Thanks all for attending!
Welcome back to another Ask Me Anything (AMA) series, formerly known as Community Coffee Breaks! In the first customer-led AMA of 2025, we are partnering with Workfront Community Advisors Lyndsy D. (@Lyndsy-Denk), Monique E. (@MoniqueEvans), and Richard C. (@Richard__Carlson) to host a 1-hour AMA on Workfront Proofs. Keep in mind this is a text-only event, there is no link/video to join! Just post your question as a reply to the thread and it will be answered during the 1-hour “event”.
Workfront Proofing streamlines the review process for digital assets, allowing teams to collaborate on feedback and approvals in real-time. Workfront Proof supports over 150 file types, enabling diverse content reviews, offers intuitive markup tools for detailed feedback and supports robust version control to track changes. Lastly, with automated approval workflows, Proof ensures that the review process is efficient and organized.
Streamlined Workflow: Simplifies review processes by centralizing all feedback and approvals in one platform, reducing the chaos of email threads and ensuring that everyone involved has access to the same information.
Real-Time Collaboration: Teams can provide immediate feedback on digital assets, allowing for faster decision-making. Reviewers can annotate directly on proofs, making comments clear, actionable, and easier to understand.
Version Control: Workfront Proofing maintains a history of all changes and comments, enabling teams to track revisions easily.
Automated Approval Processes: Proof allows for customizable workflows that can automate the approval process, making it easier to manage complex review cycles. This feature helps ensure that deadlines are met without sacrificing quality.
Support for Multiple File Types: With the ability to handle over 150 file types, including dynamic media, Workfront Proofing is extremely versatile for all kinds of projects.
Not sure where to start? We’ve included some sample questions to get you started.
Here are some recent Proof resources to get you thinking about the topic prior to the event:
Please note that this text-only AMA takes place as a discussion post on the Workfront Community. If you are unable to make this live event, you can always publish your question in the thread now! Please be sure to REFRESH the page frequently so you don't miss responses from our PMs or new questions/comments.
**All AMAs are TEXT-ONLY, meaning there is no webinar, video call, or recording. All questions and answers will occur on this thread.
Can the archive period be changed? We have noticed that proofs archive after 60 days and drop off of the My Approvals report on the home page. This is not an ideal set up as we don't cancel proofs until after 90 days.
We do not believe that the archive period can be changed by system admins. I was not able to find any settings for this specific feature.
What is your opinion on when to use a Document Approval vs. Proof Approval?
Great question! This is a heated debate but in my opinion, the best direction is to be very consistent with your workflow and not mix the two. It is much easier to report on Document Approvals and eventually (way down the line) this is the route that all asset approvals will take eventually so it will be less of an learning curve. Proof Approvals do have their perks with their more specific details but reporting on them can be quite difficult.
I think in this case a best of both worlds approach is the best; but does require a lot of training and due dilligence. But this allows you to use the markup capabilties of Proof and the organization and reporting ease of Document Approvals. Here's a link to see more details on this. Use Unified Approvals and proofing together
We currently only use Simple Proof. I want our project managers to see the value in Proofing Workflows, but all they see is extra work and more "admin time." Do you have any recommendations on how to get buy in for Proofing Workflows? Along those same lines, I know about the templates, if anyone has best practices or recommendations for that, I'm all ears!
Hey Emily! I definitely had this issue back in the day, and here's my 2 cents. The cool thing about the Advanced Workflows is that they save time, by having it already created, but they are super flexible in that PMs can change out names, add a stage if needed etc. What I did was to meet with the PMs and created a couple of "shell" (or basic) Workflows with just a couple of stages that everyone seemed to use, and then the PMs could adjust as needed.
For the templates, the best piece of advice that I can give is to use Naming Conventions that make sense to your PMs. There's not a way to sort them, so if you have a bunch of them or if the names are super similar or confusing, your PMs might not select the correct ones.
Is there, or could there be, a way to set up which workflow a proof would need before the designer finished the item? We, for instance, know that who needs to approve a piece before it is made and I can't find a way to not create a stall between the design being finished and the PM setting up and triggering the workflow. Ideally, the designer would be able to kick it off instantly, but then you have to train them to activate and use the correct workflow.
Would like to better understand how copywriters use the proofing tool in Work Front? Is there a way to see track changes from Microsoft in the system?
