Product Communities

The Connect2Lead blog series quotes researchers and authors Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner’s definition of leadership as, “the art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations.” They later quote Bernard Montgomery, a British military hero, saying leadership is “The capacity and will to rally people to a common purpose together with the character that inspires confidence and builds trust.”  Have you ever wondered which community members are leading enterprise work transformation in their organizations and contributing to the overall growth of Workfront One? If so, then look no further. Now you can see a list of the top 100 contributors on the Workfront One community.This community leaderboard updates in near real-time and awards points for all of the things you’re doing here in the discussion forums. This pulls from all of our groups, not just the All Discussions groups. So if you don’t see a conversation in the All Discussion groups you want to chime in on, ch

Anthony Imgrund is a Project Manager at Foote, Cone & Belding (FCB), one of the biggest advertising agencies in the world. He’s been with the company for 13 years and is also the System Admin for Workfront, where he spends about 75% of this time managing the agency’s global instance of Workfront. He also works on FCB’s SharePoint 2013 environment and a custom tool for the New Business team. Anthony lives in NYC, and loves theater and music. He recently presented on resource management in a Workfront Virtual User Group for creative agencies. Read on to see how this customer has found some unique ways to work around and with existing functionality in Workfront. How FCB is using Workfront FCB has one global instance of Workfront, which Anthony says makes his job easier. But they do have 16 different agencies and business units currently in the tool, so they rely heavily on Workfront’s group functionality to separate those business units out.  With groups, you can have

Did you know? Workfront has 70 reports built into the system to get you started tracking and measuring work! These reports are intended to provide quick and easy visibility into the relevant information about the work being done, for you and your users. Some of the 70 reports help you focus on getting work done and monitoring work in progress. Reports such as: My ProjectsProjects By ConditionMy TimesheetMy IssuesMy Submitted IssuesMy TasksTrouble Tasks Let's dig deeper into Workfront system reports: -- Video coming soon! -- To access reports in Workfront, go to the Reporting area, click the Reports tab, and then click All Reports. The list of available reports can be quite long. The All Reports list shows you every report available to you in Workfront, whether they’re the built-in reports or ones written by your users. So let’s create a filter to see just these “out of the box” reports and filter out the reports that users in your organization created.

I use Workfront to manage my work and plan my week. Take this morning, for example. After pouring a second cup of coffee and preparing a breakfast sandwich, I roll up to my desk and laptop and turn to Workfront Home and notice the late tasks still remaining after reconciling earlier in the week. I wonder - how did I let that get by me? I’m reminded that any platform is only as good as you commit yourself to it. I send a quick update to the project owner and tackle the next task.Barring my own human failings, Workfront allows me to recover quickly and communicate effectively around the work that I do - and reminds me to stay on top of things.Workfront is essentially my work information resource and planner. I am a Senior Consultant within Workfront’s Professional Services group and much of my time is spent working with customers helping them with Workfront and I take to heart the way I work and use Workfront effectively. I’ve worked with many customers over the years and Workfront helps

Making it easy to get to the information your team needs is an integral part of centralizing work and mastering enterprise work management. Consolidate key reports on dashboards for groups of users, elevate critical data points and simplify navigation to help your team quickly access relevant data and improve the user experience! Below is a list of must-have dashboards for you and your team: For the System Administrator - The Workfront Clean-up Dashboard with an added User exceptions report that highlights missing user settings. This dashboard will help the System Administrator easily find Workfront data that may need to be cleaned up, may cause resource planning issues or that can affect reporting.For the Project Manager - A dashboard that shows pertinent project data and calls out exceptions that need to be addressed will enable a Project Manager to quickly see the health of their projects, address project-specific issues and ensure reporting integrity. Consider includ

To continue the 3-part System Administrator series on people, process and technology, this week’s blog will focus on understanding your processes, from the perspective of administering Workfront. Summarized below are four key areas outlining the work management understanding that you need to have based on feedback from others just like you, who’ve not only taken on this role but have created a successful career out of it. Often the role of System Administrator will include helping to define, manage, monitor and maintain your organization’s way of working. This means that you are part of creating the overall workflow process — maintaining both knowledge and facilitation of how work gets done. To get you started on defining the baseline for your work processes, ask yourself the following questions: How is the work being requested?How is work being fulfilled?How is work being reviewed and approved?How is work completed and handed-off?How is work being assessed for value, priority, a

