Custom Object/
Flexible Hierarchy Solution Mind Map

Relating/ Grouping Work

Other

Process/ Workflow Representation

Custom objects

Tagging

Flexible Hierarchy

Parent/ Child

Levels (level #)

Native tag fields

One generic "Tags" field?

"Child object(s)" tag?

"Parent object(s)" tag?

"Related object(s)" tag?

Enable searching by tag value

Enable creating/filtering reports by tag value

Rules

Rules

Max # of levels allowed?

Requirement to use at least one standard object in a hierarchy?

Requirement for tasks/ issues to be lowest level?

Hierarchy Type {Workfront, Department, Workflow}

Reporting

EASILY create and visualize predecessors/ dependencies between work items (not just tasks)?

Map a cross-functional workflow that spans multiple projects across multiple portfolios

Setup (defined globally by Sys Admin, but Group Admins can modify as needed for their individual Group): see Salesforce documentation

Visualization of the phase the work effort is currently in that includes status of each phase, estimated date of completion for each phase, etc.

Custom objects

Standard objects

Navigation

Create Waffle Menu item for each object type defined by admin (for the given Group)?

Many-to-many relationships allowed?

Custom objects can exist anywhere in hierarchy EXCEPT as a child of Project?

Sys admin defines allowable relationships for custom objects OR flexible?

All other standard object hierarchy rules stay same?

e.g. Can't have a project as a child of another project

Ensure each custom object type is represented in search results as a distinct search result type

Defining Custom object relationships

Dynamically create new tab in left-hand nav for each distinct object type that is a child of a given object?

Replace existing child object fields in each standard object's description section with a single "Child object(s)" field?

Alternative: Replace existing child object tabs with a single generic "Child Objects" tab?

Alternative: Add new child relationship field for each custom object type allowed as a child (as defined by admin for the org)

Ensure each custom object type is included in filtering options for views

Horizontal (related) relationships

"Related" typeahead field that allows objects to be related to other objects of the same type? (such as part 1 and part 2 stories)

Custom fields

Persisted through hierarchy levels? (Dale feedback- if higher-level object is tagged, its children should inherit that tag)

Min # of levels allowed? (Arthrex has governance requiring 3)

Concept of a master project having a milestone path that can have multiple tasks from multiple sub-projects rolled up into a single milestone

Inheritance

All field values/ attributes of a parent object should be inherited by child object

BTS asked for this for "Requestor" access level. This could be similar to our existing milestone path visualization.

Fields

Default fields must include system-required fields like Created by, Created Date, etc., but can also include custom fields

Ability to include aggregate metrics based on child objects, incl the ones that exist on Project Object: Overall % Complete, Planned Completion Date, % of Child Objects in each condition

Attributes

Object Type (e.g. Hotel, Boat, Skill)

Object Type icon

Categorization {Work Object (like projects), Association Object (like a wrapper or standalone/ floating object)}

Classification (flexible: OOTB, Retail, NPD, Marketing)

Naming reference (option related to the type)

Features

Rules

Hierarchical

Which object types can this object have as parents, if any? Can it have many-to-many relationships?

Which object types can this object have as children, if any?

Can this object stand alone (no parent)?

Can requests be converted into this custom object?

MUST be able to define for each field whether it rolls up to parent objects or rolls down to child objects or is entirely independent

MUST be able to define a calculated field that can aggregate across child objects

Ex: Capture tabular detail to relate to an object without hierarchy association - e.g. Address Book and Contact list AtAppStore created

Permissions

Ability to define default view/ edit/ create permissions for each object type

Can a template be created for the custom object - both its fields and its child objects? (Save As Template feature)

Ability to view all child objects in a View accessible via the custom object's main screen (one tab for each allowable type, or a single "child" tab?)

Ability to see and easily navigate to the parent(s) of the object from the object's main screen

How would these additional levels impact the breadcrumbs at top of page?

Predecessors

Can this custom (work) object have predecessors? Of which work object types?

Should a Schedule visualization (Gantt) be available for child objects?

Reporting

Must be able to report across a given Custom Object Type (e.g. ability to create a table with each unique Hotel-type object listed, and the number of active projects associated with each)

Must be able to aggregate data from a given Custom Object's children (e.g. ability to find total number of hours of work burned for Product A)

Should we give user ability to specify at which level to view it? (e.g. Master Project should be able to view schedules at child project level, as well as ability to expand to view schedules at task level for all tasks in all child projects)

Import and export data to and from custom object (via Kick-start? Fusion?)

Which of the following features should be available for this object, INDEPENDENT of its children (e.g. not an aggregate)? (Business case, budget, updates, documents, scheduling, issues, risks, approval process, milestone path, baselines, billing rates, billing records, expenses, hours, utilization, queue topics, queue details, routing rules, scorecard)

If business case and billing are represented at this custom object's level, should it be incorporated into Portfolio Optimizer?

Ability to report on aggregated data from child objects, given a parent object (vertical aggregation)

Cross-object reporting (horizontal aggregation)

Calculated fields should have ability to aggregate data from child objects (e.g. should be able to create a field in Program that contains count of number of active projects it has)

Calculated fields should have ability to access data from parent object(s) - inheritance

Dynamic population of custom field value options based on value selected in previous field(s)

Linking external content to work

Ability to define success metrics for an individual work item and track measurements against it (integrate w/ Adobe customer journey?)

Ability to link deliverables stored in DAM/AEM to the work that produced it

Permissions

Ability to define permissions for individual work objects

Ability to define field-level permissions

Requests

Scorecards and business cases should exist at the Request level as well as the Project level

Requests should be able to be linked to a project template in order to estimate resource requirements.

Portfolio Optimizer should be able to include Requests for planning/ prioritization purposes

Calculated fields should be able to "roll down" data to child objects based on specified allocation