Tagging the experts in case this helps (per instructions) (@Lyndsy-Denk), (@MoniqueEvans), (@Richard__Carlson)
At this time Proof is static. Reviewers can add comments, but that's about as live as it gets. The only way to see tracked changes is to upload a version that displays the tracked changes, which I don't recommend.
You could come up with an alternate approach using the SharePoint syncing, but you lose the decision-making tools. It's a tradeoff.
Where do I find info on SharePoint syncing?
Check out the documentation on Experience League.
@Lyndsy-Denk Please provide additional info re: sharepoint syncing as we are looking into this as well.
In Workfront email notifications, the proof name url is so much more prominent than the Go to Proof CTA. Is there a way to realign this notification so users stop going to proof url and trying to make comments (and sometimes succeeding) in the native file? is the proof url even necessary?
Hi Beth! We talked about the proof and Workfront email notifications during yesterday's session, and one of the recommendations was to turn off those Proof Notifications in Workfront option (in Setup) since it can get confusing. I always found a Proof Approval report way more useful than the notifications, but here's the event link, if it's helpful.
That's great for the meantime, but it would be nice if we could customize notifications so that they ARE useful rather than finding workarounds. Lots of people don't log in unless they have a reason to, so it results in PMs chasing people from the report rather than individuals self-serving, which isn't scalable.
Totally agree! I ended up scheduling the Proof Approval report each day so every users would get the "These haven't been approved yet" email. Not the best solution. Sorry!
Is there anyway to have a separate chat stream from the updates comments that the submitter sees? When having combined workflows for say Brand and Creative, we would like to have separate comment/updates stream for the proof the team can comment on, that the submitter doesn't see?
Not sure if this helps but we add and remove who is able to see a proof. So version 1 may have 5 people, but version 2 may just be creative. Then once creative has approved. The version 3 we will add the reviewers back into version 3 proof.
Thank you Connie, in the case of a multiple team workflow (brand, creative, AI), especially with creative, there are many comments and possible opinions in the comments. This in turn makes it hard for the original submitter to follow and becomes confusing. (things mentioned that the submitter doesn't need to see) By keeping that part of the conversation separate between the teams involved, takes confusion away from submitter in the update comments, makes the interaction with the original submitter cleaner and less confusing or controversial.
Have you ever tried proofing stages? We will try to get all of the creative design review done in a stage before the legal review stage. The lawyers just want to see the legal stuff specific to them and not the slight variations of the design which exist in the prior proof iterations. The legal stage can be set to occur after the design stage is finalized.
What is the benefit of a "private" workflow stage and how are they typically set up? What does this type of stage mean?
What is the benefit of a "private" workflow stage and how are they typically set up? What does this type of stage mean?
A private workflow stage would only be visible for people added to it. One example of how to use a private stage: Allowing the content creation to happen uninterrupted without executive oversight. In other words you can hide the stage if you wanted content creation work to happen and at the same time eliminate the "curious people looking at artwork through the system and reviewing it before they're ready" scenario.
Can proof owners/uploaders be a part of two different workflow stages (one private and one not)? - I was not able to do this in my testing
What is the benefit of a "private" workflow stage and how are they typically set up? What does this type of stage mean?
Great option I was not aware was availble.... quick add question.... can the proof be revised to public once it is ready to share? So let's say V1 + V2 are priviate but V3 can go now go public?
The private stage is just a single checkbox on the stage so you could either choose to unhide the stage or create a later public stage.
Can proof owners/uploaders be a part of two different workflow stages (one private and one not)?
This is not currently a function. In that case, we encourage you to submit an idea. There is an oldie from 2020, but the team doesn't look further back than a couple years.
What is the best way to reporting of the portion of the task duration that the proof was with someone else. To clarify, we have a task that is assigned to the designer. It has a planned duration of 5 days. If a reviewer has the proof for 6 weeks, the task looks late and is assigned to the designer, but it isn't the designer's problem. I have a very complex Fusion senario to try to get the data written to the task, so we can hide the task from the designer's to do list when it isn't their turn and to get the data for reporting on SLAs. But, this isn't great.
We recommend splitting the tasks so that you have one for review and another for applying the feedback you received during the review.
From there, you have a couple options for reporting:
Check out the screenshot attached for an example.
how can we create the following report
"A Proof Approval report that looks at each individual participant's interactions in the proof, including when they clicked the decision button."
What is the best way to delegate proof approvals when an Approver that is set on multiple workflows is out of office? Perhaps there is a way with Fusion that I'm not aware of? We are manually adjusting and it is a major time suck.
