Project Task - Change Log

[LeeanneFr]

Hi! Does anyone know if WF allows the capability to track when a task due date was changed? We want to understand how often our project timelines shift from the original set timing to adjusted timing.

Thanks!

Leeanne

[ChloeRo]

Hi @Leeanne Francis‚ !

You'd probably need to pull a Journal Entry report for this. These reports can produce A LOT of results, so you definitely want to make sure your filters are as specific as possible.

If you want to look at all the times that the Planned Completion Date is adjusted, you'd set the filter to Journal Entry >> Field Name Equal plannedCompletion Date. You can accomplish this filter through Standard Mode, but if you prefer Text Mode, here's the code:

fieldName=plannedCompletionDate

fieldName_Mod=cieq

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I strongly advise you to add additional filters like Project >> Status Equal Current or even Journal Entry >> Entry Date Greater than Equal $$TODAY-3m (or whatever timeline you want to look at) just to limit the results that come back. ($$TODAY is the wildcard that determines the current day when the report is refreshed. -3m is saying today's date, minus 3 months. You can find more information on the $$TODAY wildcard here). Another filter option would be to only display results where the new date is later than the old date. That filter has to be done in text mode, so here's the formula:

newDateVal=FIELD:oldDateVal

newDateVal_Mod=gt

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Keep in mind - Journal Entry reports will show you the timestamp of any activity that meets your filter criteria, so if the Planned Completion Date is adjusted for 30 tasks within a project, this report will show you a row for all 30 of those adjustments. That said, it might be helpful to group your results by Project Name.

You can customize your columns to display whatever other information you need. In your case, you may want to add columns for "Old Date Value" and "New Date Value" so you can see what the due date was adjusted to. If you want to get really technical, you can do a valueexpression column that would calculate the # of days that the Due Date was adjusted. The caveat is that you won't be able to sort, group, or apply any conditional formatting to that column since it uses valueexpression. This would be the code for that and I included the option for you to do Weekday or Calendar Day calculations:

displayname=Weekday Diff

textmode=true

valueexpression=WEEKDAYDIFF({oldDateVal},{newDateVal})

valueformat=HTML

------------------------------------

displayname=Cal Day Diff

textmode=true

valueexpression=DATEDIFF({newDateVal},{oldDateVal})

valueformat=HTML

------------------------------------

If a planned completion date was changed to be EARLIER than the previous date, you'll see a negative value in that column. If you only care to get the # of days, regardless if it's early or late, then just encase the valueexpression formula in ABS() which will give you the absolute value and remove the negative sign. ex: ABS(WEEKDAYDIFF({oldDateVal},{newDateVal}))

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Hi Leeanne,

In addition to Chloe's Journal Entry suggestions, on a going forward basis, I invite you to also consider using this Targeted Auditing technique to capture a log of such due date changes, and/or a Baseline Task report to visualize them. If you like the latter, you might also be interested in our Create Baselines solution, which can can automatically create a baseline for multiple Workfront projects on a scheduled basis...such as "nightly, on any project where a commit date has changed", ensuring you have a complete history of every such change at your fingertips.

Regards,

Doug