This document outlines the new features, improvements, bug fixes and other tasks included in this admation release.
Release Overview
The focus of this release was to start work on changes to the user interface, lightening things up, and generally giving the system a more modern look.
Improvements
AD-2900 Allow deliverables to be Submitted For Feedback
For a long time now, when you received an approval request, users were able to forward this on to additional people for feedback. This meant that they were not “approving” the work, but were offering commentary that the approver could factor into their own decision. Now, a piece of work can optionally be directly submitted for feedback.
As mentioned, submitting for feedback is useful in situations where you may want to ask a question rather than having the work’s status depend on the answer. It is also useful in situations where you want to ask different teams/groups of people for feedback without allowing those teams to see each other’s feedback, or even that they were both involved in this work. This is because, unlike when submitting for approval, the same revision of work can be submitted for feedback several times and to different people.
“Submit for Feedback” is turned off by default, but if you would like to discuss this feature more and potentially have it turned on, please reach out to your Client Success Manager and they will be happy to assist you.
AD-2899 Approvals > All Revisions Comparable
Previously, when comparing revisions of artwork, users could only see the revisions that were send to them. For example, if I received revisions 1 and 3 of a piece of work for approval then, when comparing revisions, I would only see those 2 revisions.
We have now added a configuration option to allow organisations to decide if they would like to keep this restriction in place, or if they would like their users to be able to see all previous revisions of work, even if they were only sent a sub set of those revisions. So, in the example above, I would be able to compare versions 1, 2 & 3 even though I had never received revision 2 previously.
“All Revisions Comparable” is turned off by default, but if you would like to discuss this feature more and potentially have it turned on, please reach out to your Client Success Manager and they will be happy to assist you.
AD-2869 Informing approvers that they have other approvals with a more urgent deadline than the item they are currently reviewing
It’s a common problem. You receive an email asking you to respond to an approval request, only to find out later than you have missed a deadline on a more important request because you were focussed on the most recent email.
Now, when receiving an approval request email, a message will appear both in the actual email as well as in the Full Screen Approval screen alerting you to other more pressing approval requests.
The alert also includes a link which will take you directly to your Global Approval List which will only show items that are pending a response and have a deadline. It will also automatically sort them so the items with the earliest deadline are at the top of the list.
NOTE: Please be aware that some users may have pending approval requests with deadlines that have already passed and these will trigger the alerts to pop up. Our suggestion to remedy this is to either have these old jobs deleted or put on hold if they are no longer required, or to action them with an approve/change request as required.
An alert will appear in new approval request emails if you have other approval requests with a more pressing deadline.
An alert will appear in Full Screen Approval view if you have other approval requests with a more pressing deadline.
AD-2898 Project/Deliverable Details > Add support for links in the Overview field
We have now included support for links to be added to the Overview field within a project and deliverables.
Links can now be added to the Overview field in a Project/Deliverable.
AD-2897 Annual Governance > Add options for earlier reminders
As part of the Annual Governance feature, we have included some additional options for the number of days before an asset expires that an alert email is sent.
An email can now sent upto 180 days prior to the asset usage expiry being reached.
An alert can be sent to a specific group of users up to 180 days prior to its usage expiration.
Bug Fixes
AD-2894 Locking of Forwards
We recently introduced the “Forward Locking” feature which allowed an approver to lock any forwards they sent out so as to prevent any late feedback coming in after their decision had already been made. This would also remove the locked forwards from the forward recipient’s approval list. This meant that if I forwarded an item to you and you wanted to refer to a previous approval to ensure you used the same language, you were not able to.
Now, if an approver locks their forwarded items, only forwards that are pending approval will be locked so as to ensure that everyone can see the details on prior work they need.
AD-2889 Editing Phases via the Phases widget is not recorded as an event log
Fixed an issue where Phase changes were not captured in the event log under certain conditions. From now on, we will be able to provide Phase Change Reporting with better fidelity.
Resource Management
AD-2884 Timesheets
We have introduced a new Timesheets feature to the Resource Management system in admation. With this, users are able to view a representation of the current week (or previous weeks) with all tasks which occurred during that week shown. Users are then able to quickly log time against a task on a particular day with the total amount of time logged for the day, including any BAU allowance, also displayed. Timesheets are then able to be submitted to a manager for approval.
A short video has been produced to show how this feature works.
“Timesheets” is part of the Resource Management system and requires a small amount of configuration to enable its use, but if you would like to discuss this feature more and potentially have it available, please reach out to your Client Success Manager and they will be happy to assist you.