Personal Time-off

Hi: Is it your thought that if the result of your formula is non-zero, the duration/planned completion date is incorporating PTO? I think so, just checking to see what you think… Eric

Hi all. As a partial workaround whilst we wait for some enhancements, I have produced a calculated field which displays how many work hours late a task will be compared with its original planned completion date (based on the planned start date plus duration). Just put this field on a task form (and attach to tasks), then add it in a view or report and then filter for any tasks with negative values in this field. SUB(DIV(Planned Duration,60),DIV(WORKMINUTESDIFF(Planned Start Date,Planned Completion Date),60))

Hello David, Thank you for sharing this Idea. I have voted and hope to see it come to fruition! In Reply to David Cornwell:

OK - here is the feature request....please vote for it if you want these PTO / Task Scheduling improvements. https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115004807108-Alerts-to-Project-Owner-when-Time-Off-Calender-entry-impacts-tasks?page=1#community_comment_115000276134

OK - here is the feature request....please vote for it if you want these PTO / Task Scheduling improvements. https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115004807108-Alerts-to-Project-Owner-when-Time-Off-Calender-entry-impacts-tasks?page=1#community_comment_115000276134

I really like that suggestion Eric. It would be nice if there could be some indicator or formatting on a field to show that it is being impacted by a user or schedule. Perhaps something for Workfront product management to have a think about :) I will look through the feature requests and add one if needed.

Hi: Yeah, it’s a pain. The problem I saw with using calculated dates is that, well, it recalculates. I’m not sure how to have a formula that calculates once and only once. IF YOU COULD, you could have a date called “Planned Completion Saved”. It equates to the Planned Completion Date until you force a recalc. You could run a report that shows all tasks when the Planned completion date isn’t equal to the saved planned completion date. Actually, that’s really how baselines work. We simply compare the baseline to current forecast to see those tasks whose planned completion date has moved out. I would really like an indicator or something that says this planned completion date includes the impact of one or more assigned resource’s PTO. Best wishes for working out something! Eric

Hi Eric - We are also having issues where a resource submits a new PTO entry and it moves a scheduled task which they are assigned to, and nobody knows.....it is not even in the Journal records that the due date changed!. I arrived at this thread today and I also would like a report/view which does this. I realise that baselines are an option, but from my understanding it should be possible to use calculated columns, but I don't know how to put it together. As an alternative, I could extract the task Start and End dates, and the Duration and then work it out in Excel, but I hope someone here could help do it in Workfront. Cheers

Hi Lisa, In addition to my esteemed colleague Eric's advice, here's a snipped of an email I sent to a client late last week related to this same "PTO visibility" topic: I’ve been giving this some more thought. My assumption in my last email was that you wanted to load upcoming time off into each user’s Personal Calendar. Upon reflection, though, I would not recommend you use the PTO feature within Workfront. Although convenient and easy, it is relatively hidden from a capacity planning perspective, and cannot be authorized for approval. For those reasons, the best practice is instead to create a special Project (or Projects) with Tasks representing the Time Off Requests, which then are visible and considered in capacity planning, and can be authorized for approval. And in that case, if your Accounting System “knows” those (possibly approved) upcoming time off events, yes: our Excel Updater could easily load that information into Workfront, provided we create some sensible conventions for the Project(s) and Task names. That said, perhaps you were wanting to load actual time off that has occurred, as hours. If so, same solution - Excel Updater - but in that case, loading Actual Hours (with special Hour Types, such as “Personal Time Off”) under - I’d suggest - similarly sensible Project(s) and Task names. Huh: you could do both, too, come to think of it. Let’s add this to our agenda for our next meeting. Regards, Doug

Yes, I share your concern. Here is where surprises happen. A PM will say I have a task that should start on work day 1, has a duration of ten work days, and finishes on work day fifteen. The PM can’t figure out why there are five extra days in the task. Eventually the PM will discover that someone assigned to the task has Time Off declared in the middle of the task, so WorkFront silently and clandestinely adds the amount of the Time Off to the duration. No flags, nothing that tells you WorkFront added that time in. I figure someone could write a report that adds the duration to the planned start date and then calculated the DATEDIFF between that calculated end date and the WorkFront calculated Planned Completion Date. If there is a difference, it is probably due to someone having Time Off within the duration of that task. Thanks! Eric

I found a way to provide PTO visibility to managers. I am more concerned with notifying a project manager when time off is impacting a Project schedule. Lisa Lisa Schliker Business Systems and Process Lead Certified LSS BB BOSE Product and Communication Design Creative Services Office: +1 508 215 0304 Mobile: +1 978 771 6111