What is Adobe WorkFront?
Workfront is a Work management application, which helps organizations to organize entire work in
single location.
Workfront helps manage projects, assign tasks, manage resources, documents, allocate finance, generate various reports, analytics reports etc. The tool basically helps standardize process and establish governance within any organization.
Using this tool, a Project Manager can create projects and related tasks, assign tasks to team, set end dates etc. Project status section captures all status of a project (based on details which are manually updated within system by end users).
Read More About Workfront here:
What are all the default capabilities of WorkFront?
Workfront by default provides project templates, custom forms, approval workflows which are highly customizable.
Below given a list of all capabilities of Workfront,
- Agile Storyboard Management,
- Resource Management,
- Project Management and Tasks Management,
- Project planning and scheduling,
- Time tracking,
- Manage Budgeting, Projections and Spendings,
- Status tracking,
- Task management and progress tracking,
- Milestone, Time and Expense tracking,
- Alerts and notifications,
- Custom Dashboards
Workfront integration with AEM
Workfront can be easily integrated with Adobe Experience Manager. Using WorkFront, we can create projects, tasks (For e.g. marketing promotion project and its subtasks like asset design) and once assets are ready it can be pushed to AEM. We can also enrich asset metadata between systems once connected while syncing (push & pull) AEM assets to WorkFront.
AEM specific Features within Workfront
We can have project link folders - which help to organize folders and taxonomy between AEM and WorkFront. We can also create folder and subfolders, metadata and link or sync between AEM & Workfront.
Metadata sync capability
The feature helps sync metadata between AEM & Workfront.
We can create AEM metadata schema(Workfront Asset details) and send them to Workfront. Once linked, on AEM Assets metadata tab we will have Workfront Asset details tab where all metadata gets synced.
Version controlled between AEM & Workfront
We can have versions of assets and manages them well between AEM & Workfront.
Content Creation and Sync
We can create a task for content creation and this content can be made available in AEM as Content fragment modal.
Once done, using the same project id, (content fragment modal + same project id) specific assets can be authored on a page.
Automation
We can have actions, trigger activity on both AEM & Workfront.
AEM Workflow engine can be used to update Workfront tasks, attach custom forms to any of the work types, automate publishing events based on predefined conditions etc. once connector is configured AEM Workflow can have steps to do specific actions on Workfront.
Which version of AEM supported with Workfront?
Workfront works on AEM 6.4 to AEM as Cloud Service
Workfront License
We will see how Workfront licenses and access levels are tied together here.
There are 4 types of paid Workfront licenses which allow different levels of access to Workfront. Each access level is attached to one of these below licenses.
As a Workfront administrator, instead of assigning a license to a user, we can assign them the access level attached to that license.
License - Associated access level
------------ ------------------------
Plan - System Administrator
- Planner
Work - Worker
Review - Reviewer
External - External User [Note: Not a paid license. Designed mainly for sharing documents with collaborators who don't use Workfront.]
How to add users to Workfront
If the organization has been onboarded to the Adobe Business Platform, we can perform this action through the Adobe Admin Console. There are various operatios allowed within Workfront[ For e.g. Grant a user admin access, Add a user, deactivate, delete, edit bulk edit, import users]
What are all the access types available in Workfront?
There are 6 built-in access levels are designed for a particular type of user:
- System Administrator (attached to the Plan license)
- Planner (attached to the Plan license) - users who create and manage work (plan and manage project, build & share reports, add users, edit project templates, create portfolios)
- Worker (attached to the Work license) - a normal employee who work on task based on project task assigned by a manager
- Reviewer (attached to the Review license)
- Requestor (attached to the Request license)
- External User (attached to the External Email license)
Various permission w.r.t users
Edit - Users can create, edit, delete, and share the Workfront object
View - Users can review and share the Workfront object
No Access - Users cannot access the Workfront object
Custom Permissions
In case if we need a custom Planner, Worker, Requester, or Reviewer access level, we can copy the built-in access level and determine the amount of access we want it to allow for the various Workfront object types.
For the users who are assigned to it, an access level defines what they can see and do with the following object types and areas in Workfront:
- Projects
- Tasks
- Issues
- Portfolios
- Reports, Dashboards, and Calendars
- Filters, Views, and Groupings
- Documents
- Other users
- Templates
- Financial Data
- Resource Management
- Scenario Planner
- Workfront Goals
Read more here
SSO and Active Directory integration with Workfront?
Active Directory & LDAP Support
We can configure Adobe Workfront with SAML 2.0, SAML 1.1 using ADFS, We can also configure Adobe Workfront with Azure Active Directory. Adobe recommend SAML 2 Always.
Workfront provides a centrally managed single sign-on (SSO) configuration that easily integrates Workfront with existing corporate SSO solution. This configuration is easy to set up and manage, and is available for both OnDemand and OnPremise Enterprise customers.
In order to use the SSO functionality in Workfront, organization needs to setup an SSO application, such as LDAP or Active Directory. We can then configure Workfront so that it can communicate with organizations SSO solution.
If the organization has been onboarded to the Adobe Business Platform, the users use the Adobe Business Platform to access Adobe Workfront. User management is mainly done through the Adobe Admin Console. i.e. Single Sign-On (SSO) is handled through the Adobe Business Platform rather than through Workfront
If organization has been onboarded to the Adobe Business Platform, Single Sign-On (SSO) is automatically enabled as part of that integration. There is no separate configuration required for same.
User Onboarding by import
If there is an existing system that is already populated with users associated with SSO credentials, we can import the users' IDs into Workfront by importing a comma-separated values (CSV) file into Workfront.
Third Party Integrations
We can integrate Adobe Workfront with third-party applications. These integrations can extend the utility of Workfront.
Built-in integrations
We can configure integrations directly from Workfront, or from another application by installing the Workfront add-in for that application.
Built-in integrations cover many of the most common apps used by businesses, such as Dropbox, Slack, Google Drive, or Adobe products such as the Adobe Creative Cloud or Adobe Experience Manager Assets.
Custom OAuth2 applications
Workfront administrators can create OAuth2 applications for their instance of Workfront, which allow other applications to access Workfront. Admin users can then give permission to those other applications to access their Workfront data. In this way, we can integrate Workfront with applications of our choice, including own in-house applications.
Workfront API
Workfront offers a public API that enables to extend and enhance the Workfront experience. The goal for the Workfront API is to simplify building own integrations with Workfront by introducing a REST-ful architecture that operates over HTTP.
Webhooks
Adobe Workfront Document Webhooks defines a set of API endpoints through which Workfront makes authorized API calls to an External Document Provider. This allows anyone to create a connector plugin for any document storage provider.
What is Workfront Fusion?
Workfront Fusion helps to connect with other platform applications by allowing you to automate workflows across multiple apps and web services(scenarios where the apps work together to execute a task). It provides a visual user interface to configure workflows. Development knowledge is not mandatory to work with Workfront Fusion.
Conclusion
Workfront improves operational efficiency & accuracy while reducing need for more resource by enabling more automation.
The integration between AEM and Workfront is mainly around the AEM assets capability at present.
Good read on WorkFront
How To Master Your Marketing Workflow
Create roles & permission in Workfront
