Arun Chandran, Dell EMC
January 15, 2021
Every document written is reviewed to ensure it represents accurate information. The review and approval process can make a document or break a document. To get the best possible result, every stakeholder should efficiently and clearly provide their feedback.
Theory vs. Reality
In an ideal review process, the writers and reviewers work together as a team to review different parts of the document before the final sign off. When it comes to reality, it is not as easy as it can be defined. The review involves setting up guidelines and best practices to be followed, identifying the SME for the review and receiving feedback. More often, the review process involves more than one reviewer, and collating the feedback from all the reviewers is a challenge. Also, tracking the status of the review and following up with the stakeholders is another challenge.
Solution
So, do we have a solution to address all these challenges? – The answer is YES!
Combining the shared review process available in Adobe and the Comala workflow plugin available in Confluence provides answers to all these challenges. Using the plugin, you can design workflows in the Confluence pages or spaces and assign multiple reviewers.
The shared review created using Adobe can then be attached to the Confluence page, which is then shared with the required stakeholders. You can also define a deadline for a review. A very noteworthy and time-saving feature to note in the Comala plugin is the automatic triggering of emails to the stakeholders. The emails are triggered when a reviewer is assigned to a review and when a review deadline is approached – this cuts the manual task of sending reminder emails.
Another notable feature in this process is the ability to find the status of the document sent for review. The workflow indicates the status of the document at that point. The final approval and sign off can also be obtained using the workflow. Overall, if you are looking for a review process that is easy to define, easy to maintain, and saves time, then the Confluence Review Process is the one for you.