Aproove's latest release includes significant features that greatly expand your collaboration and task management capabilities!

Release 2022/R3 is significant! This release elevates Aproove to another level by incorporating a comprehensive "instant messaging" feature that can be used at task and sub-task levels.

Previously in Aproove, a task got sent along with some desired instructions; however, if the task receiver had questions or the task sender wanted to add more context, that would typically get done outside of Aproove.

"Instant messaging" gives you the capability to invoke a discussion and collaborate at a project and task level directly inside Aproove. All your collaboration gets stored centrally inside the project and tasks. You can also use the instant message area as a file drop zone, which adds any uploaded files into the project container.

You can @mention anyone (even guests who are not Aproove users), and with instant in-app or email chat notifications, you will be continuously in the loop!

The new "Sub-Task Delegation" feature dramatically enhances your workflow and task capabilities within the Aproove platform. Aproove already caters to both clients at both ends of the workflow spectrum, including those who have complex workflows and those who prefer a more flexible workflow capability. Sub-Task Delegation adds a whole new dimension!

Having listened to our customers, it became clear that you may only have a single "point person in some scenarios." For example, you may be a brand, and you need to involve a 3rd party agency in your workflow, or you may be an agency, and you need to invoke the end client into your workflow. You know that your contact outside of your organization has to go through specific steps, people, and/or departments to complete the task you are giving them. However, you have limited knowledge of that information and rely on your contact to do whatever is necessary to complete the required task so your workflow can continue to flow.

Sub Task Delegation is perfect in this scenario! now, your contact can receive the task/s you have sent and sub-delegate parts or all of that task to the necessary stakeholders to get the job done!

One task can become multiple sub-tasks assigned to many people; however, all you care about is the completion of the task you assigned. What's more, you can use sub-task delegation inside a fixed or manual workflow; the choice is yours!

But that is not all. We have also added significant new functionality to our Adobe InDesign plugin. Now you can see and view your individual and team "To-Do" lists directly inside the application, apply timesheets, and much more. 

See below for more details on our exiting 2022/R3 release. Out Now! 

All businesses and organizations always deal with at least one workflow, and graphic design businesses are no exception. The more efficient a business can execute its workflow(s), the more effective and productive it will be as an organization. This is where workflow management comes in.

Workflow management is an effort to map, analyze, and optimize a workflow to be as efficient as possible. However, in graphic design businesses and creative businesses, a key challenge in implementing workflow management is finding the right balance between maintaining creativity and optimizing the workflow.

Workflow management, in essence, is about providing structure to a workflow to ensure efficiency. Still, it's also no secret that structure and rigidity may limit creativity, which is essential for a creative business like a graphic design agency.

In this guide, we will discuss how to effectively implement workflow management in graphic design, covering the following elements:

• What is workflow management?

• Unique challenges of workflow management implementation in graphic design

• Typical anatomy of a graphic design workflow

• Step-by-step guide on implementing workflow management in graphic design

Virtually all organizations involve at least one approval process in their day-to-day operations, from as 'simple' as submitting a daily report for review to presenting an annual strategy to be reviewed by the board of directors.

Yet, it's no secret that approval processes can be the bane of efficiency, full of delays, endless revision cycles, and even disputes.

Probably you've experienced the pain of submitting something for review, waiting for days until you've finally got feedback, only for the higher-ups or the clients to ask for another revision. Even worse, the inefficient time you've spent waiting for approval can often be as long or even longer than the time you've spent on the project.

The efficiency of the approval process will directly affect the organization's overall efficiency and productivity. Poor approval processes will damage the business's overall performance, so the organization will need more time and resources to achieve its objectives.

In this guide, we will learn all you need to know about creating an effective and efficient approval process, and by the end of this guide, you'd have learned about:

• What is a process? Process VS workflow

• What is an approval process?

• Key challenges to ensuring the efficiency of an approval process

• Best practices for approval process efficiency

• How you can streamline and optimize your approval workflows

In any organization with a marketing department, the marketing approval process is often one of the essential workflows and one of the most challenging to optimize.

The majority of marketers have admitted that approval delays are one of the top reasons they miss deadlines. So, whether an organization can streamline and optimize its marketing approval process will affect how efficiently the whole organization will perform.

On the other hand, many marketing leaders and marketing teams still rely on inefficient methods and techniques like emails, basic file-sharing systems (DropBox or Google Docs) that are not designed for approval workflows, and traditional project management systems, while in reality, today’s complex approval process demands more.

