99 problems & Proofing is one :) A few proof questions

[CarlaJo1]

Including a few things we are researching and trying to understand/resolve: 1. We are trying to keep proofs in certain tasks unavailable for viewing from anyone except those recipients in the automated workflow. Selecting private stage hides comments, but not the proof. Any way to restrict access to proofs in tasks/project? 2. Is there a way to have the email notification regarding proof status to contain a link to the project which it's on? Those who receive the email can go straight to the proof, but then they need to search for the project to see project details, etc. If the email had a link to the project & proof, that would be ideal. 3.We have noticed that if anyone opens a proof they are automatically added as a reviewer & receive a notification that they have a proof to review. However, they were not on the proof originally as any role. Is there a way to avoid someone being assigned a role on a proof if they just click to open it? In our instance, everyone has access to view all projects, but if they click a proof, we don't want them to automatically become a review. Thanks for your help! Carla Carla Johnson Mercy Health

[CarlaJo1]

Had a chance to spend some time in the idea exchange. Voted for items re: 2 & 3 below. Glad to know we are not the only ones! Still trying to figure out how a private stage is made private - 1. Thanks for any advice! Carla 1. We are trying to keep proofs in certain tasks unavailable for viewing from anyone except those recipients in the automated workflow. Selecting private stage hides comments, but not the proof. Any way to restrict access to proofs in tasks/project? 2. Is there a way to have the email notification regarding proof status to contain a link to the project which it's on? Those who receive the email can go straight to the proof, but then they need to search for the project to see project details, etc. If the email had a link to the project & proof, that would be ideal. 3.We have noticed that if anyone opens a proof they are automatically added as a reviewer & receive a notification that they have a proof to review. However, they were not on the proof originally as any role. Is there a way to avoid someone being assigned a role on a proof if they just click to open it? In our instance, everyone has access to view all projects, but if they click a proof, we don't want them to automatically become a review. Carla Johnson Mercy Health

[AileenTa]

Hi Carla, " 3.We have noticed that if anyone opens a proof they are automatically added as a reviewer & receive a notification that they have a proof to review. However, they were not on the proof originally as any role. Is there a way to avoid someone being assigned a role on a proof if they just click to open it? In our instance, everyone has access to view all projects, but if they click a proof, we don't want them to automatically become a review." I just asked this question in tech support and its how the system was designed so people can't lurk on proofs. If someone opens a proof they get a chance to comment but not leave an approval status. It's strange UX for my team but I can see how teams who want to be aware of anyone who touches a proof would like this feature. I just wish it could be shut off. Kudo's for a great subject line, our team feels the same way. I've been asked many times by reviewers to move us back to our previous proofing software but I've held my ground in the hopes that Workfront is listening and the new proofing system will be a major improvement. Aileen Taylor Cell Signaling Technology

[CarlaJo1]

Thanks Aileen! We went live on Workfront in October, and things are settling down a bit allowing us to be in the Community & Idea Exchange more. Very helpful, but it does require time & focus. Appreciate what you and Workfront are both saying. We all said we wanted transparency. We got it! It would be nice if we could turn that feature off, I agree. Carla Johnson Mercy Health

[MikePe]

Thanks for starting this thread, I'm sure these are issues a fair amount of people have been facing (myself included!). We've been struggling with bullet 1 as well (sadly, we aren't using the automated workflows yet, as much as I would like to, so the 2nd and 3rd bullets haven't hit us). The only workarounds we were able to think of involve manipulating user access (groups are probably the best way to do it), but it is a very manual process that we ended up deeming too difficult to maintain. You can either remove the default access to all documents, so users can only see docs that are shared with them, or you can manually go into each uploaded doc and remove access from the specific users you DON'T want to see it... either way, depending on how many assets are being uploaded daily, the process ranges from fairly annoying to completely unsustainable. I'll be staying tuned to this thread! :) Mike Perez Tailored Brands

[TamBo64]

Hi Aileen, Hope your proofing issues and complaints have waned. Kudos to you for standing your ground - at least for a while. Workfront Review & Approval is our 4th electronic proofing system with Adobe Acrobat counting as the first one before Adobe made changes which lead to annual proof system changes. This summer is the first in 5 that we will not be switching proof approval systems but partially only because we're just now expanding into Workfront Core as our contact with the previous PM/TM/Ops software was up this Spring. Our staff like this version pretty well except for a few issues - some of which are due to workarounds to match our needs instead of Workfront's setup. The primary issues I hear most are the following: Posting Proofs: We want PMs to set up Workflows and but have Creative post and send proofs without having to maintain a Workflow template for each routing scenario. Our PMs want to Setup a proof with workflow template but without the art Put the proof in a 'hold' like state pending art Have Creative upload the art to the pending proof once ready (all versions including the first route) This would eliminate 85% of our current Workfront proof complaints and troubles. This is the one feature from the last proof system they still miss nearly 12 months later. Delegating / Managing Others' Proofs - cannot seem to get delegating to work properly consistently. PMs managing a proof someone else started (whether creative or other PM) frequently have issues. We have tried multiple variations without success. Can anyone help with this one? Notifications : Stakeholders most frequent complaint are notification confusion, # of notifications, and # of proofs. Markup Tools : Stakeholders sometimes have issues getting the markup tools to select or mark exactly where needed. Sometimes the system is very finicky. Other times we find it is because their browser magnification was set above 100%. Tammie Bouchard National Safety Council

[KatherineHa1]

