Task owners causing issues in reports

[LauraO_1]

Hi - My organization uses "hotsheet" meetings to review what's on everyone's plate for the next few days in two departments, any timing changes, things to note, etc. We've pulled together a report that serves this exact purpose (tasks with planned start OR complete within today-1 and today+2, showing tasks only containing these departments, etc), but we've discovered a MAJOR problem. The report is only showing a task if the TASK OWNER is one of the selected departments, not just one of the assignees. We don't use task owner at all (still not sure what the purpose is), but it would be a burden on the project managers to ensure that on every project, and every task, IF there is one of these departments on the task that they are listed as the task owner just to make sure this report functions correctly. Does anyone 1. know the purpose of a task owner and 2. know how we can avoid this default? Happy to share the report if that helps! Laura O'Malley Operations Manager precisioneffect Boston, MA

[KirstenHe]

Hey Laura, What criteria specifically are you using in your filter to pull "tasks only containing these departments"? Kirsten Heikkinen

[LauraO_1]

We have a custom field for every user that is "department." The current filter I have is include tasks that CONTAIN "editorial" which is one of the departments I need to pull in. I found that if i use EQUALS, it only shows up if the're the ONLY assignee, but I could be wrong. Below is a screenshot of the many filters i had to use to get this report to [almost] function as we need it. This report has the below section repeated many times to include both planned completion or planned start as filters, in addition to the 3 departments i need on this report. It's a LOT of filters! Any advice? LAURA O'MALLEY

[KirstenHe]

Instead of using Assigned To > Department (first filter in the screenshot), have you tried using Assignment Users > Department? Assignment Users should find tasks assigned to users who aren't the task owner. Kirsten Heikkinen

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Hi Laura, As per to the Workfront Glossary Assigned To In a Task or Issue report, this field displays the Owner of the task or the issue, or the Primary Assignee. You can filter or group by this field, as well. So (interpreting a bit), among your multiple assignees, one must be set as the Primary Assignee (which by default is the first Assignee, but can be edited via Advanced Assignments). The Primary Assignee is also known as the Project Owner, and for reporting purposes, is automatically set in the assignedToID on the Task (or Issue). To see all of the Assignees, you can either then enumerate them in a single column (unsorted, with limited formatting), or rebuild your Task (or Issue) report as an Assignment report with one row per Assignee (duplicating Task information on every such row). A couple of years ago, one of our clients who, like you, had attempted to create their own Hot Sheet using the built in reporting, but wanted something more logically sorted and terse than either of the above could provide. So together, we designed and then created our "https://store.atappstore.com/product/hot-sheet/" Hot Sheet solution, which efficiently distills the upcoming work down to those tasks planned to finish (or overdue) within the next 3, 4, or 5 business days across all projects, by every program within an entire portfolio, which invite you to consider. Regards, Doug Doug Den Hoed - AtAppStore

[LauraO_1]

I think that did it! Thank you! LAURA O'MALLEY

[MikePe]

If I may, I thought I might add that Assignment Users will show ALL assigned users on the task, including the Task Owner. I only mention this because when I first started using it I thought I needed to filter by both the Assigned To AND Assignment Users to capture every assignee, which isn't the case :) Mike Perez