You are not alone in asking for this, did you see this thread? Ability to Delegate Proof Approvals - Adobe Experience League Community - 518699
For proof approvals, there seems to be no way to delegate proof approvals in a wholesale fashion. Our PMs have to update the proofing workflows individually as far as I know. The other person who responded linked an idea on the Idea Exchange which would provide the functionality that everyone wants (so to speak).
I understand there may be a way to more wholesale delegate "work approvals" in Workfront (project approvals, task approvals, issue approvals) for example.
If you add a comment box to a decision choice, is there a way to pull comments into proof reports?
Great question. It's a stumper!
We're digging into this but none of us can find where this information lives in the backend so @NicholeVargas is reaching out to Support and Product to find more details.
I'm thinking you are referring to "decision choices" and if so, this is not possible (without the use of Fusion). Decision Reasons aren’t captured in the Comments stream under “Updates”.
The only place you can see them is if you look at the Proofing Workflow. If a decision has been made and a reason selected (with a comment added) you can only see the reason and comment there.
You could probably use Fusion to “read” the decision reason and perhaps the comment made, and then write that onto a text field on a document custom form. But, then you have to consider how to handle this when there are multiple decision makers on a proof, how to capture all those decisions, etc. Could get very messy very fast.
What is the best way to set up a "pending proof" report for Reviewers only? I believe there is no way to do this out of the box. Anyone have a workaround or solution?
Correct, you currently cannot generate reports for participants who do not have a decision-making role. However, you can reach out your account partner to request to join the Unified Approvals functionality. This is a limited release thing right now.
In so many words - confirming what @Lyndsy-Denk said, users need to be assigned "approver" or higher on each individual proofing workflow in order for the proof reporting to pick up on the role and be able to report on it
We use Workfront for marketing and reviewing proofs. Periodically, we know a similar document was submitted and want to search within the PowerPoint presentation or PDF. Is there a way to do this? Has anyone done this or found this a need?
If I recall correctly, Workfront Search is smart enough to read document text. Be sure, the text is not outlines. You may also want to do an advanced search instead of the normal drop down.
Is there a way to copy proofs & any proof comments to another proof/version?
You can move a proof, but not copy. Can you say more about what you're trying to accomplish?
If you're looking to give future viewers visibility to past comments, I recommend using the proof versions function and making sure users have the ability to view previous versions.
@Lyndsy-Denk - This question comes from our external reviewers. We need to transfer their comments manually to our internal proofs. The reason being we have one "mega" proof with all clients and then send externally as a separate proof to each client individually - so we want to take the manual transfer out of this either with Fusion or some other way.
Have you tried staging your proofs? Stage 1 would go to your external reviewers, then you add your internal reviewers in a second stage. The reviewers in Stage 2 should still see the activity from Stage 1.
What do we need to know about upcoming changes to document approvals and markup?
I can take this one! So, I'll add the link to the current documentation below, but our team (Nichole, Leslie, and I) will be hosting an event with Jason Barron, where he will share all of the updates. It will be on July 22nd - we don't have the registration link yet, but we will add it to this thread so that everyone here will get a notification.
There were also a few Summit sessions that shared some of the upcoming features, so I wanted to share that link as well.
Is there a way to use file sharing services (box, OneDrive, etc...) and/or staged web sites with the proofing tool? We don't always upload content directly to Workfront and having the content available from these sites would be helpful.
In my experience, when you convert a document that is linked through one of the integrations (SharePoint, Box, or OneDrive) to a proof, it essentially takes a snapshot of the file for the purposes of proofing. A user can still click the title of the linked document to go to the live file, but there's a different button to take the user to the proof itself. I can't say I'm enamored with the user experience.
Dang, that kind of defeats the purpose of using a "live link" ....
Is there a non-manual way for proof uploaders/creators to kick off an approval workflow?
This is something that you could attempt with Fusion; however, I would be very hesitant to set this up if your creatives also upload documents that are reference files or things that aren't needed for approvals.
Is there a way for the proof approval process to update a tasks status? We'd like to have the task status change back to in progress (or whatever) if a proof is not approved.
Some of our users are not being pushed back to the project when they click on a proof link from an email. When they close the proof it pushes them to the general document page and not the document area of that project. Is anyone else having this experience? I know you can click on the project name to get back to the project. It seems like this is the new intended experience.
