How do YOU use blueprints? Help and Inspiration
I'm trying to get it to work for me. Maybe I'm not using it as intended. I'm trying to streamline my process. Sometimes I get assigned a task, and I know the exact steps in doing that. I created a blueprint for that.
Now, this is where it gets messy.
I have to go to the blueprints portion in order for me to GET THAT TEMPLATE. I have to remember where the task is located, deadlines I want to move it to, etc. It's really annoying.
What do people use blueprints for? Is it only good for form submissions?
How is using blueprints helpful to YOU?
Hi Aurora,
We use Blueprints as templates, but we use Request forms to create projects from those templates. When we set up the Blue Print we run it through a mock project with typical due dates and duration's for each task within the project. We then set dependencies for each task, so that when we update dates for one task it has an effect on all others after it. We also ensure that one person is assigned in each task, even if this means that a manager is assigned a task. Once the mock project is setup and all stakeholders agree with the dates of when everything needs to be done by we create a request form.
We make the request form in a away so that we name it to identify the project, ask questions so that the project gets assigned to the right person as well as in the right folder or space, and we set a start date so that the first task will be set and all other dates will follow based on the start date of the entire project.
Tasks within the Blue Print that were assigned to a manager can then be reassigned by that manager based for resource allocation. This way a manager of a team can decide who will be responsible for the task when the project has started.
Here is the folder structure for a blue print template.
Right now within this template we have 102 tasks for this project to be completed.
Here is the request form to start this project, it only has two questions. The name that then acts as a prefix for all folders and tasks, as well as the lease sign date, which then translates into the date of the first task.
Here is the folder structure of the newly created project from the blue print.
Here is a small view of our Gantt Chart of the new project.
I hope this helps.
-Ryan
Hi, Aurora A 🙂 I'd also suggest checking out Wrike Discover course on Blueprints. Among other things, it helps understand when to create a Blueprint and when not to. Hope it helps 🤝
Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
Lisa With that said, is there a feature on Wrike that can help me streamline this?
Aurora,
What do you mean by streamline? What is it that you want streamlined?
-Ryan
HI Ryan
I have a question if you don't mind. I use blueprints with my request forms as well. Right now the due date that I ask for in my request form maps to all of the different deliverables that are selected. So all deliverables are due on that same day.
Can you give an example or show an example of how you have your dependencies linked to trigger the next deliverable? To be honest dependencies do not always work smoothly for me when I apply them. Maybe there is something i can do better?
Thanks for any help!
Stacey
Stacey Gill Munich Re
continued -
Snapshot of a sample project with same due date:
Stacey Gill Munich Re
Stacey Ens
If you could provide some screen shots of the following things, this might help us get to the bottom of things.
1.) the Gantt chart of your blue print.
2.) The request form setup where the blue print is being used?
I am currently away for the next week and can give you screen shots of one of our project blue prints and how it is set up to help but for now it may be best if you can provide these and I maybe able to help while I am away.
Thanks,
-Ryan
Thanks Ryan !
Attaching below. But want to clarify the question I have is for multiple blueprints linking to a single form. The end date for each blueprint the same - picked up from the "due date" in the form. Not sure if i was clear.
Here are snap shots of a few sections of form. Description with Due Date and a few of my blue prints.
Here is my Ad - Blue print
and Digital Sign
Stacey Gill Munich Re
Stacey Ens Just curious as to why your dependencies are looping, meaning you have have predecessors at the beginning and end of your parent task, folder or project. Not sure if it matters and I am sure you want them there for notification purposes, again just curious.
