Functionality to Automatically Close Pending Proofs in Completed Projects

[#1]

As much as I remind people to mark a decision on proofs, and even send a monthly reminder to anyone who has a pending proof with a link to a report where they can view them easily, our pending backlog continues to grow. WF needs some kind of functionality that either prevents a project from getting closed - this idea - or something that if a project goes to complete and there are pending proofs, any pending proofs change to a status of ‘later version approved.' The latter would be better, something automated. Or if a later version of a proof was marked approved, any prior versions that are pending change to a 'later version approved' status. 

Help!

[#2]

I have almost 4000 pending proof approvals in my system which, if I had to guess, were attached to closed projects.  The idea that a proof approval would transition to a different status if the project is closed would be heaven.  I don't know of any way to clear these out, half of the people probably don't even work for our company any more.

[#3]

@Richard__Carlson and @Madalyn_Destafney ,

Do either of you happen to have Workfront Fusion in your organization?  I would think, because the expected behavior may be different depending on your specific organizations' needs, that this would be best built into a custom automation (at least for the foreseeable future).  Sometimes proofs are attached to projects and other times tasks.  Some times you may want the proofs closed when certain things are done but maybe not always?  Finally...you may or may not want updates provided when closed, what about email notifications?  Feel free to leave more thoughts about your particular needs here.  

[#4]

Hi, thanks for the suggestions. We don't have Fusion (and never will - budget reasons).

If a project is marked Complete and there are still pending proofs, we'd definitely want them closed out. In all our instances of this, it's either the approver missed the approval window and we had to move on without their feedback, or more commonly, they approved a later version and never approved/marked decision on a previous version.

Not sure I understand the email notification tie-in. They get notified when there is a proof for their review, not sure how this relates to closing out pending proofs? Appreciate any suggestions on this!

[#5]

I echo what MadalynD said above and I would like to add that in our universe approvals are at the document level and aren't added at the task level.  I can't think of any reason we would not want to close out a proof approval when a project is marked complete.  99.99% of the time the individual reviewer missed the opportunity and will never go back to fix what might be perceived to them as a Workfront formality.

[#6]

This would be so helpful and improve user adoption - users get frustrated that Home shows "old" things that aren't important to them anymore then they don't use it.

[#7]

Agree - would be helpful 

[#8]

@ewanh do you have examples in Fusion on how to achieve this automation? I am a beginner to Fusion and have been trying to achieve this type of automation, but with no success. Can't figure out how to identify a completed project that has open proofs.

[#9]

@ewanh - are there any templates in the works for helping build out a fusion flow to update proof approvals based on certain criteria like project status, etc.? Or documented examples of how to building the automation in Fusion? I've been toying around with building one but wonder where to start. I've only begun mapping out the flow and haven't started to build anything so any direction that could be provided is appreciated.

Thanks. 

[#10]

@David-M-Allen @KellieGardner ,

I don't have any templates around this type of functionality planned at this time.  But you could start from one of the existing templates for ideas.  If I was going to build this using your example David I would start by building out a solid trigger module.  Most likely a Watch Events module that had a webhook that specifically captured those closed projects...then depending on where proofs are tracked (at the task or project or both) you would need to iterate through each document->document version->proof and see if it was still open or not, and if so, then close each one. I won't have the availability to build a template for this case this quarter or next so I would recommend using either one of our Integrations Consultants or partners certified in Fusion to assist.