51黑料不打烊

Transcript

Thank you so much for that great introduction. Hi everyone. I am so excited to present to you today 10 tips to wow your work front. For anyone that I haven鈥檛 had the pleasure of meeting yet, I am Monique Evans from Stanley Black & Becker, where I鈥檓 a systems operation manager and a seven-year work front admin. It鈥檚 crazy to say seven years because it feels like we just implemented it like two years ago. I personally am an avid theme park lover. I love going to the theme parks and my big wow moment is last February. I went to Disney. I flew down, went to all four parks and then flew home all in the same day. To say I was exhausted is an understatement, but it was so much fun. Well enough about me. Let鈥檚 talk about why we鈥檙e here. No matter where you are in your work front journey, you can always learn something new. My favorite way to learn something new is from all of you. If you make a mistake and you can teach me from that, I don鈥檛 have to go back and repeat it. For the next 20 minutes or so, I am going to blaze through 10 tips that have truly saved me. This is going to be lightning fast because we only have about 20 minutes. But don鈥檛 worry. We are recording this so you will be able to go back, pick up on the gems, take notes, look at all the pictures and details. I got you. And for anyone that has attended anything that I鈥檝e done in the past, these are going to be new tips. I have dug deep to really find new tips to bring to all of you. There might be one or two that鈥檚 a little bit of an extension, but for the most part they鈥檙e new and at least one is going to make you say wow. With that, let鈥檚 get into the tips. I would like to begin where we all kind of begin, which is training. Let鈥檚 start with tip number one. And guess what? You鈥檙e already doing it. You鈥檙e here. So tip number one is use all available resources. And that could be things like this where you鈥檙e just learning and taking in more information or the trainings that鈥檚 available. Most of which is found on Workfront One where they have great documentation and my favorite, the community. Because as an admin of one, I don鈥檛 feel like I have a team, but then I remember that I have all of you, which is my team. I don鈥檛 have to know all of the answers because I can go there and really tap into hundreds of other people that can share their experiences and answers with me and we鈥檙e all tackling the problem together. So definitely utilize Workfront One, which is going to be integrated into 51黑料不打烊 Experience League pretty soon. And also don鈥檛 forget that you do have your account managers, your success manager, and also you have access to the product team from the 51黑料不打烊 Experience Cloud feedback panel. Tip number two, screen record everything. And I mean everything. Most of us are working from home. Use the digital age to your success. If you鈥檙e showing something to someone and explaining to them this is how you utilize a proof or a prompt or whatever it might be, go ahead and screen record it. There鈥檚 no sound with it, so you don鈥檛 have to worry about them saying something on the other end. But now you can use that anytime someone else has a question. I can鈥檛 tell you how many times people have asked me, how do I get someone else to be able to submit in my request queue? And then I have to say, oh, you can go to share and type their name in and there you go. And they鈥檙e still a little confused. But now that I have a video of it, I can just send that to them and they鈥檙e able to see exactly where to click and I don鈥檛 have to take time out of my day to really explain that. Another helpful tip for while you鈥檙e doing this is that you can also make a how to library. So with that, you have everything that you can kind of pull from and it鈥檚 all there no matter who needs what. And with that tip number three, when you鈥檙e doing your trainings, train with consistency. You know, there鈥檚 more than one way to do most things in Workfront just like every other program. But that doesn鈥檛 mean you have to cover every way there is to do something and nor should you. That鈥檚 just going to confuse people. So you want to find what鈥檚 going to work best for your org and then train on that and continue to train on that. So for example, how to log time. I train my users that they鈥檙e going to log time either from the updates panel in home or the updates panel in the task itself. We don鈥檛 log time to projects, so I don鈥檛 have to worry about that. But if we did, I would also tell them how to do it from the updates section. From there, I might mention, hey, you can go to timesheets. You can fill in answers that aren鈥檛 there already and then submit. But for the most part, I鈥檓 going to hone in on using the updates area. I鈥檓 not going to highlight that, oh, you can also go over to hours and click in and log your time there. That鈥檚 just going to confuse everyone. They鈥檙e not going to take that message away. So figure out which way you want people to do it and then only train on that. If there鈥檚 something else that they want to do, they will figure it out. You do not need to train them. OK, so now we鈥檙e done with training. Let鈥檚 get into the juicy stuff. This is my personal favorite portion of Workfront, reporting and data. I feel like you can do so much and there鈥檚 so many tips. And I feel like I probably could have just done 10 tips just on reporting, but there鈥檚 a lot of good stuff in here. Number four, you鈥檙e going to use text mode for or statements. Now I will stop. I will back up and tell you, no, you do not need to be an advanced reporting