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Steps: How to Automate IT and Project Management Workflows

Written on June.

Updated on January 3, 2025.

Learn how to automate Workfront and Jira and enhance efficiency, accuracy, operational continuity, and scalability.

4 minute read

How to Automate IT and Project Management Workflows With Workfront and Jira.
Elsa Petterson

Elsa Petterson
Leadership success manager @ Put It Forward

Table of Contents

  1. Steps: How to Automate IT and Project Management Workflows
    1. Workflow Automation between Workfront and Jira
    2. Benefits and Commonly Automated Processes
    3. Key Automation Use Cases
    4. Implementation Best Practices
    5. Case Study: Successful Automation with Workfront and Jira
    6. Future Trends in Automation
    7. Key Takeaways
    8. What You Should Do Next
    9. Key IT Transformation and Leadership Assets
      1. Revenue Operations and IT Playbook
      2. Buyer Guide For Intelligent Automation
      3. How PIF's Architecture Works
      4. Subscribe For New Ideas

In today's fast-paced business environment, efficient project management and IT operations are crucial for success. This article explores the benefits of automating workflows between Workfront and Jira, addressing the challenges posed by disparate systems and demonstrating how automation can enhance efficiency, accuracy, operational continuity, and scalability. By aligning automation with business goals and objectives, organizations can achieve significant improvements in their workflows.

Workflow Automation between Workfront and Jira

Automating workflows with the Integration Designer between Workfront and Jira provides a seamless bi-directional integration that enhances project management efficiency. This integration ensures that data flows smoothly between the two platforms, eliminating the need for manual data entry and reducing the risk of errors.

Benefits and Commonly Automated Processes

BenefitsOutcomes

Streamlined Workflows:

Automation eliminates redundant tasks, allowing teams to focus on more strategic activities.

Enhanced Collaboration and Communication:

Teams can work more effectively with real-time updates and shared data across platforms.

Real-Time Data Synchronization:

Ensures that all stakeholders have access to the most current information, facilitating better decision-making.

Automated Project Creation and Milestone Events:

Approve a project in Workfront, which then creates the corresponding project, epic, stories, and tasks in Jira.

Task Creation and Updates: 

Automatically generate tasks in Jira from Workfront requests.

Status Tracking and Reporting: 

Keep track of project progress and time entry and generate reports.

Workflow Approvals: 

Streamline approval processes across platforms.

Project Cloning: 

Cross-platform project cloning for rapid creation.

Related Article: Process Mining for Workfront Project Optimization

Key Automation Use Cases

Project Creation: Automate the creation of projects across systems. For example, approving a project in Workfront can trigger the creation of the corresponding project, epic, stories, and tasks in Jira. This bi-directional integration ensures that updates are reflected in both systems.

Clone Projects: Enable complete project cloning within either Jira or Workfront or across both applications. Automate the cloning of simple to complex project structures with a single click, saving time and reducing the potential for errors.

Task Management: Automate task creation and assignment. For instance, Jira tasks can be automatically created from Workfront requests and updated to the percent complete status within Workfront as the Jira task progresses.

Workflow Approvals: Streamline approval processes across platforms. Automated approval workflows in Workfront can trigger corresponding actions in Jira, ensuring that approvals are handled efficiently and consistently.

Reporting and Analytics: Generate automated reports and dashboards that combine data from Workfront and Jira. Centralize reporting in either Workfront or Jira to provide a comprehensive view of project status and performance.

Key IT PMO Workflow Use Cases

Implementation Best Practices

IT PMO Automation Best Practices

Assessment and Planning: Begin by evaluating current workflows and identifying automation opportunities using process mining. Set clear objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the automation's success.

Integration and Customization: Configure systems for seamless integration and customize workflows to match specific business needs. This ensures that the automation solution is tailored to the organization's unique requirements.

Testing and Training: Conduct thorough testing to ensure the reliability and accuracy of the automated workflows. Train team members to use the automated systems effectively.

Case Study: Successful Automation with Workfront and Jira

A technology firm faced significant challenges managing projects due to the use of disparate systems across distributed teams, Workfront for project management, and Jira for issue tracking. This fragmentation led to inefficiencies, errors, and delayed updates. By implementing Put It Forward’s Intelligent Automation Platform, they automated key processes such as project creation, task management, and workflow approvals. For instance, project approvals in Workfront now automatically generate corresponding projects and tasks in Jira, saving approximately 20 hours of manual data entry per project.

Automation also streamlined task management and status updates, with Workfront requests creating corresponding Jira tasks and updating progress automatically. This integration reduced status update times by 50%.

The results were substantial: over 40 hours saved per project on average, a 25% increase in overall project delivery speed, and a 15% reduction in project costs. Real-time data synchronization improved collaboration and decision-making, while unified reporting reduced the time spent on generating weekly status reports from 8 hours to 1 hour.

Future Trends in Automation

Emerging technologies like Generative AI (GenAI) and Agentic AI are transforming the landscape of IT and project management workflows. GenAI's ability to generate human-like text, analyze vast amounts of data, and predict outcomes is revolutionizing how businesses approach automation between platforms like Workfront and Jira. This technology enables advanced data analysis, predictive analytics, and natural language processing (NLP). It allows organizations to automate routine tasks more effectively, gain deeper insights from their data, predict project risks, and optimize resource allocation seamlessly between these systems.

Put It Forward is at the forefront of integrating GenAI into its Intelligent Automation Platform, enhancing workflow automation between Workfront and Jira. By leveraging GenAI, Put It Forward's platform can analyze historical project data to identify patterns, suggest optimal project timelines, and forecast potential risks, ensuring real-time data synchronization and improved decision-making. This integration not only streamlines project management but also enhances collaboration and communication, helping businesses achieve greater efficiency, accuracy, and scalability in their automated workflows.

Key Takeaways

Automating project management with Workfront and Jira offers numerous benefits, including streamlined workflows, enhanced collaboration, real-time data synchronization, and improved reporting. Leveraging Put It Forward’s Intelligent Automation Platform can help organizations achieve these benefits. 

What You Should Do Next

Make Time For A Leadership Conversation:

Talk with someone who's been through it and helped organizations get to the next level.

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Key IT Transformation and Leadership Assets

Revenue Operations IT Intelligent Automation Playbook

Revenue Operations and IT Playbook

Get the blueprints for a successful project from others who have taken on transformation and automation in Revenue Operations and IT with Put It Forward.

Read more
Intelligent Automation Buyers Guide

Buyer Guide For Intelligent Automation

Use this buyers guide to short cut your way through all of the marketing to see who does what and how it fits into your environment.

Read more

How PIF's Architecture Works

Step through the architecture of Put It Forward; by the end of this video, you'll understand the platform, its components, and how it makes a difference in the enterprise.

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