Workfront Proofing- "Resolving a Comment" vs "Applying Actions"

[KristenPi]

Hi all, We are an in-house creative department and are still figuring out the best way for our team to adopt Workfront Proofing. Due to the content of our work, we typically have a very high volume of comments on individual pieces in early rounds (50+ comments but on some occasions can go over 100). We would like our designers & studio team to be able to "check off" comments that they have completed as they pull through revisions. There seems to be two ways to accomplish this - either by "Resolving a Comment" or "Applying an Action" to a comment. My questions are: - Has anyone adopted these one of these tools for this purpose and which worked best? - Is there a way to disable notifications so that the user who made the original comment (ex: an editor makes 100 comments) does not receive a notification every time a Designer marks the comment as "Resolved" or applies a "Completed" action to the comment, WITHOUT having to manually go back and change notification settings once it is time for the Designer to revise? Additionally, I'm interested to hear from people who have adopted Workfront Proofing and how they manage/keep up with a high volume of projects within the tool. As a benchmark, we typically have 100-150 active projects moving through our department at a time - mostly print pieces and emails. Our biggest barriers to adoption have been the amount of time it takes Project Managers to set up the proof routes given the volume and the fast pace at which the work is turned around (thus needing to constantly be setting up subsequent routes). We've also struggled with the amount of notifications the system generates, which has made it a bit overwhelming for PMs and other team members (Designers, Account, Editorial). Thank you! Kristen Kristen Pingree Biogen

[SkyeHa]

I wasn't aware that anyone was getting notifications when a comment was "resolved" so can you check to make sure this is happening? (We do have notifications from Proof switched off and only rely on our Workfront notifications, so this might be where the difference lies.) Like you, our areas don't have a good feel for how automated workflows work with a high volume use case, so we just don't use them. We use a combination of tasks and document approvals instead for better visibility on the project timeline. -skye

[JillAc]

We often have documents with over 1000 comments and the average is probably 300-500. I've tried to make a rule that marking a comment "done" is reserved for the designer and "resolving" is reserved for the owner of the proof who needs to answer questions and make decisions (blue or black? Blue. Resolved). Not everybody abides by it, but the number of unattended comments has been reduced by some designers who have had this issue and have used "done" to help them find the things they've missed. All our designers have disabled notifications because they never need to see the comments until it's time for them to work on the project. They know it's time to go work on it when the manager updates them and tells them all the comments are in and they are ready to go. Also, we don't use the preset workflows. The people who own the project know who needs to approve and they share it and provide deadlines as the proof progresses through the approval stages. It would be helpful if the task and the proof were more connected. We have notes in the task description about which roles should approve and at which stage, but I don't know that anybody is really looking at that too carefully. It's one definite problem – you can't set up a workflow based on role and we have too many different configurations of approvals.

[KatherineHa1]

We have 100s of comments per proof, and also route a very high volume. Our PMs/Producers are responsible for generating the proof, and we typically use the automated workflows (so they get WF Flex and Proof licenses). Then our creatives/account/editorial are responsible for reviewing, marking up and commenting (they all get Review licenses). We have been piloting something (coming in 19.2, https://experience.workfront.com/s/article/2019-2-Proofing-Enhancements-1962851609?r=54&ui-force-com... ) where reviewers can also now resolve or tag comments with actions. The only actions we use are "Stet" and To Do". We have proof notifications disabled, the only notification/email they get is when the proof is first generated. Katherine Haven, PMP VP, Director, Business Technologies - PMO FCB

[MichelleJa]

We are also running a high volume of projects and proofs. Our issue is the number of people that need to see and review the proofs and the proof workflow doesn't work for sending to teams. What we ended up doing, is the designer uploads the proof for review. They then send an 'update' to the team that needs to review and gives them the deadline in the update. If people miss the deadline, it's too late for them to provide feedback. At first, it was a bit bumpy as people complained when they missed their chance to to review, but it didn't take long for everyone to see the efficiency of how quickly the projects were able to flow. We now have areas that haven't used Workfront asking questions about how they may potentially us it for routing PDFs as well. Michelle Jackson Colony Brands, Inc.

[AnthonyIm]

Hi Michelle - out of curiosity, how often do you have to update the teams? In Proof, there is functionality called "Groups" (Not to be confused with Workfront Groups), and that allows you to just type the name of that group in and then it adds everyone onto the Proof for you. It is a little annoying because groups in on the "backend" of Proof (which is why I asked how often you have to update it), but we have a few agencies utilizing that functionality and they like it. We do have a few agencies that are utilizing the ability to add people into layout templates as well. So for Client XYZ's template, they have the Account people already populated who need to review. Anthony Imgrund FCB

[MichelleJa]

Thanks Anthony! I haven't played with Groups in Proof yet, so I went to check it out and determined I have an issue. I cannot add any names to a Group. Not sure why, so I'll send in a ticket requesting help. We have ten brands and each brand has three routing teams and members are dependent upon the type of project. Thankfully, we only have to update the lists once or twice a year. It would be wonderful if we can utilize this feature. Michelle Jackson Colony Brands, Inc.