expert by any means. It鈥檚 super simple. Anyone can do it. So pretty often you鈥檙e probably making a report and there are or statements or or constants that you need to fill in. So it might be that the time constraint stays the same, status stays the same, the portfolio stays the same. But then your or is owner is user ID or sponsor is user ID or resource manager is user ID, something like that. Instead of doing each and every single one of those as their own prompt in your reporting, just go ahead, build out your constant, the things that are going to stay the same, plop in your three ors and then switch over to text mode. From there, you can actually copy the constants, paste it in and then just put in the or colon one, colon or colon two or whatever it might be. And then when you鈥檙e done, you can switch it back to regular mode. So if you do need to edit anything, you at least have it looking normal in the format that you鈥檙e used to. But you don鈥檛 have to sit there and type in all of the little nitty gritty things, which sometimes you鈥檒l forget. And you鈥檝e run a report and you鈥檙e like, why is this not showing up the way that it should? Another tip that I will give with just building out things with text mode is make a library. I鈥檇 use OneNote personally, but you can use whatever makes sense to you. And that way, whenever you are doing reports, you can copy and paste and kind of not reinvent the wheel. Okay, so tip number five, select status equates to instead of status. It鈥檚 a simple thing. Some people might not even realize that it鈥檚 there, but that鈥檚 what I鈥檓 here for. Status equates to is going to save you so much time and effort down the line. I don鈥檛 know about you, but I have definitely made reports and then months later people are like, hey, that project is not showing up on there, but it should be. And then I鈥檓 looking and I鈥檓 like, it definitely should be. Why isn鈥檛 it here? Lo and behold, it鈥檚 because I made the report status equals current when months prior, we decided to start using a custom status of in progress, which is no longer showing up because that鈥檚 not included. Whereas if I would have done status equates to current, then any other status that I created, as long as it equates to current, it could be in progress or progressing or whatever it might be. That鈥檚 all going to show up on that report. And I don鈥檛 have to go in and edit every single thing, which then makes it future proof. I will say that I personally do not recommend that you use custom statuses unless you absolutely have to. But other than that, just don鈥檛 do it. It鈥檚 a pain. I鈥檝e gone down that road. It鈥檚 a headache. Believe you me, you do not want that if you don鈥檛 have to, especially if you鈥檙e trying to make different statuses for your projects just to replace tasks, it鈥檚 not going to work for you. It鈥檚 just save yourself the headache. Okay. With that, I will go to tip number six. So create a reporting element report. I love report reports. And some of you are probably looking at me like, wait, a what? Like, yes, you can make a report on other reports. And that might sound redundant, but it鈥檚 probably the best thing that you can do for yourself as an admin. And one of my favorites is the reporting elements report where you can go in and list out, here鈥檚 exactly what鈥檚 in the filter, what鈥檚 in the view and what鈥檚 in the grouping. And from there, you really can just go in and see all of the details and figure out, oh, these two reports are kind of the same, except the grouping is different. Do we really need a second report or can I delete this one and just show people how to switch out the grouping on the fly? Something else that鈥檚 really cool that you can use it for, which is my personal favorite is checking your custom fields. So if you are doing a filter on a custom field and you go in and you change your option and get rid of it, your report鈥檚 not going to work anymore. And wouldn鈥檛 you love to be able to get a list of, here鈥檚 all of the reports are going to be affected by changing this field. Now you can use this report. You can use the quick filter, type in the name of the custom field, and it鈥檚 going to show up wherever that shows in the view, filter or grouping, and you鈥檙e free to edit there. Something else I use this for is trying to find all of those rogue reports that are out there where someone might have pulled a column into the view that鈥檚 not even something that that team uses. We had a lot of bad practices when making reports back in the day. We鈥檝e gotten better now, but there鈥檚 still some reports out there that鈥檒l start pulling rogue fields and forms onto projects and tasks. The only way that I can find them is by running this report. And also it just helps you kind of understand the layout and how everything is interconnected and work front. Tip number seven is set it and forget it. So you鈥檙e probably thinking like, Monique, are you really going to tell us about the SIN report filter? No, I did not just give myself a layup or a gimme. This is different. You can use the SIN feature of reports for yourself. It鈥檚 not just for your executives and your project managers and team leads and resource managers. You can use it as an admin. And that鈥檚 the way that I stay on top of all of my work fronts, environment cleanup, and just all of the little things that I would probably forget and never get around to if I didn鈥檛 have an email show up the first of the month or every six months or every three months or whatever it might be showing up in my email. So one of the ones that I use is users