@moniqueevans A perfect storm indeed! Super helpful context as always.
Two thoughts:
- Would adding teams possibly help here? (I know Proof doesn't support Teams but Unified Approvals does - just thinking future here). Adding a team to an approval, and whoever the first person is that picks it up makes the decision for the team so it wouldn't display for the team anymore
- Could the project manager/coordinator remove folks that are hold ups or hadn't made a decision before the deadline?
I am super interested in solving this, as stakeholders will quickly ignore that approvals widget (or anything that is a little older) because they don't think it's relevant. I'd love to find a solve that only those things showing in their widget are relevant to them and encourage their action
Love where your head is going with these solutions.
Team approvals might help some other usecases but for what I describe it doesn't. It's part of a larger internal problem where we are simply adding too many cooks in the kitchen. Ideally all 5 people should and would review and make a decision. But eventually we will move forward without Person number 3's input because the other 4 have given enough and the launch is happening with or without the asset. Doesn't mean Person number 3 wasn't needed, they just missed the boat. Similar to if you've ever tried to plan a group trip or a friend hang. If you have that one friend that can never commit, or another friend that sometimes disappear you plan around them instead of cancelling the whole thing because of them. It might not be the same friend every time.
Project Managers should be the ones cleaning this up. But most of our approvals are handled by the Creative themselves and that's not a skillset thats inherently in them. There's also too many active projects with even more assets to focus time away from their main job to have them doing this administrative work. If we were properly staffed (which is probably never truly happen) this wouldn't be as much of an issue.
Giving users the ability to bulk edit (multiple assets across multiple projects) would start to get us there because I could at least give everyone a report they could once a month visit and clean-up. Being able to create automations or even setting up a system-wide timeout rule would greatly help for maintenance; for example if the proof is archived so are all pending approvals. Another option is introducing a "no decision" button for the reviewer/approver so they can close them from their side without making a decision that affects the asset. The last thing that comes to mind won't help approvers but would help requestors is removing pending approvals for inactive users. As I run reports I find that there's thousands of approvals lingering for users that have been deactivated so that clutters the Creative and Project Manager's lists.
Honestly due to the nature of how we work we may always be a hot mess, but sorting by most recent at least gives the appearance that these approvals are all relevant.
I'm happy to meet and show examples and talk through your ideas if you think it will help
