Workfront Review: Features, Pros, Cons & Best Alternatives

Introduction

Adobe Workfront is a global leader in enterprise work management that connects strategy to delivery by integrating people and data across the enterprise, and which manages work from start to finish for the delivery of measurable outcomes — all within a single collaborative platform.

Workfront gives companies the business tools they need to scale and compete in the marketplace at each stage of planning and executing work.

Adobe Workfront gives administrators full visibility across portfolios, programs, and projects so they can prioritize the right work, quickly identify bottlenecks, mitigate risks, and deliver the right results for their teams, their company, and their clients.

Project portfolio management in Adobe Workfront gives program managers a single view of work across portfolios so they can plan with precision and maximize results.

What is Workfront?

Adobe Workfront is a web-based project management tool that was acquired by Adobe in late 2020. It was designed for IT and marketing teams, but can be used for any type of project.

Workfront combines all the features that are standard on project management platforms. Editing and modifying issues from the project view is styled to function similarly to a social networking site, bringing team members together in one central location.

Angry birds, mishaps, and other elements of the project are displayed along a tab bar on the project’s home screen so that they can be addressed immediately from the hub with just one click.

The platform’s Capacity Planner allows managers to move resources to where they are needed, and it has some automation features (for example, the option to “Set Best Fit”, which tries to allocate resources optimally within given constraints).

Gantt charts, easily viewed and manipulatable backlog, and storyboarding make Agile project management easier. Team members can be managed using quantitative metrics that indicate where work is best divided.

Workfront Software Uses

Workfront is used by so many teams to be more efficient and effective in getting their work done. Below are some of its uses.

1. Workfront helps marketing teams to manage competing priorities and get more done by streamlining their processes. With a digital solution that enables teams to iterate quickly, proofing can be streamlined and the approval process can be automated for an easy and quick way to maintain high-quality work.
2. Because accurate information is readily available when needed, IT teams are able to prioritize work and establish expectations. They can adjust resources and timelines to see the effects of new projects on the team, and therefore can take strategic decisions to focus on what is important, rather than what is urgent.
3. To provide quality work, the agencies employ work management software to provide quality work to satisfied customers. Through a single platform that unifies all their processes, work is completed faster, and creative teams are not slowed down by the use of multiple tools. Instead, they can focus on delivering great work, improving morale, and increasing productivity with a central, reliable, and smart solution.
4. Workfront helps product development and management teams prioritize investment, manage project status, and improve customer satisfaction by helping them innovate faster. By using a transparent platform, everyone knows exactly what to do when, and real-time information helps them assess projects, optimize resources, and prioritize high-impact work that produces results.
5. To build customer trust, professional services teams are able to complete projects on time and with quality to their clients. Through the combination of unified processes and tools in a single platform, they can move with speed and coordination, and every member of the team works at his/her best to give customers exactly what they want.

How Does Workfront Work?

Workfront offers a software-as-a-service platform for enterprise workflow management, project and portfolio management, resource management, and individual task management. Its platform automates and repeats routine processes, allowing users to monitor financial information and create reports.

In simpler terms, Workfront allows you to define clear goals and strategies and then shows your teams how each project fits in, keeping the team on track. Automations help you to prioritize projects that will help you to reach your objectives faster, and to see which are having the most impact.

Workfront Features

1. Task Module

1. Creation & Assignment: This task helps to create and assign tasks for individual users with details and due dates.
2. Due Dates: This helps to set deadlines and milestones for tasks, it could be done manually or automatically (based on project templates).
3. Task Prioritization: This helps to set priority levels on tasks so individuals can organize their work.
4. To-Do Lists: Each Workfront user can view their list of tasks to be completed without having access to other tasks.
5. Dependencies: This helps define dependencies between tasks and the rules to manage them.
6. Mass Updates: This allows users to update multiple tasks at the same time, across multiple projects.
7. Drag & Drop: Users can move tasks and change dependencies using drag and drop tasks.
8. Recurring Tasks: Help define recurring tasks that can be scheduled automatically at predefined intervals.

2. Project Module

1. Planning: Helps to plan and create a work breakdown structure (WBS) based on the scope of the project.
2. Project Map: Projects can be mapped out with milestones, due dates, deliverables, and interdependencies.
3. GANTT: This provides visual representations of tasks, dependencies, and progress.
4. Calendar View: Planned projects are mapped to a schedule with due dates and deliverables in a detailed day-by-day calendar view.
5. Views: Users can create customized project views for internal and external purposes (eg: for customers).
6. Project Budgeting: Helps associate a budget with a project and allocate it accordingly by task or resource.
7. Issue Tracking: This helps track issues at the project or task level, and manage resolutions.
8. Templates: This provides standard templates that can be customized by users to create new projects.
9. Critical Path: This automatically calculates the critical path for projects and updates it when projects change.
10. Time & Expense: This helps track time and expenses associated with projects or tasks.
11. Methodologies: It supports agile and waterfall project management methodologies.

