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Simple, integrated Proofing & Approvals
Simple, integrated Proofing & Approvals

Faster turnaround, fewer approval rounds and easier tracking of who approved and when using Hive Proofing and Approvals

Erin Gouveia avatar
Written by Erin Gouveia
Updated over a week ago

Start by turning on Proofing & Approvals in Hive Apps.

Note! You can choose to turn on this app for all projects or to turn it on for individual projects as necessary.

With Proofing & Approvals you can:

  1. Attach a file to be reviewed (see bottom of this article for a full list of supported file types)

  2. Set up an approval round

  3. Access your approval requests from My actions

  4. Access your approval tasks from a notification

  5. Add annotations to a proof 

  6. Proof video files

  7. Mark your decision on a proof

  8. Edit a live approval round

  9. Mark comments within the proof as Accepted/Rejected, etc

  10. Add stamps to files

  11. Route an approval round to a team

  12. Proof URL links

  13. Combine multiple files into one document for proofing

  14. Lock a proof

  15. Lock a Round

1. Attach a file to be proofed

You can add a file to be proofed by your team from within an action card.  Click Add proof to add a new draft of the file you are working on. 

You can also drag the file to the Approval app! (See GIF)

Note: You can attach video files to be proofed as well.  See the full list of supported file types at the bottom of this article.  

2. Set up an approval round

Once you have uploaded a new proof, you are ready to route it to the appropriate person for approval. 

  1. Click Request approval to initiate the process from the action card.

  2. Click Add approver to add the appropriate approver to the workflow. 

  3. You can add an optional due date to the approval process to provide clarity to your team mates. 

  4. For more complex approvals, Add multiple stages to the approval process. 

Once the route is set up, click the Request approval button again to make the approval route live and to trigger a notification for the first approver(s).  

Request Review from a Team: You can send a request to an entire team by adding the 'team' as an approver. Once requested, a notification will be sent to all members of the team. Users can then choose to 'Review for team' to mark a decision on behalf of the other team members. Once a decision has been made, the team will be notified and the approval request will be removed from the remaining users' queues.

Add External Approver: Choose Add external approver if you would like to request approval from someone who is not in Hive. Simply enter their email address, and they will receive a link from Hive to review the content in the proofing window. You must add a proof to use this feature.

Change status after approval: Choose change status after approval to automate your approvals workflow by moving the action card to the appropriate status once a decision has been made.

3. Access your approval tasks from My actions

If an assignment has been routed to you for your approval, it will be shown separately from your standard actions at the top of the My actions view. Click the item to begin the approval process.

4. Access your approval tasks from a notification

When you are asked to approve something, you will also see a notification alert on the Notification Center icon. From here, you can click into the approval notification in order to jump to the action card and begin reviewing the proof.

5. Add annotations to a proof

You can proof a document by clicking the file name hyperlink from the action card for your assignment. Once in the proofing tool, you can...

  1. Click the Pane button to show a summary view with thumbnails and notes.

  2. View controls allows you to control page transition, layout, and rotation.

  3. Click the Pan icon to navigate within the proof.

  4. The Select tool allows you to click and select annotations.

  5. Change the zoom.

  6. Navigate through the pages of the document.

  7. View measurements for the page you are on.

  8. Search for specific comments made in the proof.

  9. Filter comments by position or time. 

Hive Proofing has many different annotation tools:

  1. Measure dimensions in the proof.

  2. Make a freehand annotation.

  3. Highlight, underline, and strikethrough text in a document.

  4. Draw a rectangle, circle, line, or arrow with the shapes tool.

  5. Use the free text tool to write directly on the proof.

  6. Add comments to leave any notes you have regarding the proof.  From within a comment, you can also attach a file to be included with your comment.  

  7. Convert to full screen, download a pdf of the proof with comments, or print the proof.

  8. Approve the proof or mark required changes directly within the proof. 

6. Video Proofing


You can also attach videos to the action card for proofing. When opening a video, click the chat icon in the bottom right corner to open up the proofing tool. 

To add a new comment, click New in the top left corner. Your comment will be timestamped at the time you clicked the 'New' button.

You can call attention to a specific area of the video by using your cursor to select/highlight. 

To add a comment click 'Continue' and then 'Save.'

To comment on a segment of the video, click and drag the comment bar on the video scrubber:

To view a comment, hover over the icon on the video scrubber. Click on a comment to jump to that time in the video and add a reply if needed. 

To exit out of the video proofing tool, click 'Esc'.

Back in the action card, you can also download a PDF of all comments left on a video proof by clicking "Download comments" just below the video.

**Please note, you'll only be able to download the video comments if it is the most recently uploaded file.

7. Mark your decision on a proof

When you are ready to begin your review, click the 'Review' button which will update the text next to your name to be 'Reviewing' in order to let your team members know that you have begun your review.

You can make a decision for the proof you have been routed for approval from the action card for your approval assignment:

  1. Click Approve if no changes are required on the proof. If there is another approver in the route, they will receive a notification the proof is ready to be reviewed.

  2. Click Approve with changes if changes are required on the proof but it's been approved. If there is another approver in the route, they will receive a notification the proof is ready to be reviewed.

  3. Click Require changes if updates need to be made to the file you are reviewing. 

Pro Tip: You can also mark your decision within the proof itself by selecting the green check mark for approve and the red button for require changes. See Section 5. 

8. Edit a live approval round

If you initiated the approval round, you are able to edit the route even after it is live. To do so hover over the stage name header and click 'Edit Stage' on the right

  1. Delete stage by clicking on the trash can if you no longer need approval from a specific individual. The trash can will appear when you mouse over the stage name header.

  2. Add approver in an existing stage

  3. Replace yourself in an approval round by clicking on your name and choosing someone to take your place

9. Mark comments within the proof as Accepted/Rejected and edit existing comments

Once a colleague has reviewed a file and entered their comments, you may frequently like to decide which comments should be addressed and which do not need updating.  Now, with a comment status within the proofing tool, you can mark each one with the following statuses: Accepted, Rejected, Cancelled, Completed.

Just click the 3 dots on the right of the comment as shown here:

You can also now edit the existing comment from the same menu!

​10. Add stamps to files in proofing

With a new library of stamps available, you can easily and clearly mark certain conditions for your teammates.  See what's possible here:


11. Route an approval round to a team

Do you often need to send an approval round to a team of people and let them decide who can pick it up? Now you can! As long as the team is added to the project, they will now appear in the drop-down to route a file:

12. Proof URL links

Users can click the upload icon and click the Generate from link to upload a URL as a proof.

13. Combine multiple files into one document for proofing

When a user uploads multiple files at once, users have two choices:

- Upload as a combined file

  • Choosing this option will combine those files into 1 long file and convert them to a single PDF file

- Upload individual files as subactions

  • Each files will create its own subactions and they will inherit the title of the files.

14. Lock a proof

Once all comments and feedback have been added, you can lock your proof. All admins as well as the user who uploaded the proof are able to lock it. To do it, you need to click "Lock proof" on the bottom right-hand corner of the image.

15. Lock a round

The Admins and the Project Owner can decide to lock the Round once it gets completed.

To do it, you'll need to enable "Lock proofing rounds once complete" under Approval rounds.

Supported file types

The following file types are supported in proofing:
Documents
.pdf, .doc, .docx, .xslx, .pptx, .rtf, .odt, .ods, .odp

Images
.bmp, .wmf, .emf, .hdp, .jpg, .jp2, .jpc, .png, .tif, .tiff

Videos
.mp4, .ogg, .webm

Other
.xps, .oxps, .xml, .xod, .xaml

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