Task visibilty for multiple assignees, assigned Teams, and assigned Roles?

[LauraCr]

Hi all,

I'm looking for information on how task visibility works for assignees. To explain:

I have project managers in a dept who regularly assign 10-40 assignees to the same task. Their reasoning is that the task is shared, and they want their team members to each work on a portion of the task as able.

They don't want to assign using a Team, because they say when one person on the Team chooses to 'work on it', then the task disappears for everyone else - they want it to remain visible. This is our sticking point: allowing multiple persons to work on a task and have it remain visible to all until fully complete. 

I am wondering if assigning to a Role produces the same behavior as assigning to a Team? Or if it will provide the visibility they are asking for. Or, if someone has solved for a similar situation and has insight? Our current process is playing havoc with reporting & resource managment, not to mention just being able to view the project task list.

Thanks! -Laura

[RandyRoberts]

First, what do you mean by visibility? Are you referring to the tasks showing in their home area, My Work or My Tasks widget, or something else?

Also, IMO assigning a task to multiple users is a really bad idea as it makes any kind of resourcing or hour tracking completely useless.

[LauraCr]

Hi Randy,

I am fully in agreement about the multiple user assignments, which is why I'm trying to solution for this; the teams are exporting hours to excel sheets to do workload management and hour tracking as this current method prevents it from working in Workfront itself. I'm trying to eliminate this process so we can set things up 'properly', but this is the sticking point.

Their working process is to have tasks open to multiple people to 'grab and go' - if someone is free, they find an open task and do it. So the entire team is assigned to each task, but individually by name rather than using an actual Team in the assigned to field.

I've been trying to recreate their complaint situation but haven't been able to: that when a Team is assigned to a task, if one person hits Work On It, the task disappears from view - pre-New Home that was the Work List view, now it would be the My Work view. 

Part of what I'm trying to find out (since I've never been an end user) is the behavior of tasks for users:

• If there is a task with multiple assignees in the Work List/My Work, does it drop out of that list for all other assignees when one person clicks 'work on it'?
• When that person clicks 'Done with my part', does it show up again?
• Is the behavior/visibility the same whether a Team is assigned or multiple individuals?
• Is it the same if a Role is assigned?

Thanks for the response! I completely understand this is more a user behavior modification issue, but I want to try all options before telling them they have to change that

[Sven-iX]

Hi @LauraCr 

So there are cases where a task may be assigned to multiple people, e.g. "do prep for presentation". You do this to let anyone who contributes log their time. When they say "Work on it" it doesn't affect other assignee's Work Lists.

On the other hand a Team assignment is used when you have a team that "pull work off the stack" - similar to your case. It's intentional that when I say "work on it" on a team task, I take it on, I own it now as the only assignee. That means the team is no longer eligible to see that as open, unclaimed task. 

My suggestion is to look at a report that shows all tasks assigned to this team - instead of relying on the Home area. (I think they mean the "work assigned to my team" - that widget shows only tasks that have not been claimed).