FWIW: A few comments inline below.... 1. We are trying to keep proofs in certain tasks unavailable for viewing from anyone except those recipients in the automated workflow. Selecting private stage hides comments, but not the proof. Any way to restrict access to proofs in tasks/project? KH: We don't use Private as that works the opposite of what we expected! Dangerous. I don't know of a way to restrict access to proofs since if they have access to the project, they inherit the objects that belong to that project. 2. Is there a way to have the email notification regarding proof status to contain a link to the project which it's on? Those who receive the email can go straight to the proof, but then they need to search for the project to see project details, etc. If the email had a link to the project & proof, that would be ideal. KH: Aside from customizing the message to contain the project url (which you'd have to do on every proof - so I'm guessing not what you're looking for). However, once you open the proof, you can click on the Document icon (see attached) on the proof, and then use the breadcrumbs to navigate back to the project. 3.We have noticed that if anyone opens a proof they are automatically added as a reviewer & receive a notification that they have a proof to review. However, they were not on the proof originally as any role. Is there a way to avoid someone being assigned a role on a proof if they just click to open it? In our instance, everyone has access to view all projects, but if they click a proof, we don't want them to automatically become a review. KH: No ideas, sorry! Katherine Haven, PMP VP, Director, Business Technologies - PMO FCB

[AileenTa]

Hi Tammie, My users are still in a hate relationship with WorkfrontProof. I think if we hadn't used such a good proofing tool previously they wouldn't have so many problems with it. It's still much better than routing paper printouts around the office, I'll never get over how many trees we must have cut down just to get a single brochure approved! Posting Proofs: When our PMs have to route proofs we just have the designer post the document to Workfront and then the PM gets the task of converting it to a proof and routing it for review. Usually, the PMs quickly grow tired of this and find that diagraming a workflow for the designers to be much easier. Delegating: So far we haven't had to deal with this but the summer is just starting. Managing Other's Proofs: The only way we've found to deal with this is to have an admin make the person the new owner of the proof. Sometimes it works when they transfer ownership but its buggy. Notifications: In ProofHQ everyone's default email alert is "Disabled". The person posting the proof then changes their notification to "decisions". This eliminates the overlapping notifications between Workfront and ProofHQ. Most of my users who get a lot of proofs to review also shut off their Workfront email notifications. Markup Tools: All I can say is something eats our markup lines on a regular basis, then its a game of figuring out where the comment was pointing to. Aileen Taylor Cell Signaling Technology

[LD_Sean]

For managing other's proofs , what I had to end up doing, is make all the PM's proof ' supervisors ' (this is set in their Workfront user settings under the access section -> Proof Permission Profile ). This gives them permission for all proofs in ProofHQ and for us was necessary because the Workfront Document permissions do not sync with ProofHQ the way they should. Of course, that might not work for all companies because you may not want people to have full permissions to all proofs in the system - especially if you have the ProofHQ button (next to the search box) enabled for all Work/Plan license users (if you don't, then its less of an issue since there's no easy way for non-admins to get into ProofHQ where they could see proofs they weren't given permission for). For Notifications , there is a setting in Workfront called " Send emails from Workfront when a comment is made on a proof " that you almost definitely want turned off. Find it here: " Setup " -> " Email " -> " Review and Approval " Hopefully that helps someone now or in the future. Sean

[Exp_-_AndrzejMu]

Hi, For point no. 3. Currently there is no way to avoid user to be assigned automatically but there is a new setting that allows you to configure the default proofing role. Instead of "Reviewer" they can get "Read only" role which will not allow them to create comments. Andrzej Muca Product Manager Workfront

[JamesMa4]

Hi everyone, Reviving this thread to get some help on something. We're in the implementation phase and trying to find a solution for a proofing workflow requirement. Here is our general proofing workflow at a high level: designer uploads proof and routes to marketing lead marketing lead reviews then routes to internal legal team internal legal team routes to external legal counsel external legal counsel provides recommendations to internal legal team internal legal team reviews and provides final legal recommendation to marketing lead marketing lead reviews legal recommendation and works with designer to implement any changes Our internal legal team has a strict requirement that the correspondence between internal and external legal counsel remains private. Basically, steps 3 and 4 above in bold (especially 4) should not be seen by anyone else except the legal teams. Our understanding is that even if you make a stage private, the person who generated the proof will still be able to see all comments. Is that true? If so, does anyone have a suggestion to satisfy our legal requirement? Our Legal team also would like to archive correspondence with external legal counsel for their records in Workfront if possible. Our thought is that our internal legal team may have to correspond with external legal counsel separately, but still in Workfront. Could they download the asset and generate a separate proof and route to external legal counsel themselves, then when they get recommendations from external legal, go back to the original proof and provide comments to the marketing lead? Hope this all makes sense. Please let me know if you have suggestions. Thank you! James Matsubayashi

[KatherineHa1]

If you go with private stages - test it before you roll it out to ensure its behaving the way you're expecting. My understanding is that you are correct - the Proof Owner will be able to see all comments (including those in private stages). I know the Support Site says that "Reviewers who are not added to a private stage cannot see the stage on the proof or comments made in that stage" and "Private stage: Hides comments and decisions from to people who are not added to the stage or who are not Supervisors and above in the account " but we had unexpected results when testing this in our instance (all of our Producers/Project Managers have Supervisor or above access so nothing was private!), so I would recommend going with a separate route for internal/external legal. Katherine Haven, PMP VP, Director, Business Technologies - PMO FCB

[KateY_CL]

Number 1 still seems to be an issue a few years later! This is a real challenge for our users.