Motifray Athenaeum | Approvals and Proofing

01. Intro to approvals and proofing

When you share a collection with clients you can ask selected individuals for approval of collection files you choose. Approval is an optional feature and you can use it to obtain more formal acceptance of a project outcome. All the people you ask for an approval will have the option to approve (or reject) the selected collection files.

An indicator (colored dot) representing the approval status of the file will appear in the file tiles (or rows in the table view) that are subject to approval. The dot icon colours represent respectively:

Approval requested
Pending approval
Approved
Rejected

02. Request a project collection file approval

Who can request a project collection file approval?

Only collections owners can request file approvals from customer contacts.

Request a project collection file approval

Go to the Projects tab in the top level menu.
Find the project you want to request the collection file approval for and double-click the project tile (when you are in the tiles view) or the project row (when you are in the table view). The project Summary view will appear.
Click the Collections tab in the second level menu below the project name section. Current collections will be listed in the central panel of the project view.
Find the collection you want to request the file approval for and double-click the collection tile (when you are in the tiles view) or the collection row (when you are in the table view). The list of the collection files will appear.
Hover the mouse cursor over the file tile you want to request the approval for (when you are in the tiles view) or the row (when you are in the table view).
Find the context menu icon

located in the top-right corner of the tile (or far right end of the table row). Click the icon and select the Approval request option. Approval request window will appear.
In the Approval required column select the check box next to the customer contacts you want to request the approval from and click the Request button to confirm.

03. Cancel an approval request to a collection file

Who can cancel an approval request for a project collection file?

Only collections owners can cancel an approval request for project collection files.

When you don't need anymore approval for a specified file (you previously requested the approval for), you can cancel the request for it.

Cancel an approval request

Go to the Projects tab in the top level menu.
Find the project you want to cancel the approval request for the collection file and double-click the project tile (when you are in the tiles view) or the project row (when you are in the table view). The project Summary view will appear.
Click the Collections tab in the second level menu below the project name section. Current collections will be listed in the central panel of the project view.
Find the collection you want to cancel the file approval request for and double-click the collection tile (when you are in the tiles view) or the collection row (when you are in the table view). The list of the collection files will appear.
Hover the mouse cursor over the file tile you want to request the approval for (when you are in the tiles view) or the row (when you are in the table view).
Find the context menu icon

located in the top-right corner of the tile (or far right end of the table row). Click the icon and select the Approval request option. Approval request window will appear.
In the Approval required column unselect the check box next to the customer contacts you want to request the approval from and click the Request button to confirm.

04. Adding external comments to a collection

Who can add comments to a project collection?

Each project team member who the collection is shared with can add comments to the collection. External customer contacts who the collection is shared with can also add comments to the collection.

In Motifray, you and your customer contacts can add external comments (available to customer contacts) to the entire collection or to a single collection file. In this section you will find instructions on how to add comments to the entire collection. If you want to add comments to a single collection file, see the section Adding external comments to a collection file.

Warning! When a collection is shared with a customer contacts, all collection comments and notes are visible to contacts the collection is shared with.

Note! Collection comments are shown and can be added in the sidebar of the given collection. The collection sidebar is shown when the collection tile (or row in the table view) is selected in the project Collections tab main view.

Add a comment to a project collection

Go to the Projects tab in the top level menu.
Find the project you want to add a comment to the collection in and double-click the project tile (when you are in the tiles view) or the project row (when you are in the table view). The project Summary view will appear.
Click the Collections tab in the second level menu below the project name section. Current collections will be listed in the central panel of the project view.
Find the collection you want to add the comment to and click (once) the collection tile to select the collection (when you are in the tiles view) or collection row (when you are in the table view). The collection tile (or row in the table view) will be selected. The collection sidebar shall appear in the right side of the window. If not, locate the information icon

in the far right of the top bar menu and click it.
The file sidebar contains several sections. Find the Comments section where existing project comments are listed.
To add a new comment, on the bottom part of the Comments section the Type your comments input textbox is located. Type your comment into the textbox and click the submit icon

to submit your comments.
To reply to an existing comment, at the right side of each existing comment there is reply icon

. Click the icon. The Type your comments input textbox will appear. Type your comment into the textbox and click the submit icon

to submit your reply.

Note!‍

Collection comments are visible to all project team members and customer contacts who the collection is (or will be) shared with.
A collection comments section is a perfect tool to lead a project collection related discussion with both external customer contacts and project team members working on the project.
Just be aware that collection comments will be visible to the customer contacts when you share the collection with them.