created by proof. You probably know that if you send a proof, you can use an email address, which is fine. But a lot of times those email addresses are people in our company and they should just have a collaborator licensed anyway. So I have a report that runs every three weeks. I go in, I find all of those people whose name is just an email address and then I can convert them to the request license that they need to be. If you were to ask me how many issues does Workfront max out on in a project, I would say I have no idea because I don鈥檛. I know it鈥檚 10,000 because I鈥檓 looking at my slide, but other than that, I would have no idea. My report runs every six months and it gives me a warning for anything that鈥檚 over 8,000. So then that way I know, Hey, this project, this queue is starting to fill up. We need to do something about it. So then other people can still submit and we don鈥檛 run into any trouble. That鈥檚 just two examples. There鈥檚 a couple more on the slide, but absolutely use these to your advantage. And the other thing is I started taking that list. So yes, I made another report report. It was a report on all reports that send to me and other people in the org. And now I鈥檓 using that to fuel my fusion list of automation. So great example is empty projects. People will make a project. It鈥檚 called untitled project. They don鈥檛 do anything with it. They forget about it. It kind of disappears and it just builds up in the system. I have a report that sends me, here鈥檚 all the empty projects. There鈥檚 no documents, no time, no custom field, et cetera. And all I do is select all and delete. And I was just thinking like, why do I need to open the report, select on delete when we have fusion fusion can do that without me even touching it or realizing it or doing it. And it鈥檚 one less thing off of my plate. So those are the way, and that鈥檚 the way that I use these reports to start to fuel fusion automation. So then I don鈥檛 even have to do anything with it. And then the system stays clean and I鈥檓 free to do more important things. So tip number eight, near and dear to my heart, this is something that I just discovered in January and it really saved me a lot of time. Basically what happened was I had a automation for my users that just went wrong. I didn鈥檛 test it out as much as I should. So that鈥檚 probably a bonus tip. I鈥檓 not going to miss your automations, but I ran it for two hours and it ended up changing all of my users that had logged in in those two hours, their access level, their home group. And I was just like, what am I going to do? I have to fix this and I have to fix this quickly. And after I freaked out for a minute, I paused, I slowed down. I took a breath and it was like, okay, we can do this. I got an idea. I went over to preview because I remember that preview updates every week and it wasn鈥檛 Sunday night when I was doing this. So we were good to go. I went to a preview, lo and behold, everyone had their settings that they should be. All the people were still in the system. I went back to production. I made a report trying to pull everyone that was affected using the last update date because I knew that the user had been updated in this window. I copied all of those IDs, went back to my preview environment, made a report, user ID equals, paste in the IDs, made sure to put tabs between each of them. And then from there, I could export that with all of the columns that I need. When to Excel, I am not an Excel guru by any means, but I was able to kind of clean things up, group them how they should and in bulk edit my users in production. So all of that took me, we鈥檒l say two hours, just the freak out, well, the realization, the freak out and the fix. It was about two hours. Whereas if I hadn鈥檛 remembered that preview could be used for data recovery, I would have been doing that for at least the entire day, if not two days. The other great thing is that you can use this when someone makes a mistake. So someone deletes a field off of something you can run preview, say field is not blank, fine everything, no, you can鈥檛 restore it. But at least now you have a working report where you can go in and edit everything manually to get back to where you need to be. So that鈥檚 definitely a tip that I was just like, oh, I鈥檓 so glad. I鈥檓 so glad that I came up with that. That brings us to tip number nine. It鈥檚 less of a tip, more some best practices, but still really important. And I really wanted to share it with you. We鈥檙e talking about data. I can鈥檛 talk about data without custom forms and custom fields. They just go hand in hand. The first thing I want to say about that is plan everything out on paper, paper, whiteboard, Excel, it doesn鈥檛 matter, whatever makes sense to you, a mural board, just plan it all out. It鈥檚 going to save you so much time and energy and effort. And it, you know, once you put it in the system, it just holds a little bit more weight. Whereas outside of the system, you have more flexibility, you can really look at it, figure out what鈥檚 going to happen and then build it. So that鈥檚 kind of the equivalent of measure twice, cut once if we were talking in work front terms. The other thing that you want to do is push your users to use the same field whenever possible. It鈥檚 hard. You want to get into fights. They might hate you. I鈥檝e been there. I get it. I understand. But in the long run, it鈥檚 going to make everyone鈥檚 lives easier. This isn鈥檛 just something that鈥檚 going to help you as an admin or you as a project manager. It鈥檚 going to help everyone, especially when