Section 3 of 9

Pick a shape

Picking the wrong shape is the expensive mistake. Too small and the team outgrows it in a quarter; too large and nobody maintains it. Answer three questions and get a recommendation.

In plain terms

A shape is the set of tables you build — campaigns, deliverables, audiences, and so on. Small teams need two or three; enterprises need a dozen. Pick the smallest one that fits, because adding a table later is easy and taking one apart is not.

Answer three questions

These are the scope questions from section 2. The recommendation updates as you answer. The map under it shows every record type — Planning’s word for a table — across the shapes, and fades out the ones you do not need.

Recommended

Small · Consumer

Base shape: 3–4 record types · 1 optional

Base: Campaigns, Deliverables, Channels, Audiences. Optional: Brands.

Start from the Basic: Marketing Management workspace template and trim, rather than building by hand.

Audiences become the central taxonomy. Add a Lifecycle stage field on Audiences.
When in doubt, lean smaller. Adding a record type later is easy; splitting one that grew two meanings is not.

First playbook: 1. The front door · The small shape in detail

Figure 1. Record types across the shapes. Answer the questions above and everything outside your shape fades back. Dashed outlines are optional.

Five rules for every shape

Record type or field? Make it a record type if it connects to more than one other record type, or carries details others will look up. Make it a field if it only ever describes one record type. Never make a record type out of something that is really a view, like “Calendar” or “Q3 Dashboard.”
Never split a record type by time period. One Campaigns record type, segmented by a fiscal-period field — not Campaigns 2026 and Campaigns 2027.
Make primary field values unique. People pick connected records by searching the primary field. Name works for Campaigns; for Deliverables and Budget lines, compose one, like Campaign — Channel — Market, or add a code.
Two date fields on anything that belongs on a timeline or calendar. Records with a missing or inverted pair of dates silently do not appear. Start Date and End Date come predefined on every new record type — keep them, even if the team uses only one.
Do not rebuild Workflow. Tasks, assignments, hours, proofs, and approvals live on the connected Workfront project.

The shapes in detail

Each shape adds to the one before it. Each comes in variants — B2B (named accounts), consumer (audiences and lifecycle stages), mixed, and agency — that add record types without changing the base.

Lightweight tracker — 2 to 3 record types

For a single team replacing a spreadsheet calendar: “a mess of Excel and PowerPoint calendars,” “the calendar lives in one person’s head.” Do not impose structure they will not maintain.

Campaigns — Name (primary), Status (Idea, Planned, In progress, Live, Complete, Canceled — color them deliberately; the colors carry the timeline view), Channel (multi-select; promote it to a record type the moment channels need owners or baselines), Owner, Start and End Date, Description as the one-paragraph brief, a Workfront project connection, and Project status as a lookup — the field that keeps the calendar honest.
Deliverables — Name (compose it: Campaign — Asset — Market), Campaign (connection, many-to-one), Type, Status (Not started, In production, In review, Approved, Live), Owner, Due date — plus Start Date if they belong on a timeline.
Brands or Channels — optional third: whichever one leadership slices by first.

Configure a timeline on Campaigns grouped by channel for the current fiscal year — the single most valuable handoff at this size — a calendar view for teams who think in months, a request form (even four fields beats email), and an automation that creates the Workfront project when Status becomes Planned.

Small — 3 to 4 record types

The default starter when a team wants real structure. Start from the Basic: Marketing Management template and trim.

Campaigns add Objective, Budget and Actual spend, Audiences and Brands connections, Fiscal period (the segmentation that replaces per-year record types), and a UTM campaign formula so the taxonomy is generated, not typed.
Deliverables or Briefs add a Channel connection, an Audience connection, a Brief paragraph, a Workfront project connection, and Approved by / Approved date — a cheap audit trail without a separate record type.
Audiences — Name, Description, Size, Region, Owner.
Channels — Name, Owner, KPI baseline, and the locked UTM medium value the formula uses.

Variants: B2B adds Accounts (or keeps them in the CRM, connected as a summary) and a Funnel stage field. Consumer makes Audiences central, with a Lifecycle stage field. Mixed does both. Agency adds Clients — see below.

Mid — 5 to 6 record types

The dominant mid-market shape. Start from the Advanced: Marketing Management template. Keep operational record types in one section and taxonomies in another; that separation is what keeps six record types readable.

Tactics — the middle tier between Campaign and Deliverable, with Type, Channel, dates, Owner, Budget, and Status. Set up Campaign → Tactic → Deliverable as a hierarchy; a hierarchy holds at most 4 record types, so spend them carefully. At this size the Workfront project usually hangs off the Tactic.
Products — Name, Line, Launch date, Owner; connected to Campaigns and Tactics.
Regions — Name, Code (EMEA, fr-FR), Currency, Local lead. Only when markets really differ in ownership or compliance.

Add the roll-ups leadership asks for — tactic and deliverable counts and total tactic budget as summarized lookups on Campaigns — and an AEM assets connection on Deliverables when AEM is licensed. Show connected Tactics on the Campaigns timeline (up to 5 connected record types can display).

Large — 7 to 9 record types

Adds the money, the vendors, and the gates. Start from the Enterprise: Marketing Management template.

Budget lines — a composed primary (Fiscal period — Cost center — Line), Planned, Committed, and Actual, Variance as a formula, Vendor, PO number, and Status through to Paid. Check first whether Workfront financial management already covers it.
Vendors — Type, Internal owner, Active, Contract end, and a Workfront company connection.
Review log — optional, only if Workfront’s approval trail is not enough at campaign level.

Add request-form approval rules so high-budget or regulated requests route for sign-off before a record exists.

Enterprise and multi-brand

The large shape plus brand and market structure — and still one Marketing workspace unless a unit has a genuinely different operational lifecycle.

Sub-brands and Markets / Locales — defined once as global record types, package permitting. Markets carry a locale code, region, currency, and compliance regime.
Initiatives — the tier above Campaign, only when leadership plans in multi-year bets. It is the fourth hierarchy level and costs you the fifth.
On Campaigns: Sub-brands, Markets, Global / local, and a Master campaign self-connection that models global-to-local without a new record type. Workflow 8 covers it.

Confirm the package first. Global record types and cross-workspace connections are gated — Plus, Prime, or Ultimate depending on the combination. Designing a multi-workspace architecture for a Select customer wastes a session.

Regulated marketing

For pharma, alcohol, financial services, insurance, healthcare, and lottery — surface it on compliance vocabulary or a regulated industry. Adds Claims (with approval, expiry, evidence, markets, status), Disclaimers (required by market, channel, product, or audience), and MLR reviews, plus required-claim and required-disclaimer connections on Deliverables. Run the review cycles themselves in Workfront proofing. Workflow 9 covers it.

Agency and in-house agency

Adds Clients (account lead, tier, retainer hours per period, hours used as a summarized lookup, hours remaining as a formula) and Engagements / SOWs, a Client connection on Campaigns, Tactics, and Deliverables, and SLA stage with Stage entered on Deliverables. Workflow 10 covers it.

One workspace, or one per client — decide first. One workspace with a Client connection is the default and keeps cross-client reporting simple. One per client is only for genuine confidentiality, such as competing brands in one category. Record types cannot be moved between workspaces, so this decision is effectively permanent.

Sources

Adobe Workfront Planning documentation — terminology, request forms, automations, object limitations: Experience League article index
Planning API reference, versions 1 and 2: developer.adobe.com/wf-planning
Package contents and entitlements: Adobe Workfront product description