Review and Approve Documents in the Cloud Using Autodesk Docs

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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BRYSON ANDERSON: Autodesk Accelerators

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are designed to help your team stay ahead

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of the curve with the latest workflows.

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These include on-demand courses, pre-recorded coaching,

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as well as live coaching.

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To see the full list of topics, visit the Customer Success Hub.

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Take a moment to read over the Safe Harbor statement.

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This is a reminder that we may make statements

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about future developments.

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These are not intended to be a guarantee

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but reflect our current expectations and assumptions.

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Before we get started, let me introduce myself.

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My name is Bryson Anderson.

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I'm based out of Utah.

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Been in the IT industry for about 14 years now,

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the last 10 years in the AEC marketplace,

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working with firms in all aspects of their IT,

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including data management and collaboration for Autodesk

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workflows.

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Welcome to the Autodesk Accelerator Review & Approve

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Documents in the Cloud Using Autodesk Docs.

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The objectives for this session are

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learn how to create an approval workflow,

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learn how to create a review in Autodesk Docs,

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learn how to review the documents using comments

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and markup, understand how to take document sets

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through the Review process.

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The workflow we're going to follow

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is Create an Approval workflow.

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Create a review in Autodesk Docs.

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Start the initial review, and review the documents.

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Release the review for final review.

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Start final review utilizing comments and markups.

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Then Submit, and close the review.

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So let's get started with Create an Approval workflow.

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This is going to be the first step in the workflow.

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Before we can start submitting things for review,

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we need to set the Approval workflows up.

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You can create multiple workflows.

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You've got to be a project admin in order

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to create the workflows, and you do it

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on the Reviews tab of Autodesk Docs.

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To create a new Approval workflow,

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click the blue Create Approval Workflow button.

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It's going to start the process.

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The first thing we need to do is pick

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the type of approval process using one of these templates.

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So whether it's a one-step, two-step, three-step,

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select the one that you want to use.

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Then hit Continue.

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Then it's going to have us start configuring these steps.

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So the first thing we need to do is set

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who is able to initiate these.

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You can set this by roles, by members, or by companies.

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This is telling this specific review process

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who can actually set the review up and create it and start it.

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And then we need to set up the first reviewer

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whether it's a single reviewer or multiple reviewers.

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In this example, we're doing a two step

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with a single reviewer on each step.

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So we'll set, here, the first reviewer.

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We're going to set whether it's a single or multiple

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and then who those reviewers are.

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And there could be multiple reviewers here.

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You could have a group of reviewers.

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And when you actually go to utilize this template, when

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someone goes to review it, they will actually take the process

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and make it their own and begin that review.

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We also need to set the approver,

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so who can actually approve this when it's all the way done,

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who can do the final review and approve it.

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And we can continue on with the configuration.

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So the next thing we need to do is set the File Review Status

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values.

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So you'll notice, by default, we have an Approved, a Rejected,

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and Approved with comments.

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There are also icons we can select from.

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You can keep these defaults, create your own, or add more.

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You can also set it up to do some sort of action

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on the files when they've actually been approved.

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So if you check, there's Also Copy Approved Files Too.

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You can select the folder and then select

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whether the initiator can change that copy location so that when

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it is approved, when that final approval is made,

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it will take a copy of those files

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and put them wherever you want them to go.

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So once we've got that finished and created

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the way we want it to, we can add a custom note

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if we want to put in some kind of disclaimer

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or extra information about this review process.

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And then we click Save.

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So let's go ahead and look at the demo

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on Creating an Approval Workflow.

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The Reviews tool in Autodesk Docs

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enables document managers to facilitate, control,

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and automate the distribution of files to project members;

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create approval workflows to facilitate the Approval

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workflows that you use on your projects.

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Before we can start submitting things for review,

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we need to set up some Approval workflows.

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So we can set up as many of these as we want.

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Different circumstances might have different Approval

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workflows.

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Maybe on some, you have one type of Approval workflow.

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But for a different project or file type,

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you might have a different Approval workflow.

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You can create those on the Settings tab.

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So if we come here to Reviews and then, up here, click

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Settings, we can create an Approval workflow.

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So there's a whole bunch of templates to start from,

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whether we want one, two, three, four, five step

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or whether we want to have group approvals.

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So for this example, we're going to do a two-step approval.

