Hey all,
I'd like to try and get some assistance with how to handle document reviews and approvals through Workfront. I have looked into as many options as I can and have not found an elegant solution yet.
Be prepared for a long post. If you can get through it all, great. If you can offer assitance, even better. I will break down the rest of this piece into components, to make it easier (hopefully) to digest.
Please do read my last section. While I love how much people participate on this forum, I find many replies get a little off topic, or aren't really helping the OP.
The Problem:
Our current document review and approval process utilizes emails and manual workflows and is very disfuctional and can lead to slow approvals and mistakes.
I keep stating "review" and "approvals" and that is because it is important to understand that the approval flow is also made up of the review stage which usually required handling feedback, not just putting an approved stamp on something.
Current Solution
Our current solution (without Workfront) is:
Author creates document
Author emails document around to reviewers
Reviewers make edits to a local copy of the document and email back to author
Author consolidates reviews, recycles as necessary
Reviewers provide final approval
Designated approver prints and signs the document for record
The Goal
Our ideal workflow is completed entirely online (no emails) and allows for:
Simple, consolidated feedback
Easy method of updating the document and keeping version control
Method for tracking the status of the approval process
Trackable approval stamps, so you can look back and have a history of who approved it
Integrated feedback and approvals (not a confusing process for our users).
Our current infrastructure
We are obviously using Workfront for tracking projects and their tasks, issues, risks and documents etc. I felt it was also important to note that we are currently using Office 365 SharePoint Online for actually housing the documents, and have that integrated with Workfront so that you can access the documents via both systems.
We are willing to look into alternate document repository systems, or Workfront itself, if the need arises.
My planned options
Here I will outline a few different options I have looked into and what the cons are of each.
SP = SharePoint | WF = Workfront
Option 1 - SP Review & WF Document Approvals
Author creates document
Author adds document to SP (directly in SP or via WF)
Auther uses WF document approval functionality to notify reviewers of their need to review and approve the document.
Reviewers navigate to SP directly (not WF) and use the built in capabilities of SP to add comments and markup the document as needed.
Author updates document based on reviews, recycles as necessary
Reviewers provide final approval on WF
Cons:
Confusing for reviewers as they receive a WF notification that they need to review a document, but have to go to SP to review it. They also have to find the document themselves.
Option 2 - WF Review & WF Document Approvals
Author creates document
Author adds document to SP (directly in SP or via WF)
Auther uses WF document approval functionality to notify reviewers of their need to review and approve the document.
Reviewers navigate to WF and open the document, using the integrated SP capabilities to add comments and markup the document as needed.
Author updates document based on reviews, recycles as necessary
Reviewers provide final approval on WF
Cons:
Reviewers will have to specifically use IE or Edge as their browser to open the document, or a specific Chrome/Firefox extention.
If they do not do this, when they click "open" the document will actually be downloaded.
Downloaded documents will not allow for consolidated feedback and will cause the Author to have to consolidate them and then re-upload and start the review process again.
Before anyone says it: Sure, we could tell everyone to use IE or Edge, but that's really not actually going to be adheared to by everyone (because who wants to use them!)
Option 3 - SP Review & SP Approvals
Author creates document
Author adds document to SP (directly in SP or via WF)
Auther uses SP approval functionality to notify reviewers of their need to review and approve the document.
Reviewers navigate to SP directly and use the built in capabilities of SP to add comments and markup the document as needed.
Author updates document based on reviews, recycles as necessary
Reviewers provide final approval on SP
Cons:
This option completely removes the process from WF. We are now completley unable to track approvals through WF.
SP document approval is not quite as simple and straight forward as WF.
Option 4 - Proof HQ Review & WF Document Approvals
Author creates document
Author adds document to WF
Author uses Proof HQ to notify reviewers of their need to review and approve the document.
Reviewers use Proof HQ to provide their comments on the document.
Author updates document based on reviews and will need to re-upload the document. Recycles as necessary
Reviewers provide final approval on WF/Proof HQ
Cons:
Author has to take the consolidated feedback from Proof HQ and update the document themselves. I.e. they cannot "Accept Changes" made in a Word document (this could add up to a lot of work).
Proof HQ is an expensive option, especially when we would only be using it for a handful of word documents per project.
Special Note on Issue Approvals
I just wanted add a special note on the use of Issue approvals. I have thought about this and I honestly do not see how it could improve the feedback mechanism that the above options have. The simplistic document approval process is sufficient for now, and with the new updates coming, this will be more than enough.
What do I want feedback on?
Alright, if you made it this far, thank you for your time! I'd love to get feedback on the following:
Holes in my options/areas where I could improve them to eliminate the "cons" I outlined.
New suggested options that could help me to achieve my requirements. Do focus on the "cons" I brought up in each of my options. If your options have those cons, then I'm going to be in the same scenario.
Examples of how your organization performs approvals. However, much like above, if your examples share my same "cons", they aren't going to help me to solve my issue (even if they are interesting).
Suggestions of other tools I could use (aside from Proof HQ or SharePoint)
Thanks you so much for your time!
Ian Rogers
PM at Bluetooth SIG