05. Adding external comments to a collection file

Who can add comments to a project collection file?

Each project team member in your organization and customer contacts who a collection is shared with can add comments to the collection file.

In Motifray, you and your customer contacts can add external comments (available to customer contacts) to the entire collection or to a single collection file. In this section you will find instructions on how to add comments to the signle collection file. If you want to add comments to the entire collection file, see the Adding external comments to a collection.

Warning! When a collection is shared with customer contacts, the collection file comments and notes are visible to contacts the collection is shared with.

In Motifray you can add two types of comments to collection files:

General comments that apply to the entire document and are not related to any highlighted element or document area.
Annotations that relate to a selected part of the document and allow you to indicate its highlighted area that the comment refers to.

The collection file comments are shown and can be added in the collection file sidebar. The file sidebar is available in two of Motifray workspace contexts:

a) When the file tile (or row in the table view) is selected in the collection view.
b) When you enter the file preview by double clicking the file tile (or row in the table view)..

General comments can be viewed and added in both contexts described above (a and b). Annotations require you to select the document area first, so they can be added in the file preview context only (b only).

Add a general comment to a collection file

Go to the Projects tab in the top level menu.
Find the project you want to add a comment to the collection file in and double-click the project tile (when you are in the tiles view) or the project row (when you are in the table view). The project Summary view will appear.
Click the Collections tab in the second level menu below the project name section. Current collections will be listed in the central panel of the project view.
Find the collection you want to add the comment to the file in and double click the collection tile (when you are in the tiles view) or project row (when you are in the table view). Current collection files are listed in the central panel of the collection view.
Find the file you want to add the comment to and click (once) the file tile to select the flie (if you are in the tiles view) or the file row (when you are in the table view). The file tile (or row in the table view) will be selected and the file sidebar shall appear in the right side of the window. If not, locate the information icon

in the far right of the top bar menu and click it.
Scroll down the side bar and find the Comments section where existing file comments are listed.
To add a new comment, on the bottom part of the Comments section the Type your comments input textbox is located. Type your comment into the textbox and click the submit icon

to submit your comments.
To reply to an existing comment, at the right side of each existing comment there is reply icon

. Click the icon. The Type your comments input textbox will appear. Type your comment into the textbox and click the submit icon

to submit your reply.

Add an annotation to a collection file

Go to the Projects tab in the top level menu.
Find the project you want to add an annotation to the collection file to and double-click the project tile (when you are in the tiles view) or the project row (when you are in the table view). The project Summary view will appear.
Click the Collections tab in the second level menu below the project name section. Current collections will be listed in the central panel of the project view.
Find the collection you want to add the annotation to the file to and double click the collection tile (when you are in the tiles view) or project row (when you are in the table view). Current collection files are listed in the central panel of the collection view.
Double click the file you want to add an annotation to. The image viewer window will appear.
The file sidebar shall appear in the right side of the window. If not, locate the information icon

in the far right of the top bar menu and click it.
Find the annotation icon

located in the top right area of the file preview area and click it. The cursor will change to a crosshair +.
Make a selection of the document area you want to add an annotation to. The Add your comments window will appear.
Enter your comments into the Comments textbox and click the Add button to confirm.

Tip! When you hover your mouse over an annotation in the Comments section of the sidebar, the image area associated with that annotation will be highlighted.

Note! The comments on the collection files refer to its specific file version. If the file has multiple versions, you can view the comments related to a specific version by clicking the version thumbnail on the left side of the file preview window.

06. View all comments and proofings in a project

Who can view a project Comments & Proofing section?

Project team members can view the Comments & Proofing section.

The Comment & Proofing section contains a list of project comments, its collections and files comments as well as customer decisions (approvals / rejections) regarding collection files for which approval was requested.

View Comments & Proofing

Go to the Projects tab in the top level menu.
Find the project you want to view the Comments & Proofing section for and double click the project tile (when you are in the tiles view) or project row (when you are in the table view).
Find the Comments & Proofing tab in the second level menu below the project name section and click it. The Comments & Proofing section will appear.

The project comments and proofing actions are listed in a form of rows. Each row contains the basic information about the comment or proofing action and the object (project, collection, file) the comment or proofing refers to.

Tip! When you double click the selected row on the list in the Comments & Proofing, you will be moved directly to the object (project, collection, file) the selected comment or proofing refers to.

Approval Requests and Online Proofing

More on, about approvals and proofing