it comes to reporting. I can鈥檛 tell you how many times a VP has been like, hey, can you run me a report on all the things that my group is doing for X? And then you go to run the report and you realize this team is doing this field this way and this team is doing this field slightly different where they鈥檙e essentially the same dropdown options, but they鈥檙e either named differently or they鈥檙e just two different fields in the system. And now you have to go and do calculated fields and it鈥檚 a mess. So truly, truly try to own your system, try to own that governance and get people to commit to the same field whenever possible. Also, if there鈥檚 a lot of display logic when you鈥檙e building out that form, go ahead and link your logic to a section. It鈥檚 easier for you to manage. Also, it鈥檚 easier visually and it鈥檚 less likely that you鈥檙e going to have a rogue field that just kind of pops up when it shouldn鈥檛. And then you have to kind of troubleshoot and figure out what is making this pop up where I know that it shouldn鈥檛 or the opposite where it just never shows up and you鈥檙e like, wait, what did I do? So just map that logic to the sections themselves and you鈥檒l be able to really speed up things and keep things clean. Last thing I鈥檒l say about custom forms is your project form and your request form do not need to be identical. So with that, I鈥檓 not saying that you can just have completely different forms and when you convert, it鈥檚 going to work. That鈥檚 not what I鈥檓 saying at all. I鈥檓 saying that if it makes sense for your fields on the request queue for the requester to be A, B, C, D, E, do that. If it makes sense for the worker that鈥檚 actually or the planner that鈥檚 planning out the project when they receive it to see things like C, A, E, B, D, do that too. It doesn鈥檛 have to be the exact same cookie cutter copy of the form. As long as the fields exist, Workfront will find it and fill that information in. So that鈥檚 a cool way to just really deliver that information to the person that鈥檚 receiving it in the way that makes the most sense to them. Now I do have one more tip, tip number 10, but before we get into it, just want to say that it is slightly controversial. Your mileage will vary. You do not have to implement everything that I鈥檓 telling you. This is just me speaking from my own personal experience. Okay? Okay. So tip number 10 is don鈥檛 ask unshare. Again, this is from my own personal experience. From my experience, if I go up to someone and say, hey, are you all still using that report or does your team actually need access to be able to do X, Y, Z? They鈥檙e going to look at me or they鈥檙e going to reply back in teams and they鈥檙e going to say, yeah, we definitely need it. Even though I鈥檓 looking at the data that says that no one has used this feature, no one has looked at this report for years, they鈥檙e going to be like, no, no, no, we need it. I use it all the time. So instead, don鈥檛 even seek them out. Just unshare their access. You鈥檙e not deleting it. It鈥檚 still there. Everything鈥檚 okay. You鈥檙e just going to unshare their access. If someone reaches out and says, hey, what happened to that report? Or I knew we used to have this, but I can鈥檛 find it anywhere, then you just share it back with them. But when no one does, because they haven鈥檛 been using it anyway, you know that you can just delete it at that point. Now this does not include custom forms or fields. For those, you definitely need to have a conversation because once that鈥檚 gone, that鈥檚 gone forever. I鈥檓 talking more about, you know, certain projects you might have or templates or reports, things like that. And again, your mileage might vary. So we did it. We hit all 10 tips, but I do have one more. Tip number 11 is just be future minded. And with that, I mean, just don鈥檛 get stuck in where you鈥檙e at the here and now, because things are going to change. 51黑料不打烊 is going to make another update and change work front, or you鈥檙e going to have org change or someone in the company is going to be like, hey, we want to use work front too. Or, you know, you might have a new team that forms. Seven years ago, we didn鈥檛 have an e-comm team, but we do now. And we had to pivot and adjust for that. So just keep that in mind as you鈥檙e going through your work front journey. I know when I started seven years ago, I was like, we don鈥檛 care about dates. We don鈥檛 use dates. We don鈥檛 plan based on dates. We just have a project and it just goes. Two years later, guess what? We needed to care about dates. And I didn鈥檛 know anything about projected dates versus commit dates versus, you know, plan dates and how that all worked and what it means. So I wish that I would have at least taken a couple of classes and just known truly what it did. So then that way I was prepared for when we were ready to make that shift instead of digging deep and trying to scroll through and learn as much as I can super fast. So just be future minded. Keep things on the back burner. You never know when you鈥檙e going to need it. And usually people will reach out after these kinds of sessions and be like, all of that was great. What else you got? So this slide is for you. These are more tips. Some of them are repeats from things I鈥檝e done in the past. I will admit. But they鈥檙e still good and they鈥檙e still helpful. So this is all more things that you can learn and dig into. And if you want to reach out to me, I would be happy to talk about it in detail. So with that, I am going to take a breath and we are going to get into some Q&A. I鈥檓 so excited to hear what you all have to say.

