ProofHQ and Approvals

[TegwynSt]

Good Morning, Ive been wanting to ask this for sometime and just saw another question on Proof / Approvals so it sparked me to log on. We approve our "proofs" within a schedule in workfront....mktg only uses proofhq to mark up edits. so, needless to say, we have thousands (yes thousands) of unresolved proofs just hanging out in ProofHQ when jobs have already been approved and completed in WF. since designers are owners of these "objects" they show up in their "my approvals" to work on....which they ignore. how do we archive/manage/delete these proof approvals? do we need to delegate them in order for a sign-off to occur in HQ? help....and it's a "tab" that doesn't seem to be "hide-able" Tegwyn Stockdale Baycare Health System, Inc.

[SkyeHa]

Hi Tegwyn, Below it sounds like you are using Proof's automated workflows to send proof notifications through to Marketing reviewers? But the reviewers in question are also using tasks in Workfront to keep on schedule? So to me it feels like double entry and the automated workflows are not needed? Please clarify. Regardless, if any reviewer is getting notified via Proof to review, then they should markup and make a decision (approve/reject). So if you continue to use Automated Workflows, this is a training issue and your reviewers need to close out their request twice (once as a task and once in Proof). Based on my interpretation of your question, I don't have a better solution, but you are welcome to talk to the helpdesk and ask if they have an automated way to go in and delete all proof requests from (for example) 2017 and older, and they might be able to do it as a one-time courtesy to you. But ultimately I would press on your proof reviewer that their responsibility is to leave a decision--not leave it hanging. Either that or really figure out why you're using Automated Workflows... it doesn't seem to be required in your situation. -skye

[JillAc]

I'm wondering about a lot of this too. It might have been my question that triggered your question. We aren't launched yet but in our testing, the approvals process within ProofHQ isn't integrated with WF. For example, if you are uploading a proof within a task, the due date doesn't follow through to the due date for the Proof. When the proof is approved, the task still needs to be approved. We have a very complex Proof approval process and the workflows within ProofHQ are not sufficient. The biggest problem with them is you can't make an approval template with Roles, only email addresses. There are so many variations of who approves what, that the template would never be right. Also, when you add a reviewer from within ProofHQ that person doesn't appear anywhere in WF so they are not added to notifications about the project being active, and can not know in advance that they have a review coming up in a couple weeks -- ie advance notice of all the approvals to be required within a project. I'm trying to work with the Task Approvals within WF as a notification, but I haven't got this working or figured out. Not sure if it's a good solution. Does anybody use that process to track the ProofHQ approvals from a Project point of view? Approvals are one of our biggest pain points and I'm not sure WF is going to help. The only way I see it working is to manage the approval process separately within ProofHQ, and mark the task done in WF (double work). Also I think the Marketing Manager will have to send out a manual notification to all the upcoming approvers with a heads up that the project is live, with expected due dates taken from the workflow. I'm finding the integration of these 2 things super thin and needs a lot of attention. Jill Ackerman

[TegwynSt]

I'm trying to reply but keep getting pulled away!!!! we have too many people who need to be involved with proofing....we even have a few projects/templates that require double approvals that are set up in WF....and those can even be tricky, but they DO work when the task is assigned to the "approver" / "sponsor".....all the approvals in ProofHQ are tied to designer(owner of "object") ---they DO NOT approve anything ...yet have hundreds and hundreds of them hanging in "my approvals" tab. Our rep has not responded to my question yet and I have not filled out help desk ticket yet to clean these up.....I am not sure how it can be figured out which ones are tied to projects that are complete....but I guess it doesn't matter....they all need to become auto-resolved or we need process where designers designate ownership to someone who will resolve?? it's difficult to go back and forth between reg workflow and workfront mindset, so I apologize if this seems like rambling...lol Tegwyn Tegwyn Stockdale Baycare Health System, Inc.

[SkyeHa]

hi Jill, these are all great questions and the reason we don't use Proof's Automated Workflows feature is that it doesn't adequately solve for this scenario. In terms of Task Approvals as a notification, I don't think it would be a good solution for your case. You're better off doing the double work you mentioned: the PM would need to manage the approval process either on the Document Approvals line or in Proof. Once they are satisfied that the approval process is completed, they can complete their task which will allow the project timeline to move forward. In terms of the other item in your post: "reviewer cannot know in advance they have a review coming / expected due dates", our team has the option to provide reports that we affectionately call "pipeline" reports -- so that people can see what is coming. Whether this is a task report for your team (e.g. show all projects with tasks containing the words "Review" in the task name and what their due date is) or a milestone report (e.g. show all projects that have reached the milestone "2 weeks to review time!!"), it should be possible to automate a way for your reviewers to check and see what is coming. The beauty of reports is that these can also be set up to automatically email themselves out to reviewers. -skye