Every organization has at least one person who can steer things back on track when the unexpected happens to ensure that strategic plans are executed, and executed well. Whether or not that individual or team of people have the defined role of project manager, they are the ones responsible for bringing multiple departments and stakeholders on a journey, together, to turn project plans into action and to communicate all changes along the way. Outlined below are several features and solutions Workfront offers to make that job easier.  UTILIZING PROJECT TEMPLATES FOR QUICK SETUP Having a strong process before Workfront is what makes Workfront work. With a well defined and clearly diagrammed process, you can reflect that in Workfront using templates.  Customizable project templates capture all of the repeatable processes, information, and settings associated with your projects in a single place. By using project templates, similar or recurring projects can easily be cr

Training > Additional Resources > Training in the new normalWorkfront One launches Training Blog and Best PracticesTo say the pandemic has introduced new challenges to the work landscape is an understatement. “Normal” as we once knew it has no roundtrip ticket and we are faced with redefining what the new normal looks like. The Adobe Workfront Training team is pleased to announce the launch of the Training Blog as we aim to redefine how we interact with customers to provide the most relevant content for their needs.   Each month, and sometimes more, you will have the chance to explore featured content based on themes and topics written or curated by our team of subject matter experts and content developers. We encourage you to bookmark and visit the Training Blog to receive updates on on demand content or new live training offered by our training delivery team.  Featured Content Best Practices As they

Workfront offers numerous features and functions to help organizations transition from ad-hoc to strategic work management. It is simple to get started, simple to quickly progress and scale and simple to measure and show value in your work. Knowing where to start, how to identify and streamline current processes, and ensuring all users are on the same page are some of the challenges many system administrators face. The Setup area is where the foundational design of the system is built, but during implementation this part is often handled by a Workfront expert.  To provide you with the building blocks for success, this week will kickoff a Workfront is Simple series starting with the most important aspect — people. Below, user management best practices are broken down by license types, access levels and user organization. LICENSE TYPES License types — Plan, Work, Review, Request and External — are the first level of access on a system level. They define what a user can or can

If you were to spend a few days at the Workfront offices watching us work, attending our meetings, listening to our conversations, you may be surprised about how much of the conversation is about you. Your experience with our products. Where your team is going in the next 3, 5, 10 years and what their modern work management needs will be. We are intensely focused on delivering what you need – in our product and through your interactions with us. As a company, we have spent the last year identifying how best to do this. The framework of our conversations has been your customer journey. I’d like to give you a brief example of what a customer journey is by telling you about the person credited with inventing it, Jan Carlzon. In 1981, Jan Carlzon became CEO of the problem-ridden Scandinavian Airlines. At the time, the airline was near the bottom of the list for least punctual airlines in Europe, losing $17 million per year. Remarkably, Carlzon turned the airline around in one

Within your projects, each of your tasks have a Planned Start Date as well as a Planned Completion/Due Date. Typically these dates could change for multiple reasons such as dependencies, delays, or changes in prioritization. As you change dates in your project plan, you might want to understand how your current project plan compares to the plan, let’s say a week or two ago. That’s where baselines come in. Baselines are a snapshot of your project plan and key pieces of information. These snapshots will allow you to compare information from the current plan, to the original plan, or any other point in time, to identify problem tasks, scope creep, and other trends over time. See more on baselines here.  Calculating ‘Slippage’ is a way you can see how each individual task compares to the original Project plan. This requires you to capture at least one baseline for a project. The specific baseline you want to compare your current project to should be marked as the “Default Baselin

Oftentimes, similar information is requested by multiple users, teams or departments. Rather than creating individualized reports for each user who reaches out, alleviate duplicate efforts by applying date and user-based wildcard filters. Wildcards can be applied to report filters so the results are dynamic and change based on the context in which they are used. Date-based wildcards, $$TODAY and $$NOW, allow for results to auto-update based on the dynamic date range entered in. Common examples include this week, last month or next year.User-based wildcards generalize reports so the results change based on who is logged in and viewing the report. While there are several variations, the most commonly used is $$USER.ID.Below are 3 simple, yet must-have reports for team members using wildcards. Click on the name of each report to download a 1-page guide with step-by-step report creation instructions. Then, share the reports with users who are typically assigned work, or add them all t

To highlight and share key data across the organization, from team members to executives, we encourage you to take advantage of three key report features — conditional formatting, running reports with the access rights of another user and automatic report deliveries. As you continue to build on your reporting knowledge, these will be a great addition to your skillset. Let’s start with conditional formatting.  Conditional FormattingCharts are not the only way to tell a story or surface important data. Conditional formatting can be applied to single cells or entire rows so that when column rules are met, specific information pops out. Formatting options include text color, text format, text alignment, background color, icons and custom text. To learn how to add column rules to your reports, read through the article, Use Conditional Formatting in Views.Run a Report with the Access Rights of Another UserBy default, users can only see objects in a report that they have permissions

