Content is everywhere. From the time we wake up until we go to bed, we rely on it to communicate, learn, play, and work—on our devices, in person, and through a variety of other channels.
To connect with customers, vendors, partners, and employees, organizations of all stripes are creating more content than ever before. Unfortunately, the options for managing content production still fall short for far too many teams.
Considering these challenges, we understand the critical role that content plays in your organization’s success, and today I’m excited to introduce a new way to collaborate on content right where you already manage work in Smartsheet.
Improving the content production process
In the past, I’ve written about how companies are increasing the volume and speed at which their teams produce content and creative work for customer engagement.
Improving the content production process has been a personal passion of mine since I experienced the obstacles firsthand as the founder of a creative agency.
We loved working with our clients but often felt discouraged by the manual slog of planning projects, tracking progress, collecting feedback, and getting approvals from the right stakeholders. The entire process was slow, inefficient, and a frustrating experience for everyone involved.
We couldn’t find a silver bullet in the marketplace, so we developed our own software to simplify our creative process and soon began selling the tool—we called it Slope—to other businesses.
Earlier this year, our team joined Smartsheet and began integrating Slope’s capabilities directly into the platform to enable teams to seamlessly plan, manage, review, and report on content production in a single location.
Review and approve content, all in one place
Smartsheet proofing streamlines the review and approval process for content creators, project managers, and other