Running Workfront so it stays useful as it grows.

01

Intake is the whole game

The request form is where data quality is either created or lost. If a requester can submit without the fields your delivery team needs, someone spends their week chasing context — and every downstream report inherits the gaps.

• One request queue per audience, not per team that asked for one.
• Custom forms that collect only what changes a decision downstream.
• Conditional logic so requesters see five relevant fields, not forty.
• Required fields tied to what reporting genuinely needs.
• A named owner for each queue, with a routing rule behind it.

02

Structure that survives reorganizations

Portfolio, program, project and template structures should reflect how work is funded and prioritized, not the current org chart. Org charts change every year; funding models rarely do.

• Templates for repeatable work, with realistic durations and roles.
• Naming conventions applied consistently enough to filter on.
• Custom fields governed centrally — every new field needs a reason.
• A documented decision on what does and does not belong in Workfront.

03

Permissions and access by role

Permissions granted person by person become unmanageable and quietly become a security issue. Model access on job role, apply it through groups and access levels, and review it on a schedule.

• Access levels mapped to a small number of real job roles.
• Group and team structures that mirror how approvals actually flow.
• Sharing defaults on templates so new projects inherit correctly.
• A recurring review as people join, move and leave.

04

Reporting that answers the real question

Leadership asks about capacity, throughput and where things are stuck. Those answers depend on consistent data at intake and on people logging work honestly — so build the small number of reports that get read and make them accurate.

• Start from the three questions leadership repeats, and build backwards.
• Dashboards per audience: requester, delivery team, leadership.
• Data quality checks that surface missing fields before reporting does.
• Workfront Data Connect when the answers belong in your warehouse or BI tool.

05

Reviewing the current environment

Before changing configuration, we review the current environment: what is configured, what is used, what is abandoned, and where the process and the tool disagree. That review produces a sequenced list of changes with the disruptive ones scheduled deliberately.

• Usage evidence, not opinions, about what is actually working.
• A change list ordered by impact against effort.
• Documentation your team keeps, in your language.
• Training built into the change, not bolted on afterwards.