A centralized approach to managing marketing approval is crucial, and an organization will need the correct tools and strategies to streamline the whole approval process.

In this guide, we will show you the actionable steps for building and optimizing an efficient marketing approval workflow, and by the end of this guide, you’d have learned about:

• The concept of a marketing approval workflow

• Why it’s essential to have a streamlined and optimized workflow

• Common challenges in the marketing approval process and how to tackle them

• A step-by-step guide to building and optimizing an efficient marketing approval workflow

• Best practices to follow to ensure the efficiency of the approval workflow

Aproove has changed its development strategy, providing shorter development sprint cycles, thus providing more frequent releases.

Sometimes Aproove will have significant new feature release announcements. Sometimes, a sprint could be a "maintenance" release that improves the core technology or provides the backend functions required for new features in coming releases.

The 2022/R2 release falls into the maintenance release category, although it does contain some noteworthy new features.

As 2022/R2 is classed as a maintenance release, we will not host a webinar for this release and will incorporate the new 2022/R2 features into our R3 release webinar in March 2022.

Below is a summary of the new features in version 2022/R2

Enterprise Workflow Management, also called Enterprise Work Management (EWM) or Enterprise Process Management (EPM), is essentially the application of business process management, or BPM, in an individual enterprise.

However, “enterprise workflow management” is also often used to refer to the enterprise work management software that enables us to implement workflow management on an enterprise scale.

So, what is Business Process Management?

BPM often called workflow management, is a discipline focused on identifying, modeling/mapping, analyzing, measuring, and optimizing workflows and especially process workflows (note: we’ll learn about the differences between “workflow” and “process” later on in this article). 

A workflow can be defined as a set of tasks that get executed sequentially to achieve a specific objective. Thus, an enterprise workflow will help the company achieve its business objective (or objectives). 

All organizations and every professional working in an organization always involve at least one workflow. A hotel receptionist, for example, has a workflow for facilitating guest check-ins. 

Some organizations can involve only one pretty straightforward workflow. However, an enterprise typically involves multiple workflows that are all interconnected in a complex manner, which is why enterprise workflow management (EWM) would require a unique, more thorough approach while considering the enterprise’s overall strategy and available resources. 

Due to the typically complex bureaucracy of an enterprise, EWM will also need to provide a governance model for the management, implementation, and evaluation of the workflow management initiatives.

All businesses and organizations have workflows. Even individual workers always involve at least one workflow in their day-to-day operations.

When these workflows get executed efficiently, your business is also efficient, and vice versa: inefficient workflows will result in missed deadlines, lost opportunities, and losses in revenue, profits, and even reputation. 

But what are workflows, and why is it important to document your workflow? More importantly, how can we optimize these workflows to be as efficient as possible? 

In this guide, we will discuss:

• What is a workflow

• Different types of workflow

• Why you should document your workflow

• How to document your workflow reliably and accurately

• How to analyze the established workflow

• How to optimize the workflow to make sure it’s as efficient as possible

And more!

We can’t deny that in today’s business environment, marketing is growing more complex than ever: marketing teams are getting bigger and must handle even more activities from email, social media, public relations, advertising, and more.

Yet, we can only expect marketing to grow even more complex and challenging in 2022 and in the years to come.

Ensuring your marketing team stays productive, organized, and effective can be very challenging. The key to success is to create a marketing workflow capable of handling the details of every campaign and marketing project.

In this ultimate guide to creating a marketing workflow, we’ll discuss all you need to know about creating an effective marketing workflow for your marketing team.

By the end of this guide, you’ll have learned about:

• What is a workflow?

• What is a marketing workflow?

• The benefits of having a comprehensive marketing workflow

• A step-by-step guide on creating an effective marketing workflow

• How to analyze and optimize your marketing workflow to improve its efficiency

And more!

Creating a business process map (a process we know as Business Process Mapping) can be an effective way to improve your organization’s overall efficiency.

All businesses deal with at least one business process or sometimes (inaccurately) called workflow. The more efficient an organization executes its business process, the more efficient its overall performance.

In practice, however, most businesses deal with multiple business processes intricately linked with one another. Ensuring they get executed as efficiently as possible can be challenging.

Not to mention, most teams consist of multiple people with different personalities and thoughts. So, getting the whole team to execute a business process in a consistent, most efficient way can be tricky.

