Hey Nate, I'm looking forward to this Q&A about ProofHQ. We (Diversified Communications" upgraded to ProofHQ Premium at the beginning of the year but we were very disappointed in the product, so we decided to revert back to our previous document approval process.
As we are in full sprint to make proofing inside of Workfront behave like Review & Approve (ProofHQ), we are aware a good portion of you are still not using proofing inside workfront until it works more like Review & Approve (ProofHQ). So I want to ask what specific missing functionality are holding you back.
We are using ProofHQ inside of Workfront and this is how we always want to use it! That said, we are not using the "Advance Proofing Options" because of the lack of integration with Workfront. Instead, we are using Document Approvals when our designers (worker licenses) have a proof ready for our clients (reviewer licenses) to Review & Approve. This process is seamless and our clients see the document approval in multiple places - their my updates page, their notification area, their outlook email & their custom dashboard.
It's great to hear that visibility of proofs is being addressed in 2017.2, but until the two systems are truly integrated, we are sticking to our document approval process. We purchased Workfront because it's a fully integrated system and for the most part, we love the product, but anything that detracts from this is simply a step backwards for us. I've provided some additional feedback below that we sent to our ProofHQ support person back when we first upgraded to ProofHQ Premium.(some of the concerns might be solved for, but I think it's still valuable input)
What's been your experience with the new Reporting on Proof Status? Were you aware that you could report on Proof Status?
Are you referring to the proof approval report? I'm not able to report on the status from what I can see, but maybe there's a different report I'm not aware of? I've been testing Proof Approval and Document Approval reports in the sandbox - both could be better, but I can tell Workfront is making some progress here. The Proof Approval Report would be more helpful if it had fields like:
Project Name - I used text mode to get this
Deadline - right now this functionality is essentially pointless.
Name of user(s) who has a proof pending approval
# of days in current status - especially if in Pending status
How do you like the new Proof Approvals in My Work? This is a step in the right direction. Workfront and ProofHQ need to be completely integrated systems before we will consider using the advanced proofing options available with ProofHQ Premium.
I hope this is helpful input and not too harsh! I really do love Workfront and the Community and I'm looking forward to this Q&A and hopeful for the future of ProofHQ!
Thanks, Nate! Additional Feedback Sent to ProofHQ Support Person
Overall, we've been disappointed by the upgrade. I'm not sure if it's because we don't fully understand how to make it work for us yet (the training materials on the WF education site have felt a bit pieced together, and not as comprehensive as what we've come to expect from the other training videos), but overall, the functionality has not been as expected. We're using PHQ as an integrated WF customer, and right now its feeling anything but integrated. Instead, it seems like we now have two entirely separate product experiences with very little enhanced functionality and more questions/frustration by our users… Critical issues that we're seeing:
The proof recipient is unable to easily get back to the project when they receive a proof that is sent via the advanced proofing options. Our internal clients (the proof recipients) are sent a high volume of proofs each day, and without being able to click into the project details of the actual project, they are reviewing these proofs blind. Right now they are spending a lot of time searching for the project that the proof belongs to, which a lot less efficient compared to our pervious document approval process. Do you have any advice for how we can make this easier for them? And is there a way to add that link to "see it in WF" back into the proof notification email? (If this is an unresolvable issue, we might need to revert back to the more basic PHQ)
The proof recipient doesn't get the same type of visual reminders within WF on the active proofs they need to review. They aren't getting the document approval notifications on the top of their "updates" page (review level users) or in their approvals tab (work level users), and surprisingly, it seems like we no longer have a way to pull document approvals into their reports/dashboards. Without this, they are forced to rely on email notifications only, which is a HUGE step back for us. Is that correct that we can no longer create reports on proofs / documents? We want all of our WF users to be able to do everything they need to do within WF. (If this is an unresolvable issue, we might need to revert back to the more basic PHQ)
The default email alerts aren't "sticking". We manually disabled the email notifications (daily, all comments, etc) for all users, but some are resetting to daily digest when proofs a generated, and those users are becoming frustrated with the volume of email they are getting. (Also, not sure if it's possible, but it would be great to have a way to bulk edit settings like this
I am unable to edit who on my team has a PHQ license without contacting support. (I can see the check box on the user's profile to give them proofing access, but I'm unable to check it on/off, even though I am a system admin)
Additional feedback:
It would be great if there was a way to globally edit the automatic subject line for all proofs set. We're finding that the current language isn't as strong or intuitive as what it was before, but given our proofing volumes- manually editing it each time just isn't an option.
It would be great if non PHQ license holders could be set as proof moderators. We often have a team of 5+ internal clients reviewing proofs, and I'd love to be able to allow our primary decision maker to edit their teams comments, as a way to better control the proof feedback. Not to mention, the roles within PHQ are really confusing which is back to my point of the language in PHQ standalone not aligning with the language in WF.
In additional to being able to report on proofs, it would be great to be able to report on metrics like: the date/time that feedback is due, number of versions that have been created, the amount of time it takes to get feedback back, etc.
While I'm not a fan of having to leave WF to see anything project related, if I have to- I'd like to be able to see the proof metrics on the PHQ dashboard by individual proof owner, as well as for a group or team of proof owners
It would be great if the person who generates the proof were more clearly labeled the proof owner, and only that, as its confusing for everyone when one of our designers (the person making and sending the proof) is also labeled a reviewer or approver, like our internal clients would be
Finally, in your training materials, I found myself watching and re-watching a basic integrated customer focused PHQ premium video, along with two PHS premium videos that seemed like they were created for a more standalone proofing customer. (I.e. it's my understanding that labels and folders don't apply to an integrated user, so learning about those features got me even more confused). I'm not sure what kind of feedback you've been getting from other customers, but I feel like an "Everything you need to know as an integrated user and System Admin before starting with PHQ premium" type training video would be a great addition.
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Sydney Peterson
Diversified Communications, Inc.
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-27-2017 12:44
From: Nate Bagley
Subject: Provide your Review & Approve (ProofHQ) feedback to the Workfront UX Team!
Hey there Community friends!
Our internal UX Team over
Workfront's Proofing tool would love some feedback on the work they're doing.
@Skylar Sanford will be dropping in to do a LIVE Q&A on this thread on Tuesday, August 1st at 10:00 ...