Work management in Workfront is summarized in 4 simple stages — initiate, evaluate, execute and measure. To continue the Workfront is Simple series, this week will focus on additional setup functions, actionable best next steps and recommendations for enterprise work management — including gathering and intake of work requests, tips and tricks for better project management and sample reports to allow for better visibility into all of the above. INITIATE AND EVALUATE WORK REQUESTS  Workfront request queues are designed to help you create a single space to gather and manage all work requests, allowing for better planning and fulfillment as well as collaboration across teams and departments. Leveraging request queues to manage demand is a core Workfront Best Practice. To get started, you must first understand how work is coming in. List out the various intake channels — email, Slack, meeting takeaways and desk drive-bys — and then outline, diagram and document your workflo

It’s been a few months since Workfront was acquired by Adobe, and the overwhelming consensus from the media and from industry analysts is that it’s a fantastic match that will benefit both companies and our customers. Some of you have reached out with your thoughts, which I sincerely appreciate. Many of you have expressed enthusiasm as you are customers of both Workfront and Adobe, and can see the potential of the partnership, and some of you have expressed concerns. I wanted to share my perspective on the benefits for not only Workfront customers, but Adobe customers as well. I’ll start by saying the people that you have grown to love from Support, Customer Success, Account Management, Professional Services, Training and more are still part of the Workfront family and dedicated to your success. We hope that engaging with Workfront over these last few months has been the same, if not a better experience, than it was prior to our joining Adobe. Expect this to keep getting better.&n

The holidays and the end of the year are near, making it a natural time to tidy up the toy shop. Here are three best practices you can quickly apply to improve your Workfront hygiene, to help you and your team be optimized heading into 2020. Change your password Following good password management practices is critical to keeping information secure. If you haven’t changed your password in a while, now is the best time. Workfront has a dedicated section for authentication, accessible by system administrators. You can force users to change passwords after a certain number of days, determine how strong user passwords are required to be, and select how long users will be locked out of Workfront after entering an incorrect password five times. Learn more in the article, Configuring Password Policies for Authentication.  NOTE: These settings do not apply if your organization uses single sign on (SSO).  You may want to recommend your organizat

Training > Additional Resources > Training blog > No “hacks” needed when you have Workfront I’m constantly amused by the “life hacks” videos out there. Although they keep me entertained during late-night social media browsing, from what I've seen, none of them actually make the task at hand any easier. In fact, some of them seem pretty complicated. And let’s face it, I just don’t have the time or patience for that.  At work, I often manage multiple projects at a time, plus complete assignments from projects my teammates are managing. But I don't need “work hacks” to make my work life easier because I have Adobe Workfront!  The content development team manages ALL of its content creation through Workfront—videos, learning paths, product release updates … even this blog post. We’re big proponents of the saying, “If it’s not in Workfront, it doesn’t exist.” (Someone really needs to make T-shirts with

A responsibility assignment matrix (also known as a RACI matrix) is a common tool for communicating roles and responsibilities on a project. The intention of using a RACI matrix is to clearly communicate who is responsible, who is accountable, who should be consulted, and who should be informed throughout the life of a project.This article discusses what to consider when building a RACI matrix in Workfront as well as some of the trade-offs that come with different approaches.Where to Build Your RACI MatrixThe first consideration to make is where in Workfront should your RACI information live. I have generally seen two approaches to RACI matrices while working with Workfront clients.RACI fields added as custom data to projects. This approach makes sense for projects with shorter schedules or projects planned at a lower level of granularity. As a general rule I recommend planning projects at a milestone level when getting started in Workfront. Less project tasks means less overhead for u

Ready to take your reports to the next level? For quick access and improved visibility, add multiple reports to a single dashboard. To get started, complete the Create a Dashboard learning path on Workfront One. Benefits of DashboardsDashboards allow you to add multiple reports to a single page. If there are multiple reports that would be beneficial to you or to your users, add them to a dashboard and share the dashboard with anyone who needs access. That way, all information can be accessed with a single click or even pinned to the navigation bar. Keep reading for more information on pinning dashboards! Adding Reports to DashboardsWhile you can populate dashboards with reports, calendars and external pages, we will focus on adding reports, as that is most common. You can add a report to a new or existing dashboard directly from the Report Actions dropdown menu or you can create the dashboard first. If creating the dashboard first, in the Dashboard Details area, select the re

