Nothing can slow down the work you do for clients more than the approval process. Whether you’re going back and forth between various iterations because feedback was unclear, or chasing down a client to get final sign-off, it can be a huge time waste that often results in missed deadlines or less-than-stellar work. 

Enter proofs, the latest (and most requested!) feature we’re excited to roll out at Teamwork. With the new dedicated Proofs section within Teamwork, you now have the ability to manage a proof through its entire lifecycle—from creation to revision to final client approval. 

Proofs annotations

If you already have a clear content review process in place, great! Proofs are here to help streamline your current process. And if you don’t, now you can establish a clear review process that suits your team’s and your clients’ needs. 

Whatever your proofing needs, getting everyone on the same page to work toward final approval has never been easier. Let’s dig into the ins and outs of the feature. 

In the main navigation sidebar of Teamwork, you’ll see a new button for “Proofs” (if it’s not pinned in the side navigation, check the “More” tab). Here you’ll find the main Proofs area, where you can add a proof, track its progress, and see any linked tasks. 

When you’re ready to add your first proof, you can upload it via a file (like a PDF or Word doc), or link out to it (like a Google Doc or a Figma file). You’ll also find many of your standard Teamwork task features here as well, from assigning due dates to selecting a corresponding project for the proof. 

Whether you’re using proofs internally to keep track of your team’s work and finally sign off on it, or externally in conjunction with your clients (or ideally, both), Teamwork makes it easy to bring your most important stakeholders directly into a proof to review, add feedback, and ultimately approve. 

When you invite someone to review or approve a proof, Teamwork sends an email straight to their inboxes to let them know, giving them direct access to the Proofs area in Teamwork—they don’t even need a Teamwork account! Reviewers are able to view the proof and leave comments, while approvers can view the proof, leave comments, and sign-off on final approval. 

Best of all, reviewers and approvers can pinpoint exactly what changes need to be made by clicking on the specific area of a proof to add an annotation or contextual comment. That way, there’s never any confusion about what needs to be amended.

Thanks to the streamlined Proofs area, you’ll never have to go far to see each proof’s current status. All of the feedback is centralized in one place—plus, you’ll see a historical log of all feedback attached to a proof so you always have the complete picture. 

proofs home base

Take advantage of versioning to track each iteration of the proof so you’re always using the most up-to-date file. On top of that, you can see version histories by displaying a proof's current version number, along with the total number of versions so you have the full context every step of the way.

Now that you know the basic gist of how to be a proofs pro, hop into your Teamwork account and give it a try! Proofs is now available on all per-user subscriptions, so if that includes you, you’ll always have access to the feature. (More details about the number of proofs you have access to can be found here.) 

Need to bump up the number of proofs on your plan? Drop a quick note to sales@teamwork.com and we’ll take care of it from there. Happy proofing!