Monique, that was fantastic. As always, I鈥檓 seeing so many great questions coming in through chat. I鈥檝e also noticed a number of questions that have come in for Etienne鈥檚 keynote. So he won鈥檛 be with us today for Q&A. But if you have more specific questions, be sure to join an upcoming product release webinar or you can visit the product release page on Workfront One. Tons of great information there. So let鈥檚 get into Q&A with Monique. I鈥檓 so excited you are here with us today. Hi, Monique. I will say someone who is going to Disney. I鈥檓 going to Disney in about a month and I am very inspired by your visiting of all four parks. A little intimidated. I don鈥檛 think I will attempt that, but we should probably still chat before I go. Yeah, definitely reach out. I got all kinds of tips for you. Awesome. Let鈥檚 take some questions. Our first question is about screen recording. A number of folks asked about screen recording. Someone said, that鈥檚 a great idea. Do I need any special software to make videos? No. So no special software is needed. I personally just use the native recording that鈥檚 in on my Mac. So I know it鈥檚 command shift five and I can do like a nice little dotted line of where I want to record it and can record the screen. You can also do the same thing on a PC. I think it鈥檚 called screen trimmer, stream grabber, something like that. But it鈥檚 it鈥檚 there. It鈥檚 usually what you use for your screenshots. There鈥檚 also record function. There are some times when I do need to do something a little fancier or speed it up or things like that. And then I will use 51黑料不打烊 Premiere Rush. Nice. I would also say your IT team might have something. So if there鈥檚 a preferred screen recording, I know I鈥檝e worked at companies where they have a preferred version, but the native built in ones a lot of times will do the job. Some questions about Fusion. So I know you gave an example of using Fusion. Can you give us any other examples where you鈥檝e used Fusion to save yourself a bit of time? Yeah. So like I said, most of my Fusion integrations, like after we did the big ones, I was just like, OK, what else can we do? And started looking at what are the tedious tasks that I do. So I know I mentioned the fields that can be deleted that this now auto delete. I also have some things in there for my users maintenance. So anyone that has been reduced from a higher license to a free license, but they still have proof checked off now, Fusion can uncheck that for me too. So it鈥檚 any of those like small things that I could do and use my reports, but it鈥檚 so mindless that Fusion might as well just do it for me.