I am also noticing that your arrows seem to flow up in your advertising workflow. I have not seen that before, have you tried to have the same SF dependency but have the arrows flow the other way. For example, line 3 (Design Internal) has a 2SS (which makes sense) and a 4SF, the way I read this now is that the task in line 4 has to start before you can finish line 3, which based on the task titles I do not think this should be the case. You want line 4 to start after line 3 starts.This trickles down now to your line 7 which is your print final file. This has a FF to line 2 (again makes sense), but that is the only dependency built, the line above it means however has the SF dependency built with line 7, line 5 has the SF to line 6, and line 4 has the SF to line 3. If you follow this logic you then will not be able to start your task on line 3 till the task on line 7 starts which is about 3 weeks later. This could be the reason why all your end dates end up being the same is because the way the dependencies are built you are saying that line 7 should be your first task and line 3 is your last task, which I do not think is the case. To fix this you may want to put in the predecessor box the following;
-Line 3 2SS
-Line 4 3SF
-Line 5 4SF
-Line 6 5SF
-Line 7 6SF
For your digital sign you may have the same problem with your first dependency going the wrong direction. You have Pick up Article Starting before your DS - Z1 parent folder or project. Everything else seems to be in order, but you may want to switch the arrow so it flows the other way and this may fix your issue there as well.
Unfortunately I do not have a simple blue print that we use for templates but I can show you what we use that has 119 tasks built into it for when we open a new home that engages, 7 teams. I showed the folder structure and request form above but here is a quick glance at my Gantt Chart.
That is a lot to process I know, and I had a lot of fun building it. We have been using it now for a about 6 months, and it has streamlined everything we need when we open a new home. There has been some enhancements to the request form (That i see you using) where we will be looking at simplifying this process, but we need to get some other things done first.
A few things to remember when building out dependencies.
Direction maters. The way your arrows flow is telling the system the order in which work needs to be done. As soon as you start using dependencies, your dates become second in terms of order. Wrike will line everything up based on a start or end date, and then map it all out with the first task based on dependencies first. It will then use the dates to determine the length of the project.
Start with the end in mind. Your last task in any project should be a milestone, and not just a task. This is really important if you have hard deadlines you want activities done by. No mater what you do then with a created project in terms of time lines, you have to purposefully move the milestone to change your end time line. You can move all other tasks prior dates around, and it will not impact your milestone. So if you move one task back a few days the Gantt Chart will show you if you will still meet your end target date, highlighting you tardy tasks red. You and your team will then have to decide if moving a few tasks back is worth pushing the whole project back, and if it is then you can move the milestone task back to align with the rest of the project.
Start to finish. Once you have all tasks created within your template and you think you have all your dependencies built, walk through them. With the task I posted above this was a little tedious but worth the double check. We were able to start with the first task (signing a lease) and look at all the next tasks and make sure that every task was linked to the next task that eventually ended with our milestone. In some cases the workflow for some of the tasks do do not need to flow to the milestone and this gave us an opportunity to chat about it making sure this is what we wanted to do. As you build something like this, little things can get lost and it is a good way to make sure you close any loops that need closing.
I hope this helps, and am still open to helping if my suggestions above do not help in getting your dates to align.
-Ryan
Ryan.
Wow! Thank you for taking the time to provide this. I can explain some of my rationale for creating dependencies as I did, but first I want to digest what you sent. I will be back to you as I am sure i will have a few more questions. Dependencies have been a struggle for some time.
Again thank you!
Talk soon,
Stacey
Stacey Gill Munich Re
Hi Ryan
So for me, the goal of dependencies is to alert the next user when a task is complete as well as realign sub tasks when I change the date of the parent task. I don't have much luck with that. Sometimes it works sometimes not. You noted that the dependencies will override dates and I'm wondering if adding dependencies is the wrong solution here.
The reason i have the looping dependencies is because i want the start date of the parent task to align with start date of 1st sub task. And the end date to align with end date of last sub task. Again my goal at the time was to be able to reschedule my parent task and have all sub tasks align.
I created the reverse order because through a series of trials that actually seemed to work a little better for me with realignment.
That said I would love to have a discussion with you. Maybe you can steer me in the right direction based on my dependency needs?
Stacey
Stacey Gill Munich Re
I am actually in Florida right now and am using a US number while away. If you want to chat on the phone email me and we can connect on the phone. My email address is rnelson@entrust97.ca.
-Ryan