Workfront Release Management for System Admins

[KeeganWa]

Hi, We are new to Workfront and I am a fairly green System Administrator. Release 2018.1 will be our first time going through a Workfront release and our first experience handling updates in a cloud-based environment where we don't have control over the release schedule. We have the System Administrators located in Central IT and several end-user groups using the environment in different ways for different Business Units, etc. Looking for some advice or links to best practices for handling these Workfront new feature releases in terms of things like: Testing Communication to end-users Training for System Admins and for end-users Also, if there is some etiquette I should know about using these community discussions, please let me know - this is my first post! Thanks! Keegan

[DavidCo3]

Hi Keegan, Welcome to the community. I usually do the following for each release: Review all the videos regarding the new features / replacements of functionality. Read documentation for key areas being changed. Test everything that you expect your business to use in your preview sandbox as early as you can. You may well find critical issues which need to be raised with Support and resolved before the release is deployed. In some cases these features are held back based on this sort of testing by customers. Make a short-list of the key features and benefits that will affect our users. Group these by benefits for regular users and for project managers. Send this list out in advance via Workfront Announcement and also by email/intranet to tell people what's coming and when. Release days are usually not too eventful. For us, the timing when the update is applied is sometimes during our business day (which we don't like) in AsiaPacific but it generally only causes a few issues for an hour or so and is usually not too critical. In the past we had some bigger issues though. In summary, test stuff yourself, and manage the change (sell the benefits) with your end users. Cheers, David Cornwell

[VicAl]

Hi Keegan, Welcome! David already had a great response. I'll just tag on the training link - "https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002107634">https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002107634 This would be for you and your users. There are many courses and course styles to choose from depending on how you use the system and what you want their focus to be. Vic Alejandro, PMP, CSM | IT | Sr. IT Project Manager Denver Water | t: (303-628-7262) | c: (303-319-6473) "http://www.denverwater.org/"> http://www.denverwater.org INTEGRITY | VISION | PASSION | EXCELLENCE | RESPECT

[KeeganWa]

Thanks very much David and Vic for the helpful responses! When you test for a release, do you just test the new features that might affect the end-users or do you also test things like custom forms that might differ from the default Workfront setup? I assume Workfront does their own extensive testing making sure all the existing Program/Project/Task/Approval/Reporting/Setup etc. functions continue to work with each release. Keegan

[EricLu2]

Well said, David, I do much the same thing. I also attend the release meetings that WorkFront holds. That gets me up to speed quickly. Thanks! Eric

[VicAl]

Hi Keegan, Yes WF does their own extensive testing too. Of course like any software roll out it doesn't always prevent issues. In fact, their last release they had to roll back some changes that are coming back out in this release. So keep an eye out and believe your eyes and your users if something looks wrong. On our testing, we haven't typically run a Regression Test to see if something else broke, we just test out the new features and keep an eye out for other weirdness. I'm not saying this is a best practice, but it's what we've done over the last 3+ years and it's generally worked out well so far. Did I just jinx it? �� The exception was for major API changes. We have about 80 API jobs that run daily. So when they change the API, I have a little test bed I set up in WF that allows me to run a decent Regression test and it only takes a couple of hours to set it up and run it. Vic Alejandro, PMP, CSM | IT Program Manager Denver Water | t: (303-628-7262) | c: (303-319-6473) "http://www.denverwater.org/"> http://www.denverwater.org INTEGRITY | VISION | PASSION | EXCELLENCE | RESPECT

[BMO-bvs]

Hi Keegan, I'll just add two comments to the well-rounded info already provided: When communicating new features to your users, keep in mind that sometimes Workfront will pull back on releasing features very close to the release date (or as Vic said, they may roll back after releasing). We've been caught in the past announcing new features only to have WF pull back and not release them. This is another situation where the squeaky wheel gets the grease. If there are things you dislike, make sure to communicate them -- but do the same if there are things you like! This is something we're learning now as well. With this release, we've decided to be more vocal in the Community as well as share our feedback with our customer success manager. Barbara Sedlack BMO Financial Group

[KeeganWa]

Great tips - thank you Barbara! Keegan