This is where a business process map can help ensure the efficiency and consistency of your business processes.

In this guide, we will discuss all you need to know about business process mapping, including but not limited to:

• What are business process maps and business process mapping?

• The scope of business process mapping

• Benefits of a business process map

• The principles and framework to map out a business process

And more!

We wanted to get 2022 off with a bang by announcing an exciting new Aproove Work Management release featuring the
Adobe InDesign Extension!

The first release of 2022 brings significant benefits to any business dealing with Adobe InDesign files either in-house or via a 3rd party supplier. The new Adobe InDesign plugin allows production users to interact with Aproove business workflows without leaving their native Adobe InDesign application!

The 2022/R1 release also brings many new features and enhancements, including a significant version 3 of the Aproove API containing over 50 new functions. But that's not all! We have also launched a fantastic new advanced search, additional review interface capabilities, form enhancements, and more! Please see below for more details.

Register below to join our Webinar on Wednesday 26th January 2022 to Learn More about the Adobe InDesign plugin and other release information!

Below is a summary of the new features in version 2022/R1

All businesses deal with at least one workflow, no matter big or small. Even a simple lemonade stand, for example, has the process of creating a lemonade from raw lemons as a workflow.

How efficiently businesses execute their workflow(s) will ultimately determine their productivity and efficiency. Still, it’s also crucial to understand that a company doesn’t simply run by executing workflows and accomplishing the objectives. Workflows can be linked to one another, and every employee could have challenges in their unique workflows.

This is where workflow optimization is needed. Without a comprehensive workflow optimization and workflow management strategy, your business will miss more deadlines, be more exposed to risks related to human errors. It will use more resources to achieve your goals.

In short, your business will not be efficient, and it will be much harder to grow and scale your business.

Have you ever wanted to optimize your business’s workflows and improve your efficiency, but don’t know where to begin?

You’ve come to the right place.

In this guide to workflow optimization, we’ll share all you need to know about workflow optimization and workflow strategies you can use to improve your business performance. By the end of this reading, you’d have learned about:

• What is workflow optimization?

• Workflow optimization as a part of workflow management

• A step-by-step guide to optimizing your workflow

• How to optimize document management workflow to ensure its efficiency

• Actionable strategies you can implement to improve your business performance.

And more!

Let us begin this guide by looking at what workflow optimization means.

Document management can be a major headache for any organization.

When your organization is relatively small, and you only handle a small number of documents per week, document management might not be an issue. However, as your organization grows and needs to store and manage hundreds if not thousands of documents per month, you’ll see how document management can be a constant uphill battle. 

Data is now considered the most valuable commodity. The amount of data (and documents) coming in and out of an organization has constantly increased over the years, so you’ll struggle to keep up with the pace without a proper document management plan in place. 

Thanks to technology, now we also have the option to implement automation to the document management workflow. However, there’s one crucial thing to uphold: 

Automation is only beneficial when the automated workflow is already efficient.

Or else, automation will only amplify its inefficiencies and bottlenecks. 

So, it’s crucial to have a proper document management strategy in the first place and to optimize the process and ensure it’s as efficient as possible. 

In this expert guide to document management and automation, we’ll discuss how to tackle this issue precisely. You’ll learn everything from start to finish about document management as a workflow, and by the end of this guide, we will inform you about:

• The definition of the term ‘document.’ 

• The concept of document management

• Different aspects of document management workflow

• How to optimize document management workflow to ensure its efficiency

• How to implement automation to a document management workflow

And more!

Aproove is pleased to announce a significant new version of Aproove Work Management!

Version 2021/R5 is primarily focused on a new video interface with enhanced features.

We are also delighted to share the inclusion of security enhancements, existing feature enhancements, and system performance optimizations.

As a reminder, version names now start with the year, then the release number for that year. As the fifth release of 2021, this is version 2021/R5.

BUSINESS CHALLENGE:

As one of the world's largest retailers, with annual sales of more than $121.1 billion (2019). With nearly 2,800 stores in 35 states, under 22 banner brands. Kroger’s Promotional Execution Team set out a transformation objective to change the performance across all Advertising and Display operations that orchestrate 600+ promotional content versions per week across Kroger’s 22 brands. With 2000+ employees in the end-to-end operating model, this presented a significant, enterprise-scale transformation program challenge.

When discussing business efficiency, the term “workflow” often gets mentioned. Yet, ask five different people for the definition, and chances are, you’ll get five different answers.