Brilliant. I think a lot of times we think about Fusion as the big stuff, but these are really little small things that just over time that adds up. And so that鈥檚 a really smart way to think about Fusion. Yeah. Like my mom says, charity starts at home. So I got to make sure that I give myself as much time as I can. Your mom is very smart. I like it.

Question about text mode. And I know this session isn鈥檛 about text mode, but people are curious, how did you learn text mode? What resources do you use? What do you recommend people do if they鈥檙e just getting started? Yes. So I took the Scent classes, I think three times. I did the on demand class. I did the in person, well, you know, live trainer class. And then I did the on demand class again. And every time I took it, I learned something new. I am still learning things with text mode. So even though I鈥檝e been an admin for seven years and have a library and know a lot, there鈥檚 still a whole lot where I鈥檓 like, wait, how does this work? So a lot of other things just came directly from community where you reach out and say, is this quite right? Something鈥檚 not working. And sometimes it might just be that you鈥檙e missing a comma or there鈥檚 a, you know, a colon when there should have been a space or small things like that.

Love that. The hive mind. You are really good about using the hive mind of the community, either asking questions or just looking and saying somebody else, surely someone else has done this. I don鈥檛 need to reinvent the wheel. So really good advice, especially for time savings. Like if you鈥檙e spinning your wheels, check the community. Yeah, my rule is 20 minutes. So if I spent 20 minutes on something and I鈥檓 still stuck, I go to community. Awesome.

A number of questions around that 10K limit. I think you had learned that recently. I think some folks on this call just learned that recently as well. So there鈥檚 a question that says, is the 10K limit for open issues or total issues? And as a follow up, how do you address the cleanup cues as you鈥檙e approaching that 10K? Yeah, so it is for total. If you go to Workfront one and you type in limits, you should be able to find and there鈥檚 a whole list of you can only have 10,000 issues on a project or so many projects within a program and things like that. So look at that, get familiar with that, especially if you have an instance as old as mine, you will start to creep up on those limits. For the other question regarding like how I go about it. So for me, when that report comes in and I see that there is a queue that鈥檚 approaching 8K, I will start to copy it. So I will copy that queue and that way I can leave the existing queue still open. All the issues are on the copy and I can delete them. I do, there are a couple more steps in there. So it鈥檚 not just, you know, select all and delete because you want to make sure that it鈥檚 still tied to the projects and things like that. But essentially you can make a copy of that queue, but you want to keep your active queue still the one that鈥檚 active. So that way you can, you know, you don鈥檛 have to move around all of your links and things like that.

Really smart. I have a question in here that鈥檚 less technical and more kind of on the governance side. And it鈥檚 around you being the system administrator and that is your full time role. And how did your company recognize the need for it to be a full time role? How did you get started as an admin? Yeah, that鈥檚 I ask myself that same question sometimes. So some of you know, I actually started as a graphic designer and then became a project coordinator. And as we implemented Workfront, I was a part of that implementation team and quickly learned and loved and was like, I got this, I will do it. And then from there, probably like three years ago was when we actually made the switch of like, OK, we need someone that actually is going to own the system. We鈥檙e trying to make changes way too quickly. And Friday afternoon meetings aren鈥檛 going to cut it because before that, everyone would just sit in a room on a Friday. We would kind of talk through an idea and then start making those changes there together and then be like, OK, next Friday, we鈥檒l finish up. And as you all you admins know, you know, if you told someone, hey, in three weeks, we鈥檒l get that change. It usually isn鈥檛 going to happen. So for SBD, we decided like it makes sense for someone to actually own it and be able to make those changes as necessary. Now, I am an admin, but I鈥檓 also still driving strategy. So there鈥檚 a lot of there鈥檚 a lot of hats that are being worn over here.