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So a two-step approval is basically going to be--

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It's submitted for review.

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It's reviewed by an initial reviewer.

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And then it's reviewed as a final review and submitted.

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So let's hit Next here.

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We need to give it a name.

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So we're going to call this our General Two Step,

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and we could give it a description if we wanted.

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But what we need to select next is how this is step through.

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So the first thing we need to pick is, who is that initiator?

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Who is it that is able to use this workflow

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to submit things for review?

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So I'm going to come in here and say,

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all three companies have the ability to initiate a review.

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The next thing we need to do is pick the reviewer type

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whether it's a single reviewer or multiple reviewers.

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We're going to keep it at a single reviewer.

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And then we're going to give it a number of days that's

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allowed for this reviewer to spend

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reviewing before it's late.

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So we'll keep it at the default three days.

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Now we need to pick who that reviewer is.

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So we'll pick the reviewer.

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Now, the reviewer can also be a role or a company.

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It doesn't have to be just a single member.

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If it's selected as more than one member,

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then one person is actually going to take that task on.

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And we'll show you that as we create one.

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And then we need to select who the approver is.

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So who has the ability to approve?

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Let's go in here and say that anybody

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who is a project manager has the ability to approve the project.

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So we've set up who's allowed to initiate,

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who the reviewers are, and who the approvers are,

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and then the time allowed for those processes to take place.

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The last thing we need to do is set up our review statuses.

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So by default, we have Approved, Rejected, or Approved

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with comments.

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We can add a status if we want.

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We can also change icons.

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We're going to go ahead and leave that like it is.

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We'll just take that at defaults.

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The next thing we can do is Action Upon Completion.

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So we can make the review process do something

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with the files.

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So what we can do is say, when they're approved,

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go ahead and copy them somewhere.

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So if we want to have a place that files

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are moved to once they're approved, we can do that.

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I'm going to go ahead and leave this off for this example.

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But if we want the ability, we can

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tell it, when the approval process is completed,

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and it's approved, go ahead and copy

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all of the files in that approval process

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to some other folder.

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There's also a setting here to allow the initiator

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to change the copy location.

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So if we want them to be able to change that on the fly,

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we can do that as well.

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And then we can put in a custom note

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if we want to put some information in about this--

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a disclaimer, things that are going

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to be visible to all reviewers on that Review Detail page.

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Once we have everything done, we can go ahead and click Save.

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So now we've created ourselves a two-step process.

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If we wanted to add more, we just do the same thing.

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Click Create Approval Workflow, and go through that process.

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Once you've created a workflow, you

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can edit it by simply clicking on it.

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It'll bring you back to the Edit screen.

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You can come in here and change any of this information.

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Once you have some Approval workflows made,

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now you can start creating some reviews

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and submitting things for review.

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Now that we have an Approval workflow created,

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let's move on to the next step, starting a Review process.

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That's going to be the second step in our workflow.

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To create a review, on the Reviews tab in Autodesk Docs,

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we'll click the blue Create Review Button.

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The first thing it's going to ask us to do

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is to select files to be added to the review.

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You can select files from multiple folders

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if we just drop down the folder and check the boxes.

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Once you have the file selected, go ahead and hit Create.

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It will then have you start configuring the review.

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The first thing we're going to do

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is select the Approval workflow to use.

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The Approval workflow that we created in the last one

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was that two-step workflow, so we'll

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go ahead and use that one for this demonstration.

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We need to give the review a name.

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You'll see that the files we selected earlier there.

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We could add more files if we wanted to.

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We can add any additional notes and click Submit.

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After we click Submit, it's going

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to ask us to send an email notification.

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By default, it will have the reviewers here.

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You can also add other team members.

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So if you've got other project members

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that you want to be able to be notified about this,

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you can select them here, enter a message, and click Send.

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And that will send that message.

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Let's take a look at the demo on starting this review process.

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Now that we have Approval workflows created,

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we can go ahead and start submitting things for review.

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So in Autodesk Docs, on the Reviews tab,

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we can click this Create Review Button.

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The first thing we need to do is select some

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files to submit for review.

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So let's submit this architectural model for review.

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We just check the boxes for anything

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that we want to include.

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If we wanted to include anything else,

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we could do that by simply just coming in here

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and checking the box for it.

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So let's throw a PDF in there.

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And for good measure, we could go ahead and just

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throw a photo or something in there as well.

