ProofHQ Best Practices

[JillAc]

Hi We are new users and are struggling a bit with how to best use ProofHQ in the real world. We often have long brochures and catalogs with many people who are reviewers all over the world. The way we work is the designer uploads the proof but is not responsible for trafficking it around to all the people that have to approve it and make comments. The ProofHQ Workflows just don't work for us since the designer has no idea who needs to be reviewing it. Therefore, the Marketing Manager is designated as the Owner of the proof because it seems they get the most flexibility to manipulate the proof. (It's unclear the difference between Moderator and Owner). The designer sends the proof to the marketing manager. The marketing manager then sends it to all the people that need to review it. Problem #1: the designer sets up the designations for notifications and those can't be changed once they are done (I can't see how to do change them) even by the Owner/Marketing Manager. After all the comments have been made, it's up to the marketing manager to review everything and make decisions. These decisions need to be very clear to the designer, who shouldn't be spending time reading through dozens of comments and discussions. The way we decided to do it was that the very last comment in any discussion would be the final decision and the thread would be marked "resolved." Then, the designer can use the checkmark "done" to indicate they made the change or "needs follow up" if something isn't clear. I'm interested to know how other people resolve complex proofs that have many pages, many comments, and not too many options to indicate which comment is the one for the designer to look at. Any tips and tricks would be most appreciated! Jill Ackerman Lindblad Expeditions

[SkyeHa]

hi Jill, we're in the same boat, and I'm glad to see that there are other users in the same scenario. Workfront and ProofHQ's assumption has always been that the user who generates the proof is the same as the person who manages proof approval, and this is not the case in our use case. For us, the Designer generates a proof because sometimes proof generation is an area of inefficiency (we have to wait for something to generate), so getting that out of the way ASAP is a good time saver. Because of this workflow (marketing manager needs to manage proofs), and because the process of automated workflows is so time consuming we have not been able to use the new features that have been implemented in the past 18 months. For us the review process remains a manual workflow where the marketing manager will manually add the reviewers as they need to be added and evaluate after each review whether the Designer has rework or whether more reviewers can be involved. To address your other concern about the designer knowing what comments to address, I can point you to the direction of "actions" (you can see a flag icon on the bottom left corner of each comment in the current release, and in the new release this changes to the word Action in the bottom right corner). My suggestion is that your manager evaluate the comments and flag them either as "disregard" or as an action item for the designer. I could not easily find information on actions/flags in the support website, but I'm happy to share screens with you if you need a visual. Your Designer then can filter for action items only. -skye

[JillAc]

Hi Thanks for responding. We are trying to use the flags but they flag the entire comment thread, not the comment within the thread that contains the approved decision. If you have a discussion thread 10 comments long, how does the designer know which of the comments is the final decision without having to read through all the boring and perhaps confusing cross talk? Also I'm afraid to delete even irrelevant comments in case we need to refer back to them. thanks jill Jill Ackerman

[SkyeHa]

hi Jill, in your original post you mentioned that the last comment in the discussion contains the final decision--this is what we would expect for our team as well. The only thing the "actions" do is, if any discussion thread is completely irrelevant, you can flag those as such. I suppose if many of your comments end up being long discussions, then it's up to your marketing manager to mark the entire thread as irrelevant (or close it off in some way) and re-do the edit as a single comment. At this time, there's no way to highlight a specific comment in a string in a way that allows for them to be easily filtered--you could submit an idea to the Idea Exchange and see if it captures any inspiration though. Good luck! -skye

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

(Content removed)

[SkyeHa]

thanks Doug. I'm not sure I follow though. Can you clarify how this shows up in Proof? Or is it specifically for reports? While we'd be interested in seeing a Proof that shows highlighted comments, If it makes sense, I think that ultimately our use case would benefit more from being able to show/hide comments in a discussion thread so that we can "show" them in an audit but "hide" them for Design use. -skye

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

(Content removed)

[SkyeHa]

No problem. I didn't recall seeing that your work affects Proof in any way, but if you do delve into that arena, please let me know. I'm pretty sure you won't since I think(?) your work connects more to API-related material and I don't see that the Proof integration is able to be changed in this way, but it doesn't hurt to make sure. :) -skye

[JillAc]

