Has anyone tried swapping review tasks for approvals for light users?

[arodri17]

Has anyone tried swapping review tasks for approvals for light users?

• The main issue I see with this workaround is that My Approvals in Home doesn't show due dates or bucket approvals by due today, past due, etc. which is critical for our heavy users who may have 10+ approvals in their queue if we moved review tasks to approvals. 
• We could pull a report to show due dates, but then users wouldn't have the decision buttons in the same location as the due dates and we need the process to be as streamlined and straightforward as possible
• If you have other workarounds for having light users complete tasks/approvals, please let me know. 

Background:

• We're trying to find solutions to the high cost of the new Workfront license structure for standard licenses since the majority of our roughly 100 users have worker licenses to mark done with their part on tasks with only 3 PMs. We were told our costs would roughly triple if we have the majority of our users move from worker licenses to the standard license, so trying to find a solve with the light license.
• Our PMs don't have the bandwidth to follow up with all reviewers on all creative projects, nor will our reviewers appreciate the added follow up email notifications if we had to check in with each user to confirm they're done with their part before moving a task forward
• Our reviewers don't have the bandwidth to manager their team's reviews, which is why we have all reviewers handle their own review workload.
• We have roughly 100 active projects at any given time and each project has roughly 20-30 tasks depending on what’s needed.
• There can be several users on each task, particularly review tasks so stakeholders across functions are able to provide feedback on the creative

[skyehansen]

I think what you're trying to ask is whether or not you can downgrade your current Worker license users to Light license users by using approval requests rather than review tasks, which your new Light users would not be able to "complete" the way Workers can.

When you mention approvals, what system are you going to be using for approvals? (there are 3 -- currently called Legacy Approvals, Unified Approvals and Proof Approvals, and if it is helpful, you can see a tiny bit about them at this link https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/workfront/using/review-and-approve-work/proof-doc-decisio... ). But there are also task approvals, which I don't know would work but also don't know if you have considered.

In terms of the first three types of approvals:

* I think the most obvious trade off here is that you might have at least 2 systems visible and would need to carefully train to make sure users use the right now.

* after that, there will need to be training around setting due dates (and the process will be clunky), as due dates are optional in any of the approval systems.

* you're probably right in that your approval buttons (again...which type approval are you planning to use?) would be nowhere near your due date but this might be something Adobe might be willing to put in the roadmap, as it seems like a reasonable thing to want.

More clarification on your part might help get a better answer for you.

[SamanthaWi]

We were told the lite license has unlimited proofs but could not mark tasks off, so our PM's are added to the proof as Final decision or every Decision on their email notification. Either during or when a proof is fully completed, the PM manually marks the user tasks as done. For our instance we give each proof reviewer and each reviewer/approver their own task with the same start and end dates. This way at a glance (task view) we can see who is lagging behind.  It helps with the budget but the manual work is harsh.  We have two PM's, 130-170 jobs on average, 30-60 tasks avg. and we are hoping to purchase Fusion to automatically mark users tasks when the proof is done.  Still as harsh as this is, it seems to work for us. Most of the proof reviewer or approvers were negligent on marking their corresponding task (as worker/standard users) and the timeline was delayed a good bit of the time because of it.  -sigh

I also set a proof default deadline in WF of 2 days so if someone forgets to add a deadline that corresponds with the task, at least it wont go past two days late.  PM's also get a report sent to them automatically each day to watch the outstanding proofs.

I did double check my home screen widget for Approvals needed and it shows a date but the Reviewer on a proof does not get that same proof notification on the home screen.  I assume this is by design as a reviewer will not bottleneck a proof if unopened.

not sure my ramblings will help you, but best of luck

[kautuk_sahni]

@arodri17 just checking in! Were you able to get this resolved? If one of the replies above helped—whether it completely solved the issue or simply pointed you in the right direction—marking it as accepted can make it much easier for others with the same question to find a solution. And if you found a different way to fix it, sharing your approach would be a great contribution to the community. Your follow-up not only helps close the loop but also ensures others benefit from your experience. Thanks so much for being part of the conversation!