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You can select whatever documents you want.

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Then you click Create.

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Next thing we need to do is select an Approval workflow.

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So we'll select the Approval workflow

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we made in the last step.

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Let's go ahead and give it a name.

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So we could say this is our 30% Review.

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We can then add any additional files

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if we have more files to add.

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And then, lastly, we can include a note.

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If we want to include a note about why we're submitting this

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for review or something about the process,

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we can include that in a note here.

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Once we're finished, we can go ahead and click Submit.

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And it's going to tell us that was created

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and gives us the ability to configure the email

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notifications.

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So the first thing we need to select is to notify reviewers.

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In this case, there's only one reviewer,

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so there is just the one listed here.

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If we had multiple reviewers, we could

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choose which ones we want to notify, which ones we

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don't want to notify by just clicking the box.

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We can also notify other project members.

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So if we want to notify somebody who is not a reviewer,

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but maybe we want them to know that the Review process has

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been submitted, we can select them here.

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And then we can fill out a message that's

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going to be sent out in that email notification about

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maybe why they're being included or something

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about the notification.

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We can include a message there.

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When we're finished, we click Send.

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That's going to go ahead and finish off the Review creation

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and send an email to the reviewer

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that they have something for review.

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Now that the Review process has been started,

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let's look at how we look at that review, how we add

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comments and markup to that.

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This is going to be that third step in our workflow.

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In the last step, we selected who we wanted to be notified.

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This is an example of that Notification email

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that users will get.

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They can click on that View Review button

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at the bottom, which will take him out to Autodesk Docs.

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You can also go to the Reviews tab in Autodesk Docs

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and see any reviews that you have there.

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So the first reviewer can start the Review process.

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Or they can void the entire review out,

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or they can export the current Review details.

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So by clicking on a review, if we

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want to take over this review and start the Review process,

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we can click Start Review.

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And it's going to give us a Dialog

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box saying the initial review will be assigned to you.

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Other reviewers for this task won't

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be able to take action unless you release the review.

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So we'll go ahead and start that review.

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This is the Review screen that we're going to get.

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There's going to be a couple options at the top--

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Submit the Review, Release the Task,

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Void the Entire Review Out, or Export the Report--

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similar to what we saw before.

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Since we have now taken the task on,

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we have the Submit or Release button.

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So we're going to go ahead and continue on with this.

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If we click on any individual file,

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it's going to bring us to the web viewer.

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Here, we can add comments, create markups, review files

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with some navigation tools.

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And we can switch between the sheets and views

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that are in the file.

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You can do this for each file in the Review process,

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add your comments, create any markup that you want.

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When you're completely finished with all your markup,

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you need to submit the review.

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So if you click the Submit Review button,

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you can add any notes, if you want

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to include any notes with your review, and click Submit.

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And just like when we created it,

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we need to set up who we want to be notified.

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So by default, Notify Reviewers is

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going to be selected with anyone that you had set up

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in the template as a reviewer.

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You can also add other members and a message.

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When you're finished, go ahead and click Send.

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Now let's look at a demonstration

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on how we do that review.

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Now that a review has been created,

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reviewers have been notified that there

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is a Reviewable process ready for them.

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So here's the email that they will receive.

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It's going to give them some information about the Review

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process, with a button that says View Review, that

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will take them out to Autodesk Docs,

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so they can begin that Review process.

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So let's go ahead and close this email.

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So we're here looking at the Reviews page of Autodesk Docs.

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And we'll see that there is an Open review

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and that the next step is for me.

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When I click on it, I come in here,

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and I have a couple options.

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I can start the review.

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I can void the entire review, export out a report

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of what's happened so far.

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So I'm going to go ahead and click Start Review.

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If there were multiple reviewers listed,

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the reviewer that's going to come in and actually take

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this process would hit Start Review,

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and it would capture that process for them.

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So I'm going to go ahead and click Start Review,

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and it's going to tell me this is going to be assigned to me.

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Other reviewers are not going to able

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to take this task unless I release it.

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I'll say, yes, I want to start the review.

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And now you'll see these buttons up here across the top change.

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I can Submit the Review, Release the Task,

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Void the Whole Thing Out, or Export the Report.

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So at this point, if I decide I don't

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want to take that Review task--

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I want someone else to be able to do that--

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I can click Release Task.