3. Resource Management Module

1. Resource Definition: Helps create human and material resources and categorize them based on skills and other criteria.
2. Capacity: Helps in monitoring capacity in real-time to track resource use and identify bottlenecks.
3. Scheduling: Helps allocate resources by matching capacity and demand, by project, team, or department.

4. Project Monitoring Module

1. Baselining / KPIs: It helps track key performance indicators or baseline assessments throughout the project lifecycle or across multiple projects.
2. Resource Allocation: This monitors resource allocation to identify shortages and adjust accordingly.
3. Dashboards: It delivers dashboards that display project data and KPIs in real time.

5. Automation Module

1. Workflows: This provides standard workflows that can be used across the company.
2. Customization: This allows administrators to configure workflows and processes.
3. Data repository: It delivers a single data repository for all project information.

6. Administration Module

1. Permissions: This defines and manages roles and access rights for the entire system.
2. Procedures: This maintains procedures for data access and governance.
3. Remote Work: It allows users to use the system online and on mobile devices.

7. Project Management Module

1. Dependencies: This defines dependencies between tasks and the rules to manage them.
2. Planning: Helps plan and create a work breakdown structure (WBS) based on the scope of the project.
3. Views: It helps create customized project views for internal and external purposes (eg: for customers).

Workfront’s Pros

1. Workfront allows users to stay on top of their work and make changes quickly as changes take place in their organization in real time.
2. The work management software is best suited to mid-sized to large businesses rather than small enterprises, as it can cope with complexity in large organizations. It supports all the required authorization levels in large organizations.
3. Workfront can be customized to produce reports that can be sent ad hoc or regularly, and it can also be modified to send custom notifications that can be triggered by various events, as well as charts and graphs on various metrics, such as resource usage, product categorization, and more.
4. It is a robust management system with enterprise-class features that are not typically found in other general PM tools. It also offers powerful time- and task-management tools, as well as a powerful proofing tool and a variety of integrations.
5. The work management software allows business leaders to monitor work in real-time and therefore, plan, monitor, and measure business performances better on the basis of data. Transparency also eliminates the need for email explanations of what everyone is doing, which is preferable for some organizations.

Workfront’s Cons

1. Some users who have used the software for more than a year can still be confused about how to perform some operations. Learning the application’s features takes some time because they are not the easiest to grasp for new users.
2. The process of launching Workfront can be complicated and time-consuming, even though most users would prefer it to be. It may be due to the high degree of customization available in the application, but streamlining is more difficult in organizations that lack processes in place.
3. Workfront can provide a bird’s eye view of work from a high-level perspective, but it can also go down to the smallest detail to the point of micromanagement. It may be too much for a team or make little sense to every department.
4. Some people find the Gantt charts in the work management software difficult to work with and modify. In turn, the structure of the assignments is not intuitive.
5. It can be difficult to find work at times if you don’t know which project it is associated with. Some pages present current projects differently than others, data entry is very lax, and users would like to see more prompts for correcting or replacing input.

Workfront Pricing

Workfront comes in 3 plans and a simple pricing structure. That is the enterprise, business, and pro plans. The yearly subscription fee is based on the plan and type of license you choose, though you need to contact the company for a quote.

The Enterprise Plan

• Premium APIs and integrations
• Enhanced security
• Advanced support
• $600 to $1,500 a year per license.

The Business Plan

• Premium integrations
• Unlimited reviewers
• Enhanced analytics
• $800 to $1,500 a year per license.

The Pro Plan

• Resource management
• Demand management
• Content review/approval
• $1,000 to $1,500 a year per license.

Workfront Technical Details

1. Deployment Types: It is SaaS
2. Operating Systems: This is unspecified
3. Mobile Application: There are apps for Apple iOS and Android
4. Supported Countries: Several
5. Supported Languages: Supports several languages

FAQs

Q. What is Adobe Workfront?

A. Adobe Workfront, which was acquired by Adobe in late 2020, is a web-based project management tool that is designed for both IT and marketing teams but can be used for any kind of project. Workfront provides all the features that project management platforms offer, along with resource allocation, automation, and agile workflow.

Q. What are Workfront’s Top Competitors?

A. Wrike, Smartsheet, and Zoho Project are common alternatives for Workfront.

Q. Who Uses Workfront?

A. The most common users of Workfront are from Enterprises and then the Marketing & Advertising industry.