Removing the Subject field from the Request form

[Exp_-_VazgenBa]

Hey everyone, >Renaming the Subject field on the request form is currently one of the top-voted items for the Idea Exchange. We are currently debating an option to automatically generate incoming request names using a predefined naming convention and remove the Subject field from the request form altogether. There are several options we're thinking of for the naming convention, so your feedback will be invaluable for us to understand whether we are close with our hypothesis or completely off track. If you could please fill up the form below, that would help us immensely!

[William--]

Wow, it's hard to believe that a single word in the platform could cause this much response, but here we are! I voted twice - once for Title (since I previously suggested that as an option) and again for Request Name (which is perfectly fine). Like most admins, I'd love to customize this term on a per queue basis, but we've gotten this far without that feature, so I don't mind waiting a little longer. I've pulled a report of all new issues entered yesterday. Out of 70 requests, three users entered their own name in the field and the rest followed our naming convention. Ideally it would be zero, but I would not say the sky is falling... I will take this opportunity to share my advice for managing this kind of change: 1. Use your Announcement Center to announce changes! We have a little over 2000 users, most of them requesters. I don't want to send an email to someone who made a single request eight months ago, but I do want to communicate changes to more frequent requesters. So in the People section, I find all users who either haven't logged in more than 3 months, OR have never logged on more than 5 times. I select all, then turn OFF their notification preference for "A message is sent to the Announcement Center." Then I find all users who have logged in at least once during the past month, or more than five times ever. For them, I turn ON their notification preference for the same event. Then, I can send a message to "Everyone" in the Announcement Center describing the changes that are happening, and in this case, it went to about 600 of our 2000 users. This doesn't solve world peace, but it is a proactive step that will help reduce confusion when presented with change, at least for some users. 2. Preface your custom forms with descriptive text. "Subject" was never a perfect name for the field, so I start forms off with descriptive text that tells the user, "In the 'Subject' field above, please enter the ______________ for this request (where _________ is the ideal name for the field). And, I can add details about the request in general, typical SLA, which documents should be attached, and any other information to help the user correctly submit their request. With this change, all I needed to do is update that descriptive text to say, "In the 'Name' field above, please enter the _________ for this request. (Don't enter your own name, we know who you are üòÄ)" I know several admins who already takes these steps, and I'm not suggesting they solve this issue entirely; but certainly it helped to restrict the amount of confusion in our instance down to about 4% of requests; where it could have been much higher. William English T-Mobile

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Sage and constructive advice, Sir William. Duly knighted. Regards, Doug Doug Den Hoed - AtAppStore Got Skills? Lend a hand! https://community.workfront.com/participate/unanswered-threads

[FeliciaBr]

Can we please get the "Name" field reverted to "Subject" - or as others have already suggested "Request Name" or "Request Title"? Most requests we are getting today have the submitter's name in that "Name" field! Lots of rework - this has become my whole day's work, instead of actual work. Felicia Browell FedEx Ground

[Heather_Kulbacki]

Thank you William! I'm saving these two tips. I always struggle on the rare occasion that we use the Announcement Center when it comes to who to send to. Your method is genius! We use descriptive text for some of our custom fields, but I hadn't thought of it (or previously felt I needed it) for the default fields at the top of a request. I may even use the Request Queue Project's Description field on the overview tab to add a note about this field right at the very top of the request. I feel like the majority of my users wouldn't go back and change what they had already entered in that field once they come to the descriptive text down in the custom fields.

[AileenTa]

I'm wondering why this didn't at least get posted to the Product Announcement section or posted as a product announcement? What is Workfronts process for notifying customers of changes? The last announcement I received was June 6th. > Aileen Taylor Cell Signaling Technology

[Exp_-_VazgenBa]

Hi everyone, Thanks again for all the feedback! The goal of the change was to reduce confusion yet it appears that we introduced more of it. Thanks for your active participation and monitoring the situation with the end users as well. We will revert the change next week and I will continue investigate potential solutions to this problem within the general research towards enhancing work intake experience. If you wish to connect with me on that research topic, here is my Calendly link that can be used to schedule a call on my calendar directly: "https://calendly.com/vazgenbabayan/feedback0dot5h" Link Thanks,"https://calendly.com/vazgenbabayan/feedback0dot5h" Vazgen Babayan Product Manager Workfront

[Angie_S]

I'm so glad to hear this is going to revert! Got my first request titled with someone's full (middle initial and everything!) name this morning, ha ha. Admittedly it's not someone that uses Workfront a ton but she is a repeat requestor so I find it interesting that she didn't question the field change and just charged ahead with entering her name. Happy Monday, everyone! Angie Simon CUNA Mutual Group

[JonathanTh]

Hi All Just to add our take on this, we have now had an influx of requests that have used their actual name in the name field. Again our requestors have minimal/no training in order to put a request in to us so even a slight change like this causes us issues with the quality of information we receive. A custom label for this field is what we require if we have no control over changes like this, or a calculated field based on what we are asking to be filled out on the form. Glad to hear it is being changed back in the interim. Thanks Jonathan Thain BT Group

[BobSl]

