Using Workload Balancer.....before a project is created?

[Christina_Jarosz]

We would like to use the Workload Balancer for resourcing but it seems challenging to do so without first setting up a project.

Is there a way you are currently using the WB from that perspective? There's  many variables to a project, including review points and project type. 

There has to be an easier way.

[skyehansen]

WLB works because tasks (and issues) with a duration and planned hours set on them, are assigned to users and roles. With this in mind, this is all you really need to represent projects. For example, if you said "our projects are all a month long and involve one project planner and one designer for the entire time", this could be as simple as a task that is a placeholder for a project, set to one month duration, and assigned to a planner and designer for whatever hours are needed. You would just need to remember to delete your task as you (finally) create your projects, so that you're not duplicating hours.

Obviously if your needs are more complex you would move onto using placeholder projects with sets of tasks that represent those rough durations and hours, deleting them when your projects are actually created.

[Jason_JB]

We experienced functionality gaps with Workload Balancer for scenarios similar to this. We ended up using a mix of custom build & some cool reports from @Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore .

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Thanks @Jason_JB,

@Christina_Jarosz  would it be possible for you to describe what you do have to work with from a resourcing perspective so we could then look for an  "easier way"" (such as the minimalist guidance @skyehansen offered)?

Regards,

Doug

[Christina_Jarosz]

Thanks everyone! @Doug & @skyehansen here's where we run into challenges.

We have a content creation team, a design team, a quality assurance team and project coordinators (internal to our Dept). Additional parties that are impacted/included in the schedule are internal business stakeholders, external partners, legal, and compliance teams. 

So we may receive a request for a flyer explaining recent legislative changes that is due....I don't know, June 15th. We have to back into that date....so if there is a need for partner approval that adds 10 days to project schedule, Compliance, adds 3-5, If it needs leadership review/approval before it makes it to those, that's another 3 days. 

So if a flyer schedule 'traditionally' takes soup to nuts 24 days....its impossible to say....the content team always has Day 1-3, Partner always has Days 12-22, etc. 

If it's needed by June 15th, we may have have to negotiate that the content team has to move quicker than what we traditionally allot them of 5 days. We might have to cut that down or extend it accordingly. 

There's no easy way to say 'Flyer A is usually 24 days, so we need to look at days # to # to see who is available at that time. 

The only way I can forsee that happening is by taking every request that comes in, converting it to a project before it's even reviewed....and THEN ask for resources. 

[skyehansen · Accepted solution]

I don't believe that changes my answer. Sorry! Workfront is just very black and white about how it works -- so using WLB means you would have to set up the project with whatever you call the bare minimum. So for example with the flyer schedule, you would have your 5 tasks:

1 content team role 1-3

2 unidentified team role 4-8, predecessor =1

3 unidentified team role 9-11, predecessor =1, 2

4 partner role or leave blank if they aren't included in your system 12-22, predecessor =1,2,3

5 unidentified team role 23-24, predecessor = 1,2,3,4

Then create your project. While mulling it over, you decide that you don't need the partner so you delete task 4. Your tasks are set to ASAP so task 5 now starts on day 12.

Long story short: yes -- to use WLB, you take every request and convert it to a planning project before it's reviewed. If it gets cancelled after the review, then that's what happens.