I like this idea of creating a flag status that says "ignore this comment thread" but it sort of doesn't work in the scenario I'm trying to lay out whereby we have one button that the designer/author uses (the status flag where they can mark a comment as "done" or "need more info"), and a separate button for the Owner/Moderator (the resolution check mark). Is there a way to customize the Check Mark Resolution button? I can't find it, but that's the one I'd like to be able to add more options to. Thanks! Jill Ackerman

[SkyeHa]

there's not a way to customize the checkmark button right now, but if you want to lay out your use case in the Idea Exchange, then you might be able to get it voted up. I'm a little baffled as to why anyone would need multiple options--if it's resolved, then it's resolved--so I definitely would like to see what the user story is. -skye

[TheresaRo]

The way that we've been handling it is to have the designer/copywriter (whoever is creating the proof) email the proof to the person who is responsible for tracking/managing the proof (most often this is me). I then route the proof in ProofHQ and assign the correct workflow. I hope that hopes somewhat! Theresa Rotondo Atlantis Healthcare Usa, Inc.

[RobertCa]

Please don't get me started on Proof HQ, 3 years and same tool as we started with and not even close to other proofing tools. We have the premium package Proof HQ turned off, as its confusing to our users and admins, plus doesn't integrate with Workfront like it should. This is unfortunate as we purchased the premium package $$ with the hopes of having a better proofing tool as promoted. Not the case. But... I will stay positive. For our creative team, we have folders on the template, one folder Art Review and the other Final Art. The only responsibility for the designers is to design and upload the proof in the Art Review Folder, generate proof is turned off. The designer will send an update to the CSM (Creative Services Manager) the proof is ready and mark off first proof task. The CSM will review the proof to ensure the creative is aligned with the request and generate the proof, send to respected reviewers via WF documents. The CSM will monitor proof deadlines (outside the tool) as WF document doesn't have a feature like premium PHQ to set deadlines. Once the proof time has expired the CSM collects the feedback and communicates to the designers the changes. Designer will make the updates and drop new proof directly on top of the existing proof. This will allow the reviewer to see the side by side comparison of vs 1 and vs 2 in PHQ. We have a task entitled Creative Review just to make sure we don't miss deadlines and have a final proof task for the designers as well. Once approved, the designer will upload the Final Art into the folder ready for production. Plus the finals are archived for future reference. As you can see we went through a lot of trial and error to make a process work that should be provided by the software with the premium package add-on. What Workfront/Proof HQ doesn't understand is the proofing tool is visible to our SVP & VP for our creative reviews. They see the the issues first hand, same issues for 3 years now, and they hold the keys to the tool. They're also accustom to using our previous tool that is very intuitive and easy. The proofing tool should/can be very simple. I have been patient and worked as the delegator for my company and Workfront. It's time for a major change. Hope this helps. Robert Robert Campbell Tractor Supply Company

[Richard__Carlson]

Just curious - why are you having such long discussions in the proof markup tool? If such lengthy discussions are happening at this stage could it mean that the involved parties are not on the same page to begin with? How can you improve the process so that this discussion is not happening in the tiny "yellow pad" mark ups? I think that PHQ is meant to literally mark up proofs and provide specific concise instructions between reviewers and artists. Richard Carlson Behr Process Corporation

[JillAc]

Hi Thanks for the feedback. The reason we have long discussions and need a collaborative tool like this is because we have people all over the world reviewing materials, and they all have opinions, so comment moderation is a big part of the manager’s process to clean up the proof for the designer. They are generally 32-60 page brochures, weekly. The idea that the manager generates the proof is a good one that I will explore with the team. There are deadlines within proofhq and notifications and late notices go out so I’m not understanding why this is a problem, it actually seems better to me than the notifications from workfront. (My other question thread here!). However I do see that you can’t see the deadlines in the proofing tool so we are relying on a paired task in workfront to manage the deadlines. Not sure how that will work. Sent from my iPhone

[Richard__Carlson]

Could a comprehensive creative brief help to get the artwork 'on point' and alleviate some of the back and forth? Richard Carlson Behr Process Corporation

[MaggieTalierco]

Hi Robert! You can change the access level for SVP and VP to not able to see those folders if they are not shared. I might be able to help you with that. We modified our reviewers and they can see only the files that they are shared even they can see the folders. Once they click on it, there is no file in the folder. Maggie Talierco Olympus Corporation of The Americas