The following sections contain information to help you manage the review cycles in your BLUE projects. You will learn about bypassing Review and Approval tasks in the current and subsequent review cycles.
What is a Review Cycle?
A review cycle is defined on the process template; it is the process that contains tasks for uploading, reviewing, and approving an artwork file. The review cycle also has a decision point which occurs after all of the review and approval tasks, at which point the project will either move forward, or a new cycle will be created. If all Approval tasks for that cycle were approved, the project moves forward. If there was at least one rejection, an entire new cycle is created and the review cycles continue until all approval tasks included in a cycle are approved. While a project is underway, project and sub-process owners can decide which completed reviews and approvals are to be included in the next approval cycle, and whether or not some tasks can be omitted or bypassed.
Viewing Previous Cycle Statuses
In project or sub-process view, the status of each previous cycle task, including its approval or rejection stamp, is shown under the current task’s status, so it is easy to see the status of each task in the previous cycle.
Viewing the task history
Click on a task row to see the task details. When there are two or more cycles, a History section appears on task details. The History section lists the task status for each cycle. If applicable, you will also see the comment entered when completing the task and the rejection reasons.
When selecting multiple tasks, you will see the task statuses for the previous cycle in the pick list on the right.
Managing Review Cycles
Project owners and sub-process owners manage review cycles by deciding which tasks should be included in the next cycle, by either bypassing or unbypassing eligible tasks. In addition, there are some configuration options that can help automate what happens when a new review cycle is created due to a rejection.
Manually Bypass Tasks
The ability to manually bypass (and unbypass) tasks is a template setting that allows project and sub-process owners to manually bypass reviewers and approvers on cycles 1+. The last or only approval task in a cycle cannot be bypassed. There must be at least one Approval task in a cycle (as this is the decision task that decided whether the workflow moves forwards or if a new cycle is created).
Automatically Bypass Approved Tasks
BLUE can be configured to include all task owners on all subsequent cycles, regardless of whether the approval tasks were rejected or approved. Or, the system can be configured to automatically bypass Approval tasks which were approved in the previous cycle. When the auto bypass feature is on, you will be able to manually bypass review and approval tasks in cycles 2+, regardless of the template’s allow manual bypass setting.
Automatically Suspend Cycles on Rejection
BLUE offers a configuration option that determines whether or not a cycle is automatically suspended when a new cycle is created due to a rejection. The benefit of automatically suspending the cycle is that it allows the project or sub-process owner time to review the comments and rejections in online proofing, make changes to the assignees, and decide which tasks should be bypassed or unbypassed for the next review cycle before it starts.
Summary of Configuration Options and Expected Behavior
Note: These are site-wide configurations. Please check with your administrator to find out how your site is configured.
Suspend Cycle on Rejection |
Auto
|
Behavior |
| False | False | The cycle 2+ will not be suspended and all tasks are included in cycle 2+ |
| False | True | The cycle 2+ will not be suspended, all Review tasks will be included, and all approved Approval tasks will be automatically bypassed on cycle 2+ |
| True | False | The cycle 2+ will be automatically suspended and all tasks will be included on the next cycle. The project owner or the sub-process owner will be notified by email, but they cannot manually bypass approval or review tasks unless the task has “allow manual bypass” set to true on the template |
| True | True | The cycle 2+ will be automatically suspended and all approved Approval tasks will be automatically bypassed on cycle 2+. The project owner or the sub-process owner will be notified by email, and they will be able to bypass/unbypass approval and review tasks on cycle 2+ regardless of the “allow manual bypass” setting on the template |
Bypassing Tasks
On the project page, the project or sub-process owner can bypass tasks one at a time in task details, or in batch using the multi-select option.
Bypassing Multiple Tasks
Once the first cycle is complete, if the system is configured to suspend the next cycle and allow the project or sub-process owner to bypass/unbypass previously approved or completed tasks, use the multi-select feature to bypass tasks for the new cycle.
In project or sub-process view, click on the gear icon above the task list and select the “Enable multi-select” option.
Select the checkboxes for the tasks you would like to bypass. In the pick list (right), you will see the list of selected tasks with the allowed actions at the top.
When bypassing in batch, approvers who rejected the previous cycle cannot be bypassed using the multi-select option. When a previously rejected Approval task is selected in multi-select mode, the Bypass option is disabled with a tooltip. The project owner may bypass a single task which was rejected, but only one task at a time. This prevents inadvertently bypassing tasks in multi-select mode which were previously rejected and therefore important for the next review cycle.
Choose the Bypass action.
In the Bypass dialog, the tasks that are eligible will be listed on the confirmation dialog. If some tasks are not eligible, you will see a warning.
Enter a comment and select a notification preference. Click OK to continue.
In this example, all of the eligible tasks are now bypassed. The task status shows the new Bypassed status.
If the cycle is suspended, resume the cycle. Click on the task row with the pause icon next to it, and click the Resume button in task details.
In the Resume Task dialog, enter a comment and select a notification preference. Click OK to continue.
Unbypassing Tasks
Unbypassing tasks, adds tasks which were previously bypassed back into the cycle so that they can be completed. The steps for unbypassing tasks is similar to bypassing tasks. Unbypassing tasks may be performed on a single task, or using the multi-select option.
Show and Hide Bypassed Tasks
In project or sub-process view, click on the gear icon above the task list and clear the “Show bypassed tasks” option to hide bypassed tasks from the list and simplify your project or sub-process view. The bypassed tasks are removed from the list and the project diagram.
For more information on related topics, visit these links…
For information about inserting, redoing, rewinding and editing tasks in an approval cycle, see Dynamic Workflow.
For information about managing projects, see Managing Projects.