Project management software can do it all: help you keep track of tasks, assign to-do lists and ensure your project timeline is going smoothly, among other things. In software such as Asana, you can even invite your clients, vendors and other outside parties to collaborate on a project as a guest. All of these features, and more, make project management software and amazing addition to your workflow.
While many project management tools include a proofing aspect, when your business relies heavily on image or document proofing, a more specialized tool may be required. Pairing your project management software with a creative approval software such as Ashore can bring you benefits such as managing client feedback, organizing your files, audit logs, among other things. We’ll discuss below how exactly Ashore can help you receive those benefits.
Manage Feedback
Everyone’s got something to say – and when it comes to proofing, clients and coworkers have even more to tell you about what can be changed. Creative approval software creates a space where all of the feedback you receive on a proof, whether that be an image, document, PDF or video, lives. Even better, all of the feedback from the very beginning of the project is saved alongside previous versions to better show the journey of the proof.
The ability to focus entirely on client feedback inside of Ashore shouldn’t be taken lightly – plenty of studies come out every year about how multitasking isn’t really possible. Allowing the intensive proofing process to have its own home, connected to your project management system, leads to a better proofing process and a better project overall.
Organize Files
There can be a lot of files flying about during the project management process, and not all of them have to do with a final proof or product. When you want to find the final design for the campaign ad you’ve been working on, you don’t want to dig through all of the project back-and-forth and guideline documents, you want to find the design. Ashore offers a proof archive to store all of your proofs in, complete with a search bar to find the specific proof you’re looking for. Can’t remember the proof name, but you know it was for Project A? Our tagging system allows you to add tags to proofs for easy sorting later (and when you forget what the name of that one particular proof was).
Reduce Revisions
Revising is inevitable, but many revisions end up being recursive. Seating your proofing within a creative approval software gives tools to better understand the feedback your clients or coworkers are giving, such as contextual feedback. Drawing and commenting directly on a proof is our high-tech and timely alternative to meeting in person, and achieves the goal of making feedback easier to understand and act on.
To avoid making the same changes again and again, you can also view previous versions, which are stacked on Ashore.
Meet Deadlines
One of the other big tools that comes in handy is reminders. Your project doubtless has many moving parts, of which the proof is only one. That doesn’t mean it’s not an important piece, however, and when you’re missing only the approval on one proof it can make the project drag on and miss deadline. The easiest and most effective way to get approvals and meet deadline is automated reminders, sent daily, every other day or weekly, as you decide. We’ve found at Ashore that reminding approvers to review and approve increases your approval rate by almost 50%.
You also have the ability to add a deadline to your proof, which will be visible in every reminder that you approvers receive. Nothing motivates like a looming deadline, dragging closer and closer!
Prove Due Diligence
Whether wrapping up a project or dealing with a conflict, due diligence in the form of an audit log or timeline can never go amiss. Ashore offers a timestamped timeline on each proof, allowing you to view the exact email you sent out to your approvers – excellent for when you can’t quite remember whether you said the proof was due in two weeks or three. The timeline also lets you know when your approvers view, reject or approve the files, as well as when a new version was sent. All of this information helps you track the full life of a proof and make sure everything is in timely order.
Integrate
It may seem counterintuitive to isolate your proofing process from project management, but that’s what integrations are for. You can use a creative approval software like Ashore and take advantage of all of the features that will smooth out your approval process and help focus the effort, while also taking advantage of all of the amazing management tools your project management software offers to keep all the moving parts in order.
Ashore offers a one-size-fits-all integration with Zapier. Zapier functions to connect many different softwares together – it’s very likely your project management tool already offers a Zapier integration. With this tool, you can set actions to occur when a proof is approved or rejected, keeping your project up to date. Utilize Ashore, Zapier and your project management software altogether to create a seamless interaction; check us out today and sign up for a free Ashore account to test out our software and our integration!
