Create filters with date-based wildcards

In this video you will learn, how to know when to use date-based wildcards, how to understand the difference between work front’s to date-based wildcards, how to add a date-based wildcard to a filter, how to create a custom date using wildcards, attributes operators, and modifiers and how to create a custom date range using wildcards. When you build filters that include dates such as entry date, planned completion date or last update date, you can enter a specific date, or select from the list of preconfigured dates such as this week or next month. However, this list might not always suit your needs for example, a team member may want to write a filter that shows all tasks due in the next two weeks, so they can start planning ahead or maybe a project manager needs a filter to show projects that are due in the next two months. More often than not you’ll find yourself using date-based wildcards in Adobe Workfront to create custom dates and custom date ranges that better suit the filter and reporting needs of your users, teams, and organization. In addition, date-based wildcards allow you to create dynamic filters that update automatically based on the current date, which means you’re not constantly modifying filters to update the date information. Let’s get started by taking a look at the two date based wildcards and Workfront.

Adobe Workfront supports two date based wildcards $$TODAY, $$NOW. $$TODAY is equal to the current date, starting at midnight this morning and ending at 11:59 PM, it’s the most common date based wildcard used by Workfront customers. Let’s say you want to see which projects were created today in your marketing portfolio, but you want this filter to show the current day’s projects each day start by creating a new project filter, name the filter projects created today. The first rule will be portfolio, name, equal, marketing, add another filter rule, then select project entry date. This looks at the date the project was created in Workfront if you put in today’s date when you run this filter tomorrow or the next day or next week, it’s going to go back to this date. You have to edit the filter every day to set the current date but if you use $$TODAY you don’t have to update the filter Workfront automatically knows what day it is and shows you the results that match. This not only saves you time but it ensures you that you’re always looking at the latest information, note type the wildcard using all capital letters if you use lowercase letters the wild card won’t work. $$NOW isn’t used as often by work front customers $$NOW is equal to the current date and time. This means the results you will see depend not only on the date the filter is used, but also the current time. Look at the clock on your computer or mobile device what time is it? If you ran a filter that used $$NOW that’s what Workfront would use in the filter this could result in you not seeing all of the information you need to make an assignment or provide an update to your manager.

You can create custom dates using either of the date based wildcards with operators, attributes and modifiers you may have already seen custom date wildcards if you’ve used the prebuilt date qualifiers while setting up a filter for planned completion date or another date related filter rule, the two operators plus sign and minus sign allow you to add or subtract values from the date wildcard. Tell Workfront what value to subtract using attributes for quarter, hour, day, week, month or year now let’s look at some examples. Project, plan, complete date, equal, $$TODAY+15d this looks at today’s date and then adds 15 days, Task, Plan Start Date, Equal, $$TODAY-10d this looks for tasks that have a plan start date that was 10 days ago. Be sure to type the attributes in lower case, you can make more complex custom dates using the modifiers B and E these tell Workfront to look at the beginning or end of the attribute you’ve chosen $$TODAYb+2w the B after today tells Workfront to first go back to the beginning of the week that today is a part of before adding two weeks of time it knows to go forward two weeks rather than days or months because of the w time attribute that comes after the plus sign, note it might be helpful to look at these pre-built date qualifiers to see how they’re structured.

In addition to building custom dates you can build your own custom date ranges with date based wildcards. Let’s take a look at an example, as part of your work tracking you want to see tasks assigned to the team that are due within the next three weeks. You’ve already set up the filter rules for tasks assigned to your team that are part of active projects and that belong to projects in the marketing portfolio. Click add another filter rule one more time so you can add the date criteria for this you’ll use Task Planned Completion Date expand the qualifier field. There’s not an option for three weeks, so you’ll want to build your own, select the between qualifier this gives you fields to set a beginning date and an end date for your three week window. What would happen if you filled in exact dates for the range while starting tomorrow, this filter would be outdated every time you use the filter it will go back to these specific dates, but that’s not what you want this filter to do you want the beginning of the three week date range to always be the current date in the first field type $$TODAY remember to type in all capital letters otherwise the wildcard won’t work this establishes the first day of your range it will always be the current date. Note you don’t need to add a B after the wild card in this instance the $$TODAY wildcard automatically goes back to midnight. So the B isn’t needed to tell it to go back to the beginning of the day, to set the end date of the range you’ll use the $$TODAY wildcard plus an operator and attribute enter $$TODAY+3w. Remember the end points of the range you specify for the between qualifier are included in the range all tasks with a planned completion date greater than or equal to the first date, but less than or equal to the last date will pass through the filter. This tells Workfront to look at today’s date, then add three weeks to calculate the ending date of the range. Once you name and save this filter you can use it whenever needed without having to modify the filter setups to ensure it starts on the current date. Building custom dates and date ranges takes practice and some trial and error as you’re building the date filters, check the results to make sure you’re getting the data you want to see. It may help you to study how the pre-built date qualifiers are created you can use these as they’re built of course or you can modify one to accommodate the date parameters you need for your filter. -