And I'd like to re-iterate and expand on what others have said - 1. This change should never have been implemented into the live environment, and it concerns me deeply that Vazgen, and presumably others have the ability to make this change without any further oversight, which should have stopped him when he proposed to deploy straight into live. What could have been the impact if this was a malicious insider attempting to damage the product? 2. What BT want (and it appears many others feel the same) is the ability to rename the Display name of ANY field to something which makes sense locally (we can do this in reports, so why not in forms) 3. Some method of generating an auto-created request name may be of use to some companies - but it must be optional and in control of the local administrator, as must the removal of the "Subject" field (or whatever the local admins have decided to call it in their instance) Most importantly I'd like to know urgently how Workfront are going to make sure this type of untested change cannot happen again Regards Bob Sleigh BT Group

[karena14306314]

We are experiencing the same issues. People are now putting their own name in for the project. I can see changing the name of the line, but not to the generic "Name." Project Name or Project Title are more descriptive to what is needed. This change is causing an unacceptable amount of work as we now have to rename every project request. Please either change it to one of the above or allow admins to rename the field themselves. Thanks for listening, now I'll wait for your doing. Karen Adams Karen Adams MK - Marketing and Communications

[CalvinFold]

To add to Bob Sleigh's comment #2: Rename any, or at least more off, the system fields so they'd be more useful. I already think it's cool we can rename so many interface elements, this would be a plus. Something that has had limited traction in Idea Exchange that could be implemented at the same time is the idea of a "coding field name". Don't know the proper term, but it's the idea is the field "name" that the user sees (which in our case is often long-winded sentences or questions) is separate from a behind-the-scenes name we can assign. So for custom fields I could have a field "What is the expected customer response?" but I can customize it's name when doing reports and calculations to "cust_response" or "custResponse." For system-level fields, this coding name could be displayed and greyed-back to show the admin what it is, but not change it, for example. So "Subject" could be renamed "Title" by admins, but might remain "wf_Subject" behind the scenes. Kevin Quosig

[karena14306314]

We are experiencing the same issues. People are now putting their own name in for the project. I can see changing the name of the line, but not to the generic "Name." Project Name or Project Title are more descriptive to what is needed. This change is causing an unacceptable amount of work as we now have to rename every project request. Please either change it to one of the above or allow admins to rename the field themselves. Thanks for listening, now I'll wait for your doing. Karen Adams Karen Adams MK - Marketing and Communications

[TamBo64]

Yes, this. Our people are confused by the Name field We would have issues if the name generated the same thing for each request - need them to be unique. The consistent task names are already an issue in the scheduling area and some lists. Like Skye mentioned We need the auto numbering option for job We would find value in connecting to pre-existing field on the custom form as Skye mentioned. I read that Workfront will be reverting this change. Not sure where that leaves all those that requested a change, not likely this change, but a change to that field. Tammie Bouchard National Safety Council

[TamBo64]

Hello @Vazgen Babayan , I have completed your survey here. To provide the requested feedback, we're in the process of onboarding our internal power-requesters (soon) and this change was made right before their training session - prior to that it was testing and introduction. I met with them last Friday and warned them about this change and they seemed to get it. Then I met with them again today to do the walkthroughs of them submitting requests and their presumption for that field was to put their name. Like Skye mentions below our end users/stakeholders also will likely avoid training and won't then get clarification on that field. At minimum put a descriptive alt/hover text for them to see what is needed. Tammie Tammie Bouchard National Safety Council

[JonathanTh]

As we are on the subject, I know this has been asked in the ideas exchange, but it would also be a great help to be able to embed this field and the other "Queue Specific" fields (such as Attach Document) into the main body of our custom form. It would make the form we are asking users to fill out a lot more logical...…. Jonathan Thain BT Group

[MoniqueEvans]

We haven't run into this issue yet but I definitely see it coming, since some people were already putting their name in the field before the renaming. Monique Evans Stanley Black & Decker, Inc.

[JohnSe1]

Vazgen - as you know I am a huge supporter of the "Subject' change ;-) -- Just not this way, especially with no communication. A few of our more seasoned groups have user guides that call out Subject. And as many have hinted at above... many user's have entered their name. and not to pile onto this topic - BUT I will ;-) in our areas many users have been stressing out over this change, so it will be "nice" to see it revert back. BUT some harm has been done with this quick change - in that now other teams are asking or telling me: oh I thought this field couldn't be changed -- but now it is and we want it to say XXXX. Or as many have said here (and I voiced during our leap chat) it would be great to grab meta data from the queue topics and maybe even a custom field from the form -- but in general make it very custom as its an important field. So how far along is your team on a new Request system/page/form/look and feel? okay 'vent mode' off :-) John Seitz DTCI | Disney | ESPN

[BrandonNW]

To piggy back on Kevin Quosig's suggestion, can we not just add customization to this field name? That way every organization could name it whatever they wanted. Brandon Pritchard System Administrator iNHouse Marketing - Nationwide pritcb1@nationwide.com

[VincentGo]

Lol! This explains why I've been seeing a bunch more requests with the requestor's name as the title. Vincent Goodwin The Capital Group Companies

[SteveWe1]

We've also seen a number of requests come in with the requester's name in that field. I opened a ticket with support and this is what they had to say: This change was made from Subject to Name to provide consistency with the rest of the system, specifically New Project screen when creating projects from the template. I would recommend adding your complaint if this causes confusion for your users in our community. Currently it is not customizable. I will be closing this ticket now, but let me know if you have any questions. I'm assuming this post is the first step to getting this ridiculous nomenclature changed. Good luck to all! Steve Werner CentraState Healthcare System Freehold, NJ

[MartaSo]

Same here I am afraid. Changing Subject to Name just doesn't make sense. That is really confusing my users. Marta Sowa Sky Betting and Gaming