Yup, I've seen this. Fun fact: Adding someone to a proof workflow does not share the document with them. We suspect that when someone is added to a proof but doesn't have permission to view the document, Workfront has to make a decision of where to direct them upon exiting the proof, thus Documents.
Thank you! I had contacted support but couldn't figure out where the issues were. I will look into that to see if that was the case.
We create a lot of emails and need reviews of website with company reviewers. It seems like the only options to do this review in Workfront is to upload the URL, which just creates a PDF and doesn't allow the user to click around on the page or email OR download a desktop or chrome extension which isn't reasonable for us to ask business owners to do. is there another way to review interactive emails or websites and have users leave comments and feedback without any downloads needed or converting to a PDF?
Agree....the separate proofing app is a problem with reviewers who are unfamiliar with the process. It's a big ask to download an app which can require some jumping through hoops if a company has permissions blocked on what you can add to your device and you may only use once.
We are long term PHQ - Proofing users and users only need to download the desktop app to replicate interactive functionality. In my experience it is not required for static content.
I know it's not required for static content, but it is for email and website reviews if we want the reviewer to have an interactive experience with the content. I guess I'm not understanding your response.
We experience this issue with gifs in our emails. Would love to hear the answer for this one.
Interactive proofs are how we recommend. However, when I discussed amongst us moderators, we agreed that if the webpage is behind some sort of login (ex. a SharePoint page under SSO), it's likely not going to work well. I have users running their web builds and email through Litmus, but I have no personal experience with it.
This idea might be worth upvoting. Someone from product responded with a recommendation for looking into Frame.io.
This one may be a challenge, so here goes.
The scenario: We have 3 stages on a proof. For the first stage, when the deadline passes, we have that stage lock and reviewers cannot go back in to add comments or make a decision. The reviewers are set to Reviewer & Approver role.
The problem: Using the My Approvals home widget, when a reviewer on stage 1 does not make a decision and the proof is locked, the proof will hang out until they do, but they can't make a decision when it is locked. The issue is our users widget is filling up with proofs that they cannot action and is causing major confusion on what they actually need to review and clutter since we can't filter these out on the widget. Currently, I am spending a lot of time in the back end of proof locking proofs and archiving them in real time once we release assets to clean up their home page.
I have worked with support and they have confirmed the following:
If a proof has multiple stages and the reviewer in Stage 1 has not made a decision, the proof will continue to appear in the Home page widget, even if Stage 1 is currently locked. This behavior ensures that all pending approval actions are visible until they are resolved or the proof is otherwise cleared through one of the standard conditions (decision made, proof archived, or project marked as completed).
Does anyone have a recommendation on how I can help my users? Is there something I can do with Fusion to reduce the noise on the home page prior to a project being completed and avoid the manual work I am doing currently?
I have explored reports in the past but could not output the report I needed to be effective.
This is quite a tricky one and it sounds like you've tried most of the things I would think of. One thing that comes to mind is the newest Fusion template that helps clean up Proofs on completed projects. I'm wondering if you could finagle it in a way to look for non-Active stages. Please let us know if you figure this out!
It has been a bit of a hurdle to figure this out, but will post a follow up if I can make some magic happen. Thanks, Monique!
We would like to use "Require Electronic Signature" but it asks for a login and password and our SSO doesn't seem to work. I've seen conflicting information on Experience League. Do I need to configure SSO in ProofHQ, or... Is this an Admin Console issue or...
I recommend connecting with support on this one.
I agree. I wish we had better reporting for proof as well. My leadership would like to know statistics around when a stage is activated, when a user opens the proof, and how long it takes them to approve.
In various places of this thread are some links to what's coming for proof reviewing functionality. It sounds like some of your dreams may come true soon. Keep smashing the upvote buttons in the Ideas area of the community. If you want early access, check out the Unified Approvals functionality and contact your account manager to join.
I would like to get some recommendations on how other users are using Proof for external contacts. We do not use workflows internally because we need our review process to remain flexible (one user may need to see 1, 2 or 3 rounds and another user on the same rounds may approve first round and this is unpredictable at the start of the round).
Currently, we are just sending clients a link to view the proof as "reviewer" only. But some clients have been experiencing more and more issues getting into proof with Adobe Admin console (ie being asked for a password to an account they don't have). It's difficult to troubleshoot a third party for these instances.
What process do others use for reviews outside of an organization (with no WF license)?
I am also dying to know this! We often have a combo of internal and external reviewers who need to sign off on proofs!