In every organization, the key to delivering projects on time is hitting deadlines. However, you know that mistakes happen, balls get dropped, and speed bumps in workflows are often unavoidable. Ensuring your team can handle those speed bumps requires having a flexible, yet streamlined, workflow and a collaborative communication process. Utilizing proofing in Workfront to create automated review cycles allows your teams to be more efficient and thereby have more time to focus on strategic and creative tasks and milestones—helping to both solve for and alleviate those speed bumps so you can get the work delivered on time. Proofing in Workfront streamlines your workflows for digital content—with real-time collaboration and automated tracking. Your team can collaborate more and deliver error-free work, faster. This week’s blog focuses on the benefits of automating review cycles and provides recommended use cases or best practices to get work out the door quicker.  GETTING START

If your business runs on a fiscal year calendar like ours does at Workfront, you are entering budgeting season for 2021. It’s the time of year when everyone looks at the investments they’ve made, and the returns those investments have yielded.  As the person at your organization who either owns Workfront, or is highly involved, you may have had goals this year of having complete visibility of your organization or team’s work in order to make better, data-driven decisions. Maybe you had a goal of changing the balance of work from “run work” to “strategic work.” Or to get more done with less. The list goes on.  As you near the end of the year, you want to look back with pride and share all the great value you’ve brought to the company. And as you look to the future, you want to set goals for 2021 that will propel your team to even more greatness. We want that too!  Peter Drucker, a management consultant, educator, author, and arguably one of the best business minds of

As a remote employee, each day starts the same way (after the long trek down the stairs to my office). I first open Workfront Home to see what tasks and issues need to be completed “today”, what new updates did I receive and what is in the line-up for the remainder of the week. Then I open Gmail and Slack to evaluate new messages received. Am I being asked to do something?; 1) If yes, and it can be done in less than 2 minutes - I do it, 2) If yes, and it will take longer than 2 minutes to do, it is deferred or delegated. With either it is put into Workfront as a task or issue on an existing project, entered as an ad hoc task, or turned into a new project. Assignments are either self assigned (deferred) or assigned to somebody else (delegated), 3) If no, it is either “filed for later”, or “deleted”. All communications received during the normal work day are evaluated the same way.This is my way to ensure I get all my work in Workfront. I fully believe that work that is not in Workfront

Workfront’s robust reporting capabilities deliver real-time data to help improve accessibility, accountability and analytics within your organization. They surface critical data to help support strategic discussions and speed up the decision making process, hold users accountable for assigned work, identify process gaps or bottlenecks for future improvements and highlight team, group and individual successes. The tools may seem complex, but when broken down into segments, are easily digestible. To help guide you through understanding the importance of surfacing data, how to collect and present it, and what reporting features will improve visibility and drive business outcomes, we created a 6-part series with recommended actions. Visualize the DataEffective reporting provides insight and motivates action. Visualizing data before it goes into Workfront will prevent digital clutter and establish guiding points as data is entered into the system. Before you can start building rep

Is it convenient for you and your team members to easily find, quickly manage and accurately measure work in Adobe Workfront?Reports and dashboards aren’t just a measurement tool in Adobe Workfront—they can, and should be leveraged as a work management tool to improve productivity, drive visibility, increase communication and identify problems before they happen.Becoming a reporting expert takes both time and practice, so start small and complete the training on Workfront One. Then, take action on the following two items to ensure your organization starts off on the right foot towards maximum effectiveness. Getting startedWe know there is a lot to learn, so if you haven't already dipped your toes into the possibilities that reports and dashboards offer within Adobe Workfront, look no further than the Basic Report Creation learning program on Workfront One. This self-paced training course is comprised of 9 different learning paths, each focused on a different aspect of reporting. Take y

Where is the first place you, or your users look for new, in progress or completed work? For some of you that means navigating to the Home area and for others, checking a dashboard that has been applied to your layout template, and still for some it means receiving an email notification to proceed.  No matter how you manage your work, Workfront offers a variety of ways to help. It is important that you find the option that works best for you and your team, but be advised that what works best for you may not be the case for your users, so keep that in mind as you look to drive adoption across the organization. Below are three recommended ways to help users find their work with detailed benefits of each.  HOME A one-stop shop to find tasks, issues, and approvals assigned to you, the Home area offers two different ways to view your work — a Work List or Calendar. The built-in filter and sort options support you in working the way that you want, including giving you an option