The Share for External Review feature is available for use within the Post Review step of the Editorial Workflow and is a great way to allow additional clients and important stakeholders the opportunity to review images and provide important feedback before they move forward in the process. Multiple reviewers are able to mark up and comment on images within Post Review, which encourages easy and flexible cross-team collaboration for users outside of your studio or organization.
To read more about the Post Review step specifically, check this article: Post Review in Editorial.
Configuring Studio Settings for External Sharing
In order to Share for External Review, you must first ensure the Share via Email setting is enabled under studio settings > Collections. To enable Share via Email, head to Studio Settings > Collections and toggle the switch here:
You have the option to limit who can be invited by adding allowed domains to the Domain Allow List. If no domains are added, by default, all email domains will be allowed. Additionally, you have the option to create unique domain allow lists and share portal branding for each client as needed. This is available within the client-specific settings.
Once sharing settings have been confirmed, head to the Post Review task to start inviting External Reviewers.
Sharing Portal Design
Within the Sharing Portal Design settings, you have the option to upload images that will display on the login screen for reviewers.
Select ‘Preview’ to view the layout of the login screen:
Additionally, it is recommended to your studio’s logo by navigating to Studio Settings > Account Settings > General Settings. You have the option to upload both a Dark logo as well as a Light logo. This will ensure that when reviewers are invited to share.creativeforce.io, the portal will be branded with your unique logo.
Managing Notifications
As a Creative Force user, you have the option to define your notification settings in Gamma. Navigate to Studio > My Settings > Notifications to set your preferences:
As a task owner, you have the option to receive an email notification every time an action is taken on your task, or you can opt for an email summary of all notifications to be sent at the end of each day:
Lastly, you’ll decide for which events you’d like to receive a notification from the options below:
How to Invite an External Reviewer
From within Gamma, the user assigned to the Post Review task has the ability to invite both users within Creative Force and External Reviewers to the Post Review task. To invite a user, open the task in Post Review and select the Share button:
From here enter the email of the person you would like to invite to participate in the Post Review step, you may add 1 person per permission level. (see permission level details below)
As the task owner, you have the option to choose from three permission levels for invitees:
Viewer: Can view images, comments and mark-ups
Commenter: Able to use mark-up tools and commenting
Decision Maker: Able to mark images as “Approve All” or “Reject All”
Note:
You can invite up to 50 users including the task owner in one task and multiple people can have the same role.
The decision-maker action (whether approving or rejecting a suite of images) is to inform the task owner of the stakeholders' definitive decision about the suite of images, but will not automatically move the suite to the next step in the workflow.
Click “Save” after adding the email and defining the permission to apply the update.
When someone is invited to review, they will receive an email invitation to share.creativeforce.io where they can access their task.
Post Review Tools
All invited reviewers who have the Commenter or Decision Maker permission are now ready to get reviewing! Users can use the comment box to the right of an image to leave comments on specific images, or general comments on the set as a whole by selecting the General Comment button.
If the general comment button is not selected, the comment will be associated with the selected image on the left.
Users also have the option of uploading comment attachments, such as mood boards, inspiration images or brand guidelines. Accepted file types include JPG, JPEG, PNG, PSD, TIF, TIFF, EPS, PDF, DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX, INDD, TXT, CSV, PPT, PPTX, KEY.
The mark-up screen can be accessed by double-clicking an image, or pressing the spacebar. Comments will be linked to their associated markings, toggle the markings on or off using Hide/Show markings tool directly on the comment, or Hide/Show All markings on the comment thread as a whole.
You have the ability to react, reply and mention (@name) other invited users within the comments section. Invited users will receive an email notification when they are @mentioned in a comment.
Users with the Decision Maker permission have the ability to approve or reject the suite of images, simply head to the Make Decision button in the upper right-hand corner and select Approve All or Reject All.
Task Owners
At any time while the task is in progress, task owners have the ability to leave general comments on the image suite as a whole and/or take action on individual images with comments and markings for the External Reviewers in the task. This action can be performed by the task owner, by navigating to the Post Review task within Gamma and clicking the Comments tab on the right side:
Task owners are able to engage with External Reviewers in real time using comments, markings, and reactions:
Once the images have been approved, the task owner simply needs to press ‘continue’ to move the task for to the next step in the Workflow. To read more about rejection in Post Review please refer to this article.