened before 18-4512. Can't say the same for 18-ABX235 and 18-4XB128. Polly Co