Best Practice - Layout templates

What is an Adobe Workfront “best practice”?

Best practices are guidelines that represent an effective, efficient course of action; are easily adopted by you and the users at your company; and can be replicated successfully across your organization.

As you review these recommendations, please keep in mind that some Workfront best practices are universal while others might be more specific to the topic. Use these best practices as a framework to help guide your Workfront system setups and use.

Navigating this page

As you scroll through this page, first you’ll find a high-level list of all the best practices for the topic. This allows you to review the recommendations without diving into the details of “why.”

The “Why are these best practices?” area, found after the high-level list, provides greater detail into some of the best practices and why they’re deemed as a process, tool, etc., you should consider implementing with your Workfront instance.

Layout template best practices

Why are these best practices?

Best practice

Keep layout templates as simple as possible by managing menu options.

Here’s why

Less is more when it comes to layout templates. Ensuring layout templates contain only the needed Main Menu options, left panel menu sections, object detail fields, list options, etc., removes unnecessary noise and simplifies navigation for users. If users have too many things to click on, Workfront quickly becomes confusing to the user. Well-designed layout templates can help improve a user’s efficiency and ability to work easily in Workfront. Which, in turn, leads to user adoption.

Be mindful when hiding options—you don’t want to hide something the user needs as part of their day-to-day workflows.

As your organization’s use of Workfront grows, don’t forget to surface relevant features in the layout templates so users can take advantage of them.

Best practice

Create layout templates for sets of users, not individuals.

Here’s why

Build layouts around sets of people who do similar work, need access to the same parts of Workfront, etc. Not only does this ensure users have access to the parts of Workfront they need to do their work, but it also means fewer layout templates for system and group administrators to create and maintain.

If users request “specialized” layout templates, train them on how to use Pins in the navigation bar and add their own custom sections in left panel menus. This might fulfill their needs without having to create additional layout templates.

Best practice

Keep workflows and processes in mind when creating layout templates.

Here’s why

Make sure that users can access everything they need to do their work.

Options in the Main Menu, with the most commonly used menu items in a prominent position (or organize the Main Menu alphabetically)
Left panel menu sections, in an order that facilitates the workflow
Standard and custom fields visible in Home, to allow users to complete assignments without having to dig into tasks/issues for needed information

After creating the layout template, use the “log in as” feature in the Setup area to test the template as someone who will be using it. Walk through each step of that person’s workflow to ensure they have what they need before you assign users to the template.

Best practice

Start with a “standard” or “base” layout template, then copy and make the changes needed.

Here’s why

Layout template creation goes faster when you copy an existing template that contains the settings that exist across all layout templates. Then you can make changes needed for the specific set of users that will be assigned the template. This way, you don’t have to recreate setups from scratch and can avoid duplication of effort.

Best practice

Create as few layout templates as possible.

Here’s why

When making layout templates, try to make them in a way that will satisfy the needs of most people on a team, in a group, assigned the same job role, etc., as possible. Fewer layout templates means less maintenance needed by system and group administrators.