In eCommerce, great photography plays a crucial role in marketing campaigns and brand visibility. To gain a competitive edge, brands and retailers, and commercial studios need to evolve their creative processes so they can deliver high-quality campaigns faster and more efficiently.
In particular, review and approval workflows for visual content can pose a significant challenge. Sharing images with external stakeholders can be complex, involving manual processes like sending contact sheet PDFs via email, uploading files to cloud drives like Box or Dropbox, or using third-party tools like Frame IO or Workfront Proof. Gathering feedback can be a time-consuming process that requires juggling between review tools, email, chat, and shared spreadsheets to track progress.
Creative Force is addressing this challenge with our latest feature release: Share for External Review for Editorial Projects. This new functionality enables brands, retailers, and commercial studios to collaborate with external stakeholders, like executives, marketing teams, and agencies, to review and approve editorial images before final delivery, eliminating the need for manual input and additional tools.
Simplified Communication and Feedback Management
With Share for External Review, studio teams can now invite anyone with an email address to review and approve images without requiring a Creative Force account.
Automated email notifications ensure that stakeholders are promptly notified when assets are ready for review. Feedback is centralized within Creative Force, eliminating fragmented communication channels like emails, chat messages, and spreadsheets.
Stakeholders and internal teams can now seamlessly collaborate in real-time, with feedback synced automatically between the stakeholder view and Creative Force users. This ensures that everyone is up-to-date with the latest feedback, saving valuable time and reducing the risk of miscommunication.
User-Friendly Interface
External reviewers are busy people, so it’s important to have a simple and intuitive interface where they can quickly see the files they need to review, give feedback, and get on with their day.
The simplified stakeholder review interface has been thoughtfully designed to incorporate only the essential functions required for feedback and approval. With features like markups, comments, @ mentions, and reactions—similar to those found on popular social media platforms—stakeholders can provide feedback in a familiar and straightforward manner. External stakeholders are presented with only the images they need to review, reducing confusion and enabling efficient collaboration.
Enhanced Security and Access Management
It is important for organizations to maintain control over who has access to sensitive data. With Share for External Review, administrators have the power to easily manage access permissions. They can create an “allowed list” of email domains, ensuring that only authorized stakeholders can participate in the review process. Admins can also easily edit or revoke access with a few clicks. This granular control allows studios to maintain the security and integrity of their assets while providing the necessary flexibility for collaboration.
Looking Ahead
Share for External Review for Editorial Projects is just the beginning of our commitment to streamlining the content review and approval process. While currently available for editorial purposes, we plan to expand the feature to our eCommerce workflows later this year. In addition, upcoming enhancements to Editorial include the ability to manage review rounds, further improving the efficiency and organization of the feedback process.
Ready to simplify your review and approval process for Editorial Projects? Schedule a demo today to see how Creative Force can help you take control of your content review process.
