Is anyone using the proofing tool as a design iterative control measure?

Jef Forward

Hello all - I am looking for some feedback on improving our design “iterative” process in Smartsheet.  We are a design-build construction company.  We use the control center, and we have a dedicated process sheet we follow for every project.  I love the use of a process sheet and our ability to attach sop’s and video how to’s. All of this information rolls up into Dashboards and Portfolios of information.   We have approximately 4 company roles assigned to multiple tasks in the process sheet.  We find this sheet very effective for having everyone understand what needs to be done in each stage, and who is responsible.  My point in explaining this is that we are fairly embedded in this system, and I am not looking for a reorganization of information.

Our challenge is handling repeating client presentations within the same stage. We typically do not know how many presentations to the client may be needed.  In the past, we have tried to document each iteration, and we add rows and edit each process sheet, which gets to be confusing, and causes some conflicts in our scheduling date formulas, and creates a manual process.  Our goal with the date function is to continually forecast when a client will wrap up a stage, and that is harder to report out when we are adding rows. 

Here is an example of a typical repeating process.

1. Team review of design drawings (Proof) 
2. Implement feedback into design drawings and submit to estimating (attached pdf for historical)
3. Estimator creates/updates an Estimate (attached pdf for historical)
4. Client Presentation of design drawings and estimate (attached pdf's for historical) Client may decide to repeat the process, or approve the design and estimate and move to the next step, or part ways. 

After watching the proofing webinar - I am curious if anyone is using the proofing tool as an iterative control measure, specifically using the version control in the proof.  

My thought is that each “version” represents a client presentation.  To handle multiple options within one client presentation, we could create a single PDF from multiple pdf’s (pdf joiner) to be uploaded to a single version. I have found the need to always use a pdf compressor to manage the file size.  

In this manner - we just have to update the date field in item #4.  Regarding the status drop-down list, we can update items 1-3 with an open, closed, in-progress to correctly document where the work is at and easily update.  

I also wonder if I am way overthinking this...:) Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

Ben Goldblatt

Hi @Jef Forward,

As work progresses through various phases, along with the different versions of Proofs I'm wondering if the new "Record a Date" automation would come in handy for tracking when changes occur in your sheet. The idea behind this is that when a specified change is made, a date will automatically populate in a date column on the sheet. The example provided in the Help article titled Set the Current Date with Record a Date Action shows a Trigger action of "When Status changes to Complete". When this action occurs, the workflow will trigger and automatically populate a date in a "Date Completed" column. This feature was just released on January 4th.

I hope this helps!

Thanks,

Ben