"Work On It" Button and Commit Dates

[KirstenHe]

Hi, Whenever you click the "Work On It" button, the commit date of a task is set. Then if the planned completion date changes, the commit dates remains. I understand this just fine. However, if a user didn't want to set a commit date on their tasks, do I advise them to not click the "Work On It" button? Seems weird, but I don't know of a way to click that button and not set the commit date. Thanks! Kirsten Heikkinen Trek Bicycle Corporation

[SkyeHa]

yes. That's what happened here in my instance: people just started telling each other not to click Work on it. It's exactly as weird as you might think ("don't click on the big orange button that practically begs to be clicked on"). -skye

[MichelleJa]

This is why we require our workers to avoid looking at commit dates. We show them how to default their work view and projects to see only planned completion dates. Every now and then the work view will flip back to commit dates, and I then get questions of why their dates don't show correctly. I really wish we could turn off that selection in the Sort By drop down. Michelle Jackson Colony Brands, Inc.

[EXP_-_DustinMa]

Hello Kirsten, That is precisely how Workfront was designed. The Work On It button sets the commit date and the owner's status on that object. You may also notice the Assigned To box on the object itself may be yellow or blue. Blue indicates that it's still "open", regardless of the status of the request. This happens when you are the object owner, and someone else has set the status to closed. The other person changed the object status, but it did not impact the owner 's status. Conversely, an object owner may complete a work item, and someone else may find something else that needs to be done. The owner has already hit "I'm Done" and the box has turned yellow, indicating the owner status is complete. That other person then sets the status back to In Progress for example, but the box is still yellow. The task status is changed, but the owner status is again unchanged. I hope this info helps! Thanks, Dustin Martin Assigned Support Engineer Workfront

[JimBr1]

Thanks Dustin - as a long time WorkFront user/admin, I deal with 'should I work on it or not' all the time. Commit dates are a neat feature that lets an SME commit to the planned date but it has 2 major downsides that makes the value of the feature 'questionable'. Downside #1 PM (nor Admin) can't easily remove the commit date if a plan needs major re-work - for example a project starts, a solid plan is built and execution begins. Then for whatever reason the project is put on hold - let say the funding dried up for 3 months. Once the project restarts the projected dates all move out, the PM can change the planned dates but ONLY the person that said "work on it' can change a commit date (unless the PM/Admin goes thru the hassle/gyration of removing the assigned resource and then assigning them). Invalid commit dates can cause project and condition states that are misleading and oftentimes result in the 'you are late' emails that become noise and are disregarded, (and which make true you are late messaging get lost in the crowd further diminishing their value too). I am not advocating that the PM can say - 'here is your commit date' - but it would be nice if an admin or project owner could easily clear the commit date - one by one or en masse when needed. Hint hint - enhancement request. Downside #2 If I am the project owner and in the process of building a project I assign myself to a task and if the project is in requested, assigned, or current status, I just committed to the planned completion date. That would not be so bad if there was an easy way for the project owner to submit and accept a commit date change without having to drill into the project task and make the change (request) and then approve the request in the update feed. Yeah, I know, be careful don't assign it until the work is defined (start, end, direction, etc) but that distracts from the issue - managing commit dates is tough in WF and seems cumbersome to me. An oh yeah, If I need to re-plan the project - I have to make the same request on all of my tasks the same as every other assigned task owner - downside #1 - rears it ugly head again. In short ,commit dates are nice but they have some flaws/unintended consequences that prevent them from being really useful and they are tough to manage. Jim Brown FujiFilm Medical Systems, USA

[EXP_-_DustinMa]

Hey Jim, That is a great idea, I've heard clients bring it up multiple times over my tenure at Workfront. Have you submitted it as a feature via the Idea Exchange? I'm sure it would get votes. As for the second part, that's controlled by a check box in your profile called " Send work I assign to myself to my Working On tab". Uncheck that, and you won't see that happen anymore. =) Hope y'all have a great week! Dustin Martin Assigned Support Engineer Workfront

[GiselleSeo]

There is an idea on the exchange ( https://experience.workfront.com/s/idea/0870z000000PSAKAA4/detail ) to allow admins to disable commit dates which is set to "PLANNED" (for when? who knows, but it's something.... woo hoo!!!!). Giselle Quintero Cross Country Home Services

[DavidCo3]

That's really exciting to see that something might finally be done about Commit Dates! I'll do a very happy dance around the office when we can finally disable them entirely! David Cornwell

[DougSa]

Disabling them completely would make me happy. They confuse people who think that they are the planned completion date, and they don't adjust if you move back a planned completion date. Douglas Sampson Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond

[RyanCa]

I'd love to disable the "Work on it" button completely. If i assign a task to someone (or group) and that task is now ready to start - it should just start. by forcing users to click work on it it affects not only the commitment information but also the project information because it's adjusting the projected completion dates which means that the project status' are not accurate at all. I would love it if we had a toggle to remove the "work on it" buttons complete since well we don't allow our teams to re-negotiate work time or delivery dates Ryan Carroll Integrated Marketing Services

[bpilarski]

I would also love to see the "Work On It" button go away. Our work structure is dashboard based and too often tasks assigned to users don't show in their dashboards until they click on Work On It, which they have to switch over to home to do. Then I hear many complaints about how they can't bulk activate them. We have also have alot of tasks that have a season long duration because we don't know and can't possibly plan a date on which they will be done. I set the planned completion date to the end of the season, but the user assigned to the task needs to keep changing the commit date in order to remember to do it triggering a ton of unnecessary notifications of commit date changes. An example of would be an action that needs to be taken when a specific event happens in a game (a goal by a specific player, a hat trick, a short-handed goal, etc). We have no way of knowing when that event may or may not happen so after every game the commit date for that task gets pushed to the next game date. Having the ability to disable commit dates would remove this problem for us. Barb Pilarski

[Exp_-_AnnaAs]

Thank you all for sharing your use cases around the Work On It functionality and the commit date. The idea exchange request is marked as planned since we are currently investigating the ways we can provide better user experience with the Commit Dates and Work On It button without breaking the functionality for the companies that do use that functionality. I will be conducting some more research and might reach out to you for more details if necessary. Thank you again for you patience while we are working on this. Anna Asatryan Workfront

[GiselleSeo]

Thanks Anna! Giselle Quintero Cross Country Home Services

[BarryBu2]

By the way, anyone following this we've been completely hosed by this being 'delivered'. The option is to hide the commit date, but the logic still applies. If a user clicks 'work on it', the commit date still overrides the projected completion date. Only know there's no mechanism for even the user to correct it. I suggested anyone interested in not having their planning made meaningless by commit dates pops over and lets Workfront know that putting a carpet over a dead budgie doesn't remove the smell of dead budgie.

https://one.workfront.com/s/idea/0870z000000PSAKAA4/detail