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It will take it back to where it was in the previous step,

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and somebody else can come take over this Review process.

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But we're going to go ahead and look

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at reviewing this document set that was submitted for review.

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All the files selected for review

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are going to be listed here.

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If I want to add a comment to any specific file,

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I can just simply click Add, put a comment in, and click Add.

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That's going to add a comment to this file,

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and it's going to start this Comment thread here.

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If I want to view a file, I can simply just click on the file,

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and it will open in the web viewer.

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I can start reviewing this using some of the tools

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here along the left-hand side.

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I can switch between sheets and views,

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switch to levels by using this Levels tool,

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or use the model browser to come in here

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and turn on or off object types as I want.

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I can also see a list of comments

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or add more comments here on this Comments tab.

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So I'll type out a comment and click Add.

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I also have a list of issues.

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There's no issues at the moment.

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I can create an issue.

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There is an Accelerator about creating issues.

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See that for more information about issues and details

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behind issues.

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But to create an issue, I just come over here

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to the Markups bar, click on Issues,

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pick the type of issue--

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we'll say a Design issue--

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and drop that marker.

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I can then fill out the Issue Details.

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Once I finish filling out the Issue Details,

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I can either click this X or just click out of there

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to close out of that issue.

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Across the bottom, I've got some Navigation tools--

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Orbit, Pan, Fit to View, a Zoom window--

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or a full screen over here.

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So I can change up how I'm viewing things.

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There's also a First-Person Walk-Through mode,

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so I can go in and walk through a Revit model.

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I can cut a section.

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I can also do some measuring.

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There are some View settings here as well.

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There's also a Properties pane.

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So as I click on different elements

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here in this Revit model, I'll have the properties of that

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here.

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Over here, on the right-hand side, is my Markups pane.

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You'll notice the only markup available in a 3D view

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is that Issues.

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So let's switch over to a 2D sheet.

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And we'll notice that Markup tool now

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enables a whole bunch of other Markup tools.

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We've got things like Adding Text, Cloud windows, Measure

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tools, some Callout boxes.

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We've got all kinds of Markup tools

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that we can use to convey something here as well.

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So if we want to add, say, a cloud here and cloud something

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out, we've got all those kind of Markup tools available to us

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as well.

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So as we're going through the Review process,

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we can add markups.

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We can add comments.

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We can create issues.

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Once we've gone through, marked it up, added our comments,

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got up to the point where we were ready to submit it

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for review, we can come back to this main screen

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and click Submit Review.

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Any last-minute additional notes can be added here.

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And then click Submit.

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And just like when we originally created the review,

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we're going to select which reviewers

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to notify, notify any of their project members,

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and then add a message with the email notification as well.

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Once we've sent the email notification,

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it's now sitting, waiting for final review.

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Now that our initial reviewer has gone through, reviewed

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the documents, and submitted it, it's

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now ready to be final reviewed.

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So let's look at the Final Review and Approval process.

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This is going to be the last step in our workflow.

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So just like before, email notifications

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will be sent out to anyone listed

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as a reviewer as well as anyone else that we chose to notify.

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Clicking on View Review or going to the Reviews tab

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in Autodesk Docs will take you to where you need to go.

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On the Reviews tab of Autodesk Doc,

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we will click on the review that we want to look at,

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and we can click Start Review.

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We'll be given a similar message to what we saw before.

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The final review will be assigned to you.

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You've got to release that if you

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don't want to finish that task.

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Clicking Start Review will start you

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on the process of the final review.

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The Review process is going to be very similar here.

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We'll have some of the same tools.

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We can click on a file, add additional comments

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and markup as we want, view the comments in markup that were

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done by previous reviewers.

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Once we are satisfied that this is the final review,

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we need to set the Review status.

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The template was set up with the Review statuses,

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and that's when we have Approved, Rejected,

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and Approved with comments.

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We can select the status that we want.

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Once we have the statuses all set up,

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we can then submit the review.

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You'll notice right now that Submit Review is grayed out.

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You've got to give a Review status

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to each file within the Review process

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before you can submit it for review.

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During any of these Review processes,

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if you decide you don't want to take on this task,

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and you want to let somebody else do the Review process,

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you can hit this Release Task button.

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And it will become available for someone else to review.

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Now that we've got all of them selected as Approved,

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we'll go ahead and submit review.

