Create a basic grouping
This video explains how to create and manage groupings in Workfront to organize project lists effectively. Groupings are one of the three main reporting elements, alongside filters and views, and they help organize results based on shared information.
This tutorial provides practical steps for organizing project lists to streamline daily work and collaboration.
Transcript
A grouping is one of the three main reporting elements, Filter, View, and Grouping. The grouping organizes the results based on common information related to the items. In this video, you’ll focus on creating a grouping for a list of projects. Then, you can apply what you learned to create groupings on other lists in Workfront, such as tasks, issues, or documents. Let’s get started. You want to see this list of projects grouped by the month they’re due to be completed. Before you create a new grouping, check the grouping list to see if there’s already one there. Here’s one named Completion Date by Month. You can collapse all the groupings by clicking the arrow at the left of the header row. Click here again to expand all the groupings. If you want to expand or collapse a single grouping, just click anywhere in the grouping bar. Take a look at how this grouping is set up by clicking the pencil icon next to Completion Date by Month. This opens the grouping builder. The name of the grouping is in the upper left corner. In the middle section is the field source of Project and a field name of Planned Completion Date. This tells you that the grouping is looking at the Planned Completion Date field that’s associated with a project. Because you’re grouping by a date, Workfront asks you how you want to group the dates by day, week, month. There’s a whole list of options here. This one has month of the year selected. This grouping only has one level, but you can add up to three criteria to group on. The grouping preview at the bottom of the window shows what the grouping bar will look like. There are two save options for this grouping, Save Grouping and Save As New Grouping. Because this is one of the built-in groupings that comes with Workfront, you can’t save over it, so the Save Grouping option is disabled. If you edit this grouping, you’ll need to save it as a new grouping with a new name. Let’s go back to the projects list and create a grouping from scratch. Think about how you want to group the information you’re looking at. How should this list of projects be organized to help you do your daily work? You decide you want to see the projects grouped by the portfolio they belong to, but you also need to see what program the projects are part of. Now that you’ve decided that, you can build the two-level grouping, first by portfolio, then by program. Let’s set that up. To create a new grouping, select New Grouping. Start by naming the grouping. Make sure the name is something short but descriptive. This helps you keep it straight in the grouping list and it’s helpful to others you share this grouping with. Call this grouping Portfolio-Program. A nice thing about naming it first is the name serves as a guide as you create the grouping. Now click Add Grouping. You know the name in the field you want, Portfolio Name, so start typing that in. As you type, Workfront shows you a list of all fields with Portfolio as part of their names. But as you finish typing name, you see you’re left with only one option, Portfolio Name. That’s your first grouping. Now do the second level, which is the program name the project belongs to. Start typing Program Name to bring up that option. To have the grouping collapse by default each time it appears in a list or report, just check this box. Let’s leave the first level expanded and set the second level to be collapsed. Now save the grouping and take a look at it. Projects are grouped first by Portfolio and you can expand a grouping to see which projects belong to a specific program. When a grouping is named No Value, it simply means a Portfolio or Program Name is not specified for those projects. Right now you’re the only user who can see the grouping you just created, but it might be useful for other project managers, so you want to share it. Open the Groupings panel and click the More menu to the right of the grouping you want to share. Select the Share option. Now enter the name of the person or people. The default sharing permission is View. This means that a person can use the grouping and share it, but won’t be able to edit the grouping. Manage Rights would allow the person to edit or delete it. Workfront recommends you use View in most cases. If anyone you share it with wants to change it, they can copy it. This grouping now shows up with other users’ lists of project groupings under the Shared with Me section. To remove a grouping, open the Groupings panel and click the More menu to the right of the grouping you want to remove. This can be a grouping you created or someone shared with you. Note, if a grouping you created has been shared with other users, deleting it from your list removes it from their list too.
Key takeaways
- Purpose of Groupings: Groupings are a key reporting element in Workfront that organize project lists based on shared information, such as completion dates, portfolios, or programs.
- Creating Groupings: You can create custom groupings with up to three levels of criteria. For example, projects can be grouped first by portfolio and then by program for better organization.
- Editing and Saving Groupings: Built-in groupings cannot be overwritten, but you can save edits as a new grouping. Custom groupings should have clear, descriptive names for easy identification.
- Sharing Groupings: Groupings can be shared with other users, with default “view” permissions allowing them to use and share the grouping but not edit it. “Manage” permissions allow editing and deletion.
- Removing Groupings: Deleting a grouping you created will also remove it from the lists of users you shared it with. Shared groupings appear under the “Shared with Me” section for other users.
“Create a basic grouping” activities
Activity 1: Create a basic grouping
Create an issue grouping that will be used in a report to track requests that come through a request queue. This grouping will make it easy to see similar types of issues/requests grouped by their priority. Name the grouping “Request Queue, Queue Topic, Priority.”
Group the issue report based on:
- The name of the request queue (this will be the project name)
- The queue topic
- The priority of the request
