Add projects to goals in Adobe Workfront Goals

Last update: February 21, 2025

CREATED FOR:

  • User

You can connect projects to goals to indicate how the goal progresses, based on the actual progress of the project. The project becomes a progress indicator for the goal.

By connecting projects to goals you can tie your organization’s strategic planning (goals) to the actual work your people are performing and completing every day (projects).

IMPORTANT
Project-level goals created in the Business Case area of a project are not connected to strategic goals created in Workfront Goals. For information about Business Case project goals, see Create Business Case goals.

Access requirements

You must have the following:

Adobe Workfront plan*

For the new plan and license structure:

  • An Ultimate plan

For the current plan and license structure:

  • A Pro or higher
  • An Adobe Workfront Goals license in addition to a Workfront license.
Adobe Workfront license*

New license: Contributor or higher

Or

Current license: Request or higher

For more information, see Adobe Workfront licenses overview.

Product*

New product requirement, one of the following:

  • A Select or Prime Adobe Workfront plan and an additional Adobe Workfront Goals license.
  • An Ultimate Workfront plan which includes Workfront Goals by default.

Or

Current product requirement: A Workfront plan and an additional license for Adobe Workfront Goals.

For information, see Requirements to use Workfront Goals.

Access levelEdit access to Goals
Object permissions

View or higher permissions to the goal to view it

Manage permissions to the goal to edit it

For information about sharing goals, see Share a goal in Workfront Goals.

Layout templateAll users, including Workfront administrators, must be assigned a layout template that includes the Goals area in the Main Menu.

*For more information, see Access requirements in Workfront documentation.

Considerations about connecting projects to goals

  • You can add a project that meets the following criteria to a goal:

    • You must have at least permissions to View it.

      NOTE
      If you lose your permissions to view the project after you have attached the project to the goal, you can still see project information on the goal, but you can no longer access the project.

    • The project must not be in a status of Dead.

  • You can associate multiple projects with a goal.

  • You can associate the same project with multiple goals.

  • You cannot manually update the progress of a project from the goal that the project is attached to. Instead, Workfront calculates the percent complete of the project and Workfront Goals calculates the goal progress using this percent complete. This updates the goal in real time after the project percent updates.

  • The project duration can be outside the time period of a goal. If a project lasts longer than the goal’s deadline, you can still close your goal and consider it completed, but the goal percent complete will not be 100%. The percent complete of the project no longer updates on the goal.

  • When you delete a project attached to a goal, the project is also deleted from the goal.

    CAUTION
    If the goal was active before you deleted the project and there are no other progress indicators on the goal, the goal becomes Inactive.

Add projects to goals

  1. Click the Main Menu Main Menu icon (draft this for Shell: or click the Main Menu Main Menu lines in the upper-left corner, if it’s available.) , then Goals.

  2. From the Goal List, click the name of a goal to open the goal page.

  3. Click Progress indicators in the left panel.

  4. From the New progress indicator drop-down menu, click Add existing project.

    The Add projects to goal box displays.

  5. (Optional) Update the View, Filter, or Grouping by clicking the respective icons in the upper-right corner of the list to modify the way the list of projects displays.

  6. (Optional) Click the Search icon Search icon and start typing the name of a project to quickly find it in the list.

  7. Select the projects that you want to add to the goal, then click Add.

    The selected projects are added to the goal and they display in the Progress indicators section of the goal page, under the Project grouping.

    After you activate the goal, the progress of the goal automatically updates when the progress of a project updates. For information about activating a goal, see Activate goals in Adobe Workfront Goals.

Locate project information on goals

The following project information is visible at the goal level in the Progress indicators section of a goal's page:

Project NameAny changes in the project name also reflect in the connected project.
Project OwnerAny changes in the project owner also reflect in the connected project.
Actual ProgressThe percent complete of the project. You cannot manually update the project percent complete from the goal. Workfront automatically calculates it based on the percent complete of the tasks.
ProgressThe percent complete of the project represented by a bar. Any change in the percent complete of the project automatically updates the goal progress unless the goal is closed.