So, what is a workflow? How can you use workflow to improve your business’s efficiency and productivity? Is it worth your time?

In this guide, we will discuss all you need to know about business workflows, and by the end of this guide, you will learn about:

Implementing efficient and creative workflows always poses a unique challenge: we are essentially putting a structure over a creative process that’s supposed to be “free.” Thus, finding the right balance between optimal structure and creative flexibility is very important yet often very difficult.

Managing and executing projects can be challenging. According to research by KPMG, 70% of surveyed organizations have suffered project failures for one reason or another.

As the name suggests, workflow analysis is the process of analyzing an organization’s business process. However, before it can be examined, the business process needs to be correctly visualized in a workflow map.

First, what is a workflow?

A workflow, or a business process, can be defined as a collection of linked tasks (sequential or non-sequential) executed to achieve a particular business objective.

We all know how managing a project can be very challenging!

Today Aproove is pleased to announce a significant new version of Aproove Work Management!

This version incorporates core technology updates that improve both the speed and performance of Aproove and lays the groundwork for Aproove to incorporate significant new features during the rest of 2021 and beyond.

Of course, we could not make a release without some new visible features, so we are pleased to announce some significant enhancements to the tag functionality, including the ability to automate "hidden tags" that can enhance searching and filtering.

After consultation with our customer base, Aproove has changed the way that we number our releases. As a SaaS company, Aproove can release anywhere between 8-12 times per year.

For ease, all future versions will start with the year, e.g., 2021, then the release number for that year (a year being January-January).

The release we are posting today is the fourth release this year, and therefore it will be named the 2021/R4 version.

A business, at its core, is just a collection of business processes.

Corporations all around the world strive to become more efficient and productive.

When these workflows get executed efficiently, your business is also efficient, and vice versa: inefficient workflows will result in missed deadlines, lost opportunities, and losses in revenue, profits, and even reputation.

However, an organization and even a single team within the organization can consist of many people with disparate personalities and logical views. 

Each team member might have a different idea on how to execute a task efficiently, and in many cases, there is not a single, one-size-fits-all answer. This can often lead to disputes and confusion, which can lead to inefficiencies and other issues. 

So, how do you get your whole team and organization to perform a business process consistently in the most efficient way, every time? 

The solution is a workflow model. 

A workflow model, or workflow diagram, is a visual mapping for a workflow, a business process, a project, or a business case. By modeling a workflow accurately, everyone has the same vision and can execute it in the same way. 

This guide will tackle all you need to know about workflow models and how you can implement them in your organization. 

By the end of this guide, you will learn about: 

• The concept of workflow models

• Different types of workflows in a business environment

• How to model a workflow

• The benefits of modeling a workflow

• How to analyze and optimize workflow models

And more.

Although the term “work management” has only gained popularity in recent years, you’ve likely dealt with some forms of managing work, be it at work, at home, or school. 

All businesses and organizations have workflows. Even individual workers always involve at least one workflow in their day-to-day operations.

When these workflows get executed efficiently, your business is also efficient, and vice versa: inefficient workflows will result in missed deadlines, lost opportunities, and losses in revenue, profits, and even reputation.

But what are workflows, and why is it important to document your workflow?

And more importantly, how can we optimize these workflows to be as efficient as possible?

In this guide, we will discuss:

• What is a workflow
• Different types of workflow
• Why you should document your workflow
• How to document your workflow reliably and accurately
• How to analyze the established workflow
• How to optimize the workflow to make sure it’s as efficient as possible

And more.

The terms workflow and “business process” are often used interchangeably. While there is indeed an interrelation between the two terms, there are some differences between the two.  

A business process is, simply put, a set of linked activities (or tasks) that get collectively executed to achieve a business objective. 

All businesses always have at least one business process. A simple trading business could have just one business process and other companies, however, can have multiple complex business processes that are interconnected to each other. 

How successful a business is, is essentially determined by how efficient and effective it is in executing its business processes, and this is where Business
Process Management comes in. 

Today Aproove is pleased to announce version 4.3.4.3. Below you will find the release note summary.

Typically Aproove sends out an email notification that incorporates two or three highlighted features within the email along with a list of all new functions and enhancements.

Today we will place the release notes in the blog area in a change from our usual email announcements and then focus on relevant new features in the coming weeks (before the next release). We will also offer a webinar with each new release when significant new functionality gets released.

