Rules for Project Statuses

[SamanthaIsin]

I'm getting a little frustrated with my workers not being able to change project statuses. We have 2 project managers and 35 creatives so we rely on designers to keep most projects moving. They're often the project owner, but because we don't want to give them all planning licenses they can't manage their own projects. This makes things difficult in a lot of way, but one of the most frustrating is that they can't change the project status.

Is there a way to set rules for the project statuses? For example, if a task is marked as in progress then the entire project is marked as in project? Or is there a way to give owners or project permission to manage said projects no matter what their license is?

[AnthonyIm · Accepted solution]

Hi - yeah, if they don't have plan licenses, they won't be able to "manage" the project which includes statuses. Besides the API, the only option I can think of is for them to tag the PMs and have them update the status. We do that on tasks for agencies that don't have the budget to give everyone a paid license. So the creative will just tag them in a status update saying the task is done so the PM can close the task since their license doesn't allow that.

[SamanthaIsin]

That's the answer I was afraid I was going to get. Thanks Anthony.

[MoniqueEvans]

We had a similar issue and to work through it we created a custom field for more specific Project Statuses so that the team lead and project coordinator can easily see where the project is. We also set up a report for the project coordinator to easily pull any project that needs the status updated to Dead or On Hold based on the custom status. This report sends to the coordinator every Friday and they update all the projects at that time

[SamanthaIsin]

Thanks Monique! This is very helpful. Can you share what that custom field looks like? Is it built into the task level?

[MoniqueEvans]

Ours is on the project level. The field is called Project Status (although that gets confusing so I would suggest a different name) and the drop down choices are various project stages such as 1st Pass, Revisions, Waiting, Pre-Press, etc.

*If you wanted it on the task level you should be able to use native Workfront functionality with task statuses since workers can update those.

[SamanthaIsin]

That's exactly what we need (on the project level). How did you do it?

[MoniqueEvans]

It's a custom field on the project's custom form.