As Adobe continues to seamlessly develop an integrated ecosystem of marketing and analytics tools, many enterprises are adopting these innovations and redesigning their organizational structures to eliminate process inefficiencies and department silos.
One platform has emerged as the connective tissue and center for planning and collaboration across the entire Adobe Experience Cloud and Creative Cloud: Adobe Workfront.
Adobe Workfront can be a transformative asset for your organization. By seamlessly integrating crucial systems and applications, Workfront provides a comprehensive view that empowers strategic planning, optimizes resource allocation, and enhances transparency and accountability across marketing initiatives and broader business operations.
With extensive experience implementing solutions for clients such as GE Healthcare and Petco, we’ve identified three critical elements to consider:
- Prioritize Change Management: Ensuring adoption requires effective change management. Be sure to conduct thorough discovery to focus on key processes.
- Maximize Workfront Reporting and Integrations: Workfront can serve as your definitive source for reporting, but achieving this requires expert integration and reconciliation of data from across your systems and platforms.
- Utilize Workfront’s New Planning Module: The newly launched Workfront Planning module enables users to seamlessly collaborate and iterate around goal setting and resource management.
How to Maximize Your Workfront Investment in Three Steps
#1 – Prioritize Change Management
A robust change management plan is key when integrating a new tool like Workfront into your tech stack.
How to Introduce Workfront to Your Team
Communication throughout the implementation process is crucial – teams should have the opportunity to ask questions to ensure a smooth transition. Appointing Workfront “champions” within eacteam ensures that team members have a trusted resource who can serve as trainers and advisors.
A key component of any successful implementation is creating an environment where open and honest feedback is encouraged. Workfront configured in a vacuum can be harmful because most times, key processes are forgotten. Instead, involve leadership early to ensure all critical workflows are considered.
Additionally, designate a knowledgeable system administrator who has mastered Workfront during the implementation phase, as this individual will be crucial in guiding the team post-launch and ensuring ongoing success.
The successful introduction of Workfront relies on inclusive planning, clear communication, and robust leadership support. Organizations can navigate change seamlessly and maximize their Workfront investment by fostering a collaborative environment.
In summary: go slow, keep it simple, and remember to show value to each group. Acknowledge different learning styles, create a supportive environment, and provide step-by-step job aids for testing and deployment.
#2 – Maximize Workfront's Reporting and Integrations
Workfront’s reporting capabilities are comprehensive – countless opportunities for generating insightful and actionable data are unlocked when configured properly.
The effectiveness of data within Workfront depends on the configuration. To fully leverage Workfront's reporting capabilities, users must have intimate knowledge of Workfront. For example:
- How to create custom fields
- How to utilize out-of-the-box fields
- Knowing what fields result in which types of reporting capabilities
Organizations with in-house Workfront experts can effectively manage these tasks. For teams without an in-house expert, partnering with a specialized Workfront agency can help ensure optimal configuration and reporting, enabling your team to focus on core activities and improve overall efficiency.
Is your team leveraging these top Workfront integrations?
One of the leading integrations with Workfront is with Microsoft Teams. This integration features a bot within Teams that allows Workfront to seamlessly “chat” with users, facilitating tasks, approvals, and requests directly within the chat.
Another key integration is with Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) and Marketo. This powerful combination enables users to move an asset from its creation phase to a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system and then directly into an email campaign—all in under ten clicks.
With this integration, a user can efficiently upload an asset that has been created and approved in Workfront to a DAM, complete with the metadata. From there, the asset can be directly transferred to Marketo, where it is incorporated into a published campaign and activated within a live campaign.
#3 – Streamline Annual Planning
Workfront enables users to execute annual planning by providing a centralized platform for collaboration, goal setting, and resource management. Within Workfront, annual planning can be reviewed and approved within Workfront’s request queues.
Annual planning can also be prioritized in such a way that users can apply rankings to the plan itself and capture how closely the plan aligns with a company goal. Once the plans are determined, the new feature of Planning can be tapped into where the team maps out the entire plan and what is going to be implemented and when.
Workfront’s New “Planning” Feature
The Planning feature translates solidified annual plans into actionable timelines, determining optimal launch periods for various initiatives. Typically employed after strategic goals are set and high-level plans are outlined, this feature also incorporates unique taxonomy capabilities to separate and color-code all items distinctly.
Before the Planning feature was launched, one of the biggest gaps was campaign planning or “forward planning.” The new Planning feature addresses this gap by offering high-level visibility to identify conflicts, create marketing calendars, and manipulate data effectively.
Leveraging operational record types, the Planning feature enables the creation of comprehensive marketing plans, campaigns, programs, and activities. Once records are inputted, users can visualize the impact on different audiences or demographics. While the feature is highly flexible, it requires a comprehensive initial configuration to unlock its full potential.
Transforming Strategy into Success
MERGE empowers organizations to reclaim valuable time by optimizing Workfront's advanced tools and features. As advocates of change management, MERGE provides coaching to guide organizations through the process, ensuring optimal outcomes and significant savings in time and resources. Want to learn more? Get in touch.