Track changes in a workfront custom form as part of copy editing process

[Christopher29269095dwjg]

Hello! We are beginning to roll out component based authoring for quarterly product commentary using Workfront custom forms vs emails and word doc attachments. Does anyone have a creative solution tracking changes to the text being authored as its being edited prior to submitting to the DAM for publishing? 

[Richard_Le_]

Hi,

You can track changes made to values in custom fields by enabling the "Track field changes in update feeds" box in the field settings. Simply navigate to your custom form, click on the field you want to track changes to and in the left hand panel (towards the bottom) there is a tickbox you can enable to turn on tracking.

You can read more on this here.

Best Regards,

Rich.

[Christopher29269095dwjg]

Hi @Richard_Le_ ! Appreciate the response, would this approach work for the "text with formatting" field? The use case is, we have writers authoring product commentary in these forms but would like to be able to see what's changed from version to version of that product commentary before its eventually submitted to the DAM for publishing (think word doc track changes). Recognize that might be a bit too complicated for the current iteration of WF but thought id' ask

[Richard_Le_]

Yes, it should work with a formatted text field. However, it probably wont record changes to formatting, on changes to the text values.

The other consideration is how many updates are made. Every change to the field will generate a record in the updates feed, if there are lots of changes you will end up with a very busy updates feed!

The best thing to do is test it in your preview environment and see if you get the level of tracking you're after.

[Christopher29269095dwjg]

Thanks @Richard_Le_ - appreciate the insight. Will give it a go and report back!

[Lauren_McGowan]

Hi @Richard_Le_ - I thought track changes of a particular field kept the original copy in the field AND showed the new copy when edited/changed. From what I can see since the new release, the updated copy only shows (along with what field was edited), but doesn't keep the original copy in the System activity. Does anyone know if this has changed or was this never the case? It would be incredibly helpful to show both the original and new field updates. Is there another way to keep the original tracked in the system activity, while replacing the copy in the field, to not confuse the designers?