Reporting Project Template Updates

[MorganHatcher]

Has anyone found a good way to report on Project Template Updates? Since there is no update stream, not sure if it is possible to see when a field or assignment has been updated on a template task? My next step is seeing if Data Connect can offer any insight, but wanted to check in Workfront reporting offered any solutions. Thanks! 

[KellieGardner]

I've asked Workfront Support this before, and there is no way to track or see changes to a Project Template. 

[-JC]

@MorganHatcher @KellieGardner you could always run a Template Task report for all active templates in your system and then have the report sent to your email inbox on a regular cadence. That way you could at least review the differences between two reports, if you noticed either a template or a template task's "Last Update Date" has changed. It's not perfect but would at least give you a way to dig in.

We use this trick mostly for a Report report to track changes to report filters (and include the View, Filter, and Group definitions as columns). It also provides a handy backup if we've not realized something has broken down, and the lower environments have already been refreshed. 

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Hi @MorganHatcher,

For Templates that warrant the following scrutiny, I invite you to consider:

• periodically creating a "Template Audit XYZ Project As Of YYYY-MM-DD" from Template XYZ (at that point in time)
• mark that Project as (the built in) On Hold to preserve its default template settings (at that point in time)
• creating a Template Task Report (similar to what @-JC suggested) to compare that Project against the Template
• Highlight any (or only, ideally by filtering) those differences

In this fashion, you will effectively be creating your own audit mechanism, in a repeatable manner over time as official Template improvements occur.

I happen to be working on some advanced Template related research right now, so if you'd be interested in discussing this topic further, invite you to email me via doug.denhoed@atappstore.com

Regards,

Doug

cc: note to self @Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore 

[MorganHatcher · Accepted solution]

Thanks for all the suggestions! Unfortunately these templates have upwards of 750 tasks with multiple custom forms of data, so manual auditing would be difficult. We are instead just going to lock down the templates to just view and have Fusion do any and all updating. 

[kautuk_sahni]

@MorganHatcher Just checking in — were you able to resolve your issue?
We’d love to hear how things worked out. If the suggestions above helped, marking a response as correct can guide others with similar questions. And if you found another solution, feel free to share it — your insights could really benefit the community. Thanks again for being part of the conversation!