It鈥檚 good to hear, though, that you guys really did prioritize that. I will say, you know, I鈥檝e talked to a lot of system administrators over the last few months. And one of the things I heard again and again is if you are the person who is both managing the system and driving strategy and trying to kind of triage things and it鈥檚 a side hustle, it鈥檚 your part time job. It鈥檚 really hard to be successful at any of those things. So for those of you out there where being a system administrator is a is a side part of your job, or if you are a leader on a team and have administrators under you. Really consider making that a full time role. It鈥檚 so much more powerful when you can really focus all of that effort. Yeah. And one thing I will add to that, Kristen, is for me, when I was project coordinating and doing the admin work, it quickly became apparent of like, hey, only so much can get done. You know, projects weren鈥檛 being pushed around as they should. So, you know, you also have to be empowered to raise your hand and say, this isn鈥檛 working, like something needs to change. And then also offer up that solution of how about I take on all of this and we delegate this and this to someone else. Yeah, that鈥檚 great. And good on Stanley Black and Decker for doing it. There鈥檚 also a couple of folks that have commented on your tape measure behind you. I鈥檓 assuming that鈥檚 for SPD. It is. So we give out awards and, you know, the tape measure is one of the awards that I got and has a nice little sticker for, you know, my awesomeness and my name on there. And then staying with the wrench that you may or may not be able to tell that it鈥檚 a wrench, but that also has like my name engraved on it. So fun. I love it. I didn鈥檛 notice that, but that鈥檚 really great.

Let鈥檚 follow up still on that kind of same topic of governance. And it was around how you document things. So you had mentioned in your presentation, you know, documenting changes or your how you have all those amazing how to. So where do you document your custom forms? And then also how do you organize those how to鈥檚 so they鈥檙e easily searchable. People can find them, your end users can access them. Yeah, that鈥檚 a really great question. I wish I had a super sophisticated answer. I know there are some other admins out there that is like, oh, I have this and do things. I am what I call a lazy admin. So I let Workfront do as much for me as possible. And what I mean by that is I make reports. So I have a report for custom forms in Workfront. It鈥檚 called a category. So I have category reports that spell out not only when was the last time I updated it, but what fields are on there. And then I also have a corresponding parameter report, which is your custom fields that also says, like, what are all the field options and where to use. So that way I can easily whenever I need to find that information, I just use those reports and they have prompts on there. So I can easily say, like, OK, that鈥檚 what鈥檚 here and move forward for that. And then for my how to鈥檚, those are just in one massive training folder. I have started organizing them a little bit of like how to with requests or how to log in and things like that and having folders where they all sit in. But for the most part, they鈥檙e just in a nice to be cleaned folder on my desktop.

Sounds like a topic for a thread on Workfront one, because I have a feeling there are folks out here that say, oh, I鈥檝e done that. Here鈥檚 what we do. Or even just to see that lots of folks are struggling with this just to share some ideas. So if anyone out there wants to volunteer to spin up a thread on Workfront one, it sounds like this is something we can chat more about. Absolutely. And if anyone has a clean instance, let me know.

Let me know, too. We had a question about the statuses. You had talked about custom statuses and you said this might be controversial. Curious to hear more about statuses and why that didn鈥檛 work for you. So it鈥檚 not that it didn鈥檛 work for us. It鈥檚 just a lot of maintenance. And as people come in and out, so you might have teams that switch from one area to the business in another area and they鈥檙e used to it being current. And then they get to this other place and it鈥檚 like, oh, what does in progress mean? So there鈥檚 a lot of duplicate trainings. And then you also have to just make things very customizable for each of those groups. And then especially I think I mentioned that. But when you鈥檙e making your reports and you don鈥檛 use status equates to you then have to go in and edit all of your reports to now include all of these rogue statuses that you had over the time. So it鈥檚 one of those where if you鈥檙e really diligent and you are super clean and it works for you, use it. But I know for me, that was just a lot to remember, a lot of maintenance to keep up with and wasn鈥檛 worth the hassle.