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When we do Submit Review, it asks us

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if we want to add any notes.

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We can have some additional notes.

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And the review is closed out.

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If we had set some triggers for files

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to be copied to different folders

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when they were approved, that would happen at this point.

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The review is now closed out.

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You can come back at any time, look through the Review

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details, look at comments, markups--

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things that were done--

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the progress of who approved things and when.

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But that approval is now complete.

19:03

Let's take a look at the demo on reviewing and final approval.

19:07

Our review process has now gone through all the reviewers.

19:10

In our specific scenario, there was only one review process.

19:13

But if we had a three-, four- or five-, six-step review process,

19:16

it could have gone through multiple people.

19:18

At this point, it's ready for final review.

19:20

So in the last step, when we finished off,

19:22

we've sent out email notifications.

19:24

This is the email notification that members

19:27

will get if they are listed as a final reviewer,

19:29

telling them that this review is ready for final review.

19:33

They can come out here to the Reviews tab,

19:36

click on the review, and click Start Review.

19:41

It's going to give us the message,

19:42

do you really want to start the final review?

19:44

If there are multiple final reviewers, taking this task

19:47

will mark it as your task.

19:49

It will be assigned to you unless you release the task.

19:52

So we can hit Start Review.

19:57

And just like before, during the Review process,

19:60

we have a Release Task if we decide that we don't

20:02

want to do the final review.

20:03

We want someone else to do it.

20:04

We can release the task.

20:06

We can also void the entire review out

20:08

or export the details out.

20:09

We'll have the same set of tools as the last Review processes.

20:13

So we can come in here.

20:14

We can add our comments.

20:17

We can also view the files.

20:19

We'll be able to see any comments, markup, issues

20:22

that were created by reviewers earlier.

20:25

We'll have all those same tools for navigation.

20:28

The main difference we're going to have

20:30

is because we are the final reviewer,

20:32

we need to set the Review status before we submit the review.

20:35

In our workflow, we had it Approved or Rejected

20:38

and Approved with comments.

20:39

So we could say this one is approved.

20:41

This one is approved.

20:42

And this one is approved with comments.

20:45

Once we've added all the markup, issues, comments

20:48

that we wanted, we've set our Review statuses,

20:50

you'll notice that the Submit Review button now turns blue,

20:53

and we can click this button to submit the review.

20:55

So let's go ahead and finish this Review process off

20:57

and click Submit Review.

20:59

You can add any last-minute notes here.

21:05

And the review is now closed out.

21:07

You'll notice that the status up here changed to Closed.

21:09

If I come back to the Reviewed window,

21:12

you'll see it is closed.

21:14

I can click on it.

21:15

I can go through and review this process,

21:17

see what comments were added, and kind of view

21:19

through that Review process.

21:21

I can't change anything.

21:22

The Review process has been completed.

21:24

So at this point, if we had set up

21:26

for files to be moved to other folders,

21:29

they would have done so.

21:30

They would have moved to whatever

21:31

folder we told them to go to when the Approval process is

21:34

finished.

21:34

But at this point, our Approval process is complete,

21:38

and email notifications have been sent out.

21:41

So people involved in the process

21:42

will get this email that says the review was closed,

21:45

who it was closed by, and give you some details.

21:49

Anybody can always click on that View Review

21:51

or come into the Reviews tab and go through and review

21:55

that Review process.

21:56

The Review process we looked at here

21:58

was just a simple two-step Reviewer process,

22:01

where we had a reviewer review it

22:02

and then a final reviewer submit it.

22:04

Like we saw in some of the earlier steps,

22:06

this is configurable to whatever your workflow is.

22:09

The number of reviewers you have,

22:10

things that you want to happen when the Review process is

22:13

completed--

22:13

That's all configurable through this Reviews tool

22:16

here in Autodesk Docs.

22:17

And with that, thank you for joining this Autodesk

22:20

Accelerator.

22:20

There are some additional resources

22:22

available to you on the Customer Success Hub,

22:24

customersuccess.autodesk.com.

22:26

There's more courses, learning paths,

22:28

recorded coaching sessions, some more live coaching topics.

22:31

They're similar topics to this as well as

22:34

topics across the entire Autodesk platform.

22:36

That's all available to you on the Customer Success Hub,

22:38

so go check it out.

22:40

And with that, thanks for joining the session,

22:42

and have a fantastic day.