This is to give our users more drip-fed information about each release, and it will also allow us to "zoom in" on the new functions between the releases. We want to explain the feature and also provide some business "use-case" examples.

In today's competitive landscape, many organizations demand more agile and error-free business processes.

Many are now relying on workflow-based innovations and automation to improve efficiency and productivity. The basic idea of automation is to reduce or eliminate human involvements from the execution of a process with three key objectives:

1. Reducing risks of human errors both in meeting compliance and in terms of data security
2. Freeing the valuable employees' time so they can focus on core competencies and contribute more to achieving the organizational goals
3. Reducing human resources costs

Software solutions can execute specific tasks at a much higher speed than a human could. Thus, automation of these tasks can significantly speed up the repetitive processes while freeing up your resource to carry out more valuable work.

Adding PDF layer support is a significant enhancement of the Aproove Work Management Review Interface, giving our customers a competitive edge not seen in other technologies!

Optionally allowing your reviewers to see any layers inside a PDF document is a great starting point, but we never stopped there! We also added many surrounding features that enable you to restrict layers to different users and groups and store the viewing conditions (what layers were turned on or off) to know the reviewer's exact viewing conditions when they made the annotation note.

Aproove Work Management today expands its use case to incorporate Digital Asset Management (DAM) capabilities as part of the core product.

The Aproove Drive has been in existence for several years, giving users the ability to store, share, and distribute files within the interface. Those files could be proofs or supporting files such as creative briefs or master files. The Aproove Drive concept was at a "project level," meaning you stored and accessed the files at the project level. This feature was handy for Work in Progress files but a little limited if you wanted a full view of all your assets stored on Aproove.

Aproove Work Management with in-built DAM capabilities opens endless possibilities to manage "work in progress" projects while also having a holistic view of your data repository housed within the same system. Combine this with full online proofing and task management, and you have a fully incorporated Work Management platform to drive your business.

In recent years, the term work management started gaining popularity, and a common misconception is to use the term interchangeably with project management. 

Work management and project management are two different concepts—although there are some similarities—, different timelines, different natures, and different objectives.

Here, we will discuss the concept of work management, its benefits, and how to implement it in your business.

Proofing traditionally got performed manually by reading manufactured hardcopy proofs before the files reached the printing press. 

Nowadays, we have much more content across many more platforms than traditional print. Web content, video, audio, and interactive files are commonplace in the modern world, and none of those formats can get checked using physical proofs. Many companies have multiple output formats and need to cater to all these different formats in the proofing process. 

The file could get printed, published on a website, social media, or broadcast on TV. Proofing has evolved, and Online Proofing is the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly method for review and approval. 

Aproove Work Management is excited to announce a HUGE new release that contains many new amazing features that give substantial business benefits to our AWM Classic and AWM Enterprise customers!

-------------------------

Introducing Forms!

A major enhancement to our Online Proofing functionality "Note Tags" are designed to help with identification, classification, and decisions on individual annotation notes.

What are Note Tags?

Note Tags introduce a new way of managing annotation workflows. Note Tags cover multiple needs ranging from automated note identification to complex approval and decisions at a note level. 

Note tags can automatically be applied when users make annotations, and permissions can be used at a project level to determine what note tags (if any) are available to the different users.

Note Tags can be added when a user creates an annotation note (automatically, manually, or a combination of both). Note Tags can also be made available or hidden at different step stages based on your workflow requirements. 

Today Aproove work Management introduces our powerful new "forms" functionality, which is deeply embedded into all the core AprooveWM functions.

Why are Forms important?

Forms are a significant new addition that gives endless possibilities for companies to improve and automate business workflows. The collection of data from any source, both internal or external to the organization was the missing link in AprooveWM.

We are excited to announce our new product, WeAproove+

Visit WeAproove+ Website Here!

The term ‘work management’ has become somewhat a buzzword as companies across all sectors look to make their organizations more productive and maximize their earning potential by changing their internal processes, so why is Work Management important?

Understand your business

When was the last time you put a microscope up to your team’s daily process? And we don’t just mean when you addressed a glaring issue with a single team member’s productivity.

We are Live!

Aproove has launched a fresh new website to better reflect our product positioning and product offerings! Click here to visit Aproove's new website!

Aproove is excited to announce version 4.1, which contains some significant new features including new reporting capabilities, extended search functions, calendar "to-do" events and enhanced "conflict manager" options.

Having seen many businesses trying to profit from the Coronavirus Aproove wish to make the following announcement;