Workfront Certified System Admin Spotlight: Andrey Popov, JLL

[kynabaker16]

Continuing our spotlight series on Workfront Certified System Admins, we're getting to know @Andrey Popov‚ today. Congratulations on your achievement, Andrey!

Workfront: What was your background before learning Workfront (super technical, lots of project management, or totally something different)?

­Andrey: Prior to becoming a Workfront administrator at JLL, I worked as a technical consultant helping clients deploy, configure, upgrade, and manage their Atlassian instances (mainly JIRA and Confluence).­­

Workfront: In two sentences or less, how does your organization use Workfront?­

­Andrey: There are 6 separate Workfront instances at JLL and the way each one uses the tool differs slightly. Our flagship instance uses Workfront for project / portfolio management i.e. project planning, work assignment / time tracking, budget / expenditure management etc., however, we also utilize Workfront for intake processing, budget planning, and reporting.­­

Workfront: What is the Workfront accomplishment you are most proud of?­

­Andrey: Part of the challenge of working for the enterprise PMO team is looking for ways to improve the PM experience with the tool and help these folks save time on routine tasks. This typically involves developing and implementing solutions using out of the box tools (like custom fields, views, reports, and dashboards) as well as various custom Fusion-powered processes. One example of a custom Fusion-powered process my team developed earlier this year is something we call ACE; it is responsible for automating the creation and update of a historical record of monthly project costs by tracking all hours and expenses logged to the project, breaking down costs into the Capex and Opex components, and aggregating the CY total to the project. By our estimates, this process helps our teams save over $100k / yr in PM costs and vastly simplifies monthly project cost reporting.­­

Workfront: How will being Workfront system admin certified change things for you?­

­Andrey: For me personally, the Workfront system admin cert is a badge of honor and a confirmation of my understanding of the tool and its capabilities. I believe that the Workfront certification program is a great final step for folks that have some experience with the tool and are looking to take on Workfront administration as part of their job.

Workfront: If you could time travel and go back tell your newbie-Workfront self anything, what would it be?

­Andrey: The best way to learn the tool is to setup a series of challenges that resemble real life scenarios and try to solve them using only what is available within Workfront out of the box (i.e. no Fusion). Start with something a bit more basic, then move on to more complex problems.­­

Workfront: What areas of work management do you consider yourself an expert in?

¬≠Andrey: I’m not sure about the term “expert”, however, at this point I feel like I understand the capabilities and limitations of the tool well enough to be helpful. I spend a good deal of time developing and enhancing our custom Fusion-powered processes and building custom reports / dashboard as such I find the API Explorer and Workfront Knowledge Base very helpful as reference materials.

¬≠Workfront: Finally, as a fun way to get to know you, when you get snacky and need a quick treat‚Äîwhat is your favorite “vice”?

­­Andrey: Hot and Spicy Chex Mix