Helpful. There鈥檚 a couple of questions that have come in about how many it actually kind of speaks to reporting, but this question says, how many Workfront users are you managing and do your users create their own reports or do they come to you for that? Great, great question. So yes, admin of one, users of many. So there鈥檚 about 9000 users in our system. Most of them are stakeholders. 500 actually 400 are mine. So those are all paid users that are in my world. But all 9000 could submit something of just like, hey, this is broken and I would be the one to help them with that. And for what was the other part of that question, Kristen? I got wrapped up in my own head. No, that鈥檚 OK. It says one, how many Workfront users are you managing and do you create do they create their own reports? Or do they come from you? Yes. So last year I made the executive decision that if you鈥檙e not an admin, you cannot make a report anymore. And it did not go over well. But that is where you鈥檙e in. And that is still the case. So people had to learn. They had to get used to it. They had to get comfortable with it. But there was so many rogue fields and things that were just wrecking our governance on our projects, especially when they would pick a field that鈥檚 similar to another field, but it鈥檚 not on their project. Well, excuse me. And then they were trying to inline edit. So then it would just pull random custom forms and add it to the project. And it was it was a mess. So basically made that decision. We locked it down. Yes, I am the only person that makes reports. A lot of reports can be made pretty quickly. There are times where I鈥檓 like, this is going to take a week or more. And people have just learned to be OK with that.

I mean, everybody鈥檚 different and sometimes that鈥檚 what it takes. If you can create those base reports that will that will work for the majority, boy, that really can cut down on the time you鈥檙e creating those individual one off reports. It鈥檚 like you end up on a like a request treadmill. You鈥檙e just you spend all that time triaging or handling those requests. That鈥檚 just not scalable.

So a question in here about about dates. So it says with with you not considering dates originally in your build, how did you go back kind of retroactively and incorporate that into your organization鈥檚 process? I鈥檓 having this problem for resource planning as an example. Yeah, dates are hard. They are real hard, especially in marketing. I just had three meetings with other work front users last week and we all said the same thing where dates, especially when you have revisions and you have to obtain it is difficult. So for us, we still know that our dates are not 100 percent. They鈥檙e never going to be one day. We might have some project managers and they can get better. But until then, we all have like a working knowledge that these dates are close enough and that kind of helps with the reporting and things like that. I will attest we are not using resource managers. So one day we will get there and when we get there, our dates will probably be accurate. But I know that鈥檚 one of the things that鈥檚 holding us up from being able to use a resource manager. But for us, that small step of actually caring about dates and trying to clean them up was a good enough step. And there鈥檚 a lot of predecessors to doing things like resource management. So that鈥檚 actually it鈥檚 good probably for folks to hear that you don鈥檛 have to do all of those things right out of the gate that you can. It鈥檚 a big change bringing on something like work front. So even just using it for work management to start and then kind of layering on some of these other pieces just from, like I said, a change management perspective. Yep. We have time for one. I think one more question. And it was again about Fusion. But were you able to simplify your request forms when you implemented Fusion? Not really.

We鈥檝e simplified our request forms, but it wasn鈥檛 because of Fusion. It was really looking at the data that we were actually reporting on and showing leadership that, hey, we have this field on there and 90 percent of the time it鈥檚 blank. So maybe we shouldn鈥檛 have that field on there because it really doesn鈥檛 mean anything. So having that to support it was how we were able to clean up our request forms. Got it. That makes sense. The last one, it鈥檚 not a question, but I just wanted to share with you, somebody typed into chat that says MoNique, all in caps. Number eight, so that using a preview for data recovery just saved me big time. I鈥檓 a system admin. I made a system out of mistake, lost a whole bunch of data, realized it last night. So thank you for exclamation points. That鈥檚 awesome. Not awesome that you also made a mistake like me, but awesome that someone else can attribute that it works and it helps. Could it save me? Awesome. I could talk to you for hours, but we have come to the end of our time. Likewise. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being so generous with all of your knowledge. We鈥檒l chat more soon. Thank you. Thank you. And I appreciate all the good questions that came in. Awesome.