We had to set up our external reviewers in Adobe Admin console and provision them for Workfront. After this it seems to be working ok.
Is it possible to build out different custom messages per stage. If I am correct, if you have multiple stages that activated at different times, the custom message created while creating the proof will be the same message that everyone gets. I wish we could do custom messaging for each stage so we can make these messages more specific to the parties in each stage.
Each stage can have specific messaging and at any point you can also optionally send a message to everyone on a stage.
How do I set up specific messaging for each stage so that it automatically goes out when the stage is activated?
Can we combine multiple proofs into one and keep all the comments?
We frequently run into this also, the designer forgets to select the combo proof option and instead creates 2 separate proofs. We would like a way to combine them when this happens.
On that same topic, is there a way to combine videos into one proof? So far, I haven't figured out how to do that.
I just tested it (and I asked Monique), and it's just not letting me do it. Monique said there is something strange that happens to the file when she has tried. For me, I'm not sure if the files were too big, but it's not even letting me Combine into the Single Proof. Sorry!
I would like to know when we will be able to upload to the proofing tool: HTML and Sharepoint live links (without the integration - this is forbidden by our IT team).
When you say "without the integration", do you mean without using the "Workfront Proof" interactive proof viewer (installed desktop application)?
I mean without the formal integration as seen here. We don't use the installed desktop Proof application.
Our designers often mark up a proof with explanatory comments for our approvers to know "here's what this is, what this is, what this is". Each time they need to create a new version of the proof, they have to manually rebuild all of those initial comments. Is there any way to transfer or import comments?
On a similar-but-different question, we sometimes receive a PDF that has comments on it (i.e. added in Adobe Acrobat/Reader PDF), but when we upload that PDF as a proof in Workfront, there is no way to see those comments, and they definitely don't "come in" as comments -- is there any feature we're missing to allow that?
You can move a proof, but not copy comments. Here are some functions that might help:
Is there a way to select multiple existing documents in a project (but not necessarily all of them) and combine them into one proof without having to download them, and then reupload them? It would be helpful if there was a way to do this within the system rather than having to add the extra steps of downloading/reuploading.
Hello! I checked with Monique and there is not a native way to do this, but you should be able to do this via Fusion. The trigger might be the submission of the request with multiple docs attached. Then the scenario would need to download the docs to a specific location, and then re-upload as a single proof in the same request. It seems like it's doable, but you might need some Fusion expertise to build it.
Hi Everyone!
Our experts @Lyndsy-Denk , @MoniqueEvans , and @Richard__Carlson are on the thread NOW to answer your Proof questions. Hop in and ask your questions now for their help!
Is there a way to automate reminders for individual proofs? We do not use automatic workflows, as each proof has different reviewers, so that is not an option for our team.
In Setup, you can configure a default proof deadline and an automatic nagging notification. See the screenshot attached. I recommend configuring these settings regardless of what type of workflow you use.
When we end a proof, we add a custom message, which contains our project number. But when we receive a notification that a decision was made on our proof, there is no tie in back to the original custom message subject, so we have to open the proof to see which project the notification is for. Is there any way to have the email subject in the response?
We have a user that is leaving comments on a proof but the comments get changed into something unreadable: REPLACE -y-|- ---$-sy-|--$ x-9--|------y- WITH (example). Anyone else experiencing this? Do you know what causes this? I have time set up with the user to do a screen share to see if we can recreate the issue, but I thought this group may have some insights or troubleshooting tips.
If you haven't already, please submit this to Support. That's definitely a bug of some sort
When creating a proof in Workfront Project (Document), how can we keep the "resolve" option available when pushed to the next stage with Creative? It seems to get lost so have been unable to make this transition... is it a permission or role that needs to be updated?
I have to wonder if this is a feature of staging. If no one else has insight, I would submit a ticket to support to ask.
How can I unsubscribe from these emails?
During legal review/proofing stages, we periodically need to review older reviews. Is it possible to search not only for comments made, but also for something within the PDF or PowerPoint presentation? Is this doable? If so, how.
Thank you
Hi Everyone. Thanks for your questions - the AMA is now OVER. Big thank you to all those who attended, whether you asked a question, responded, or just reviewed all the replies! Please stay tuned for future Workfront AMAs, all of which will occur exclusively on the Workfront Community.
Event starts:
May 08, 2025 - 09:30 AM (PDT)
Event ends:
May 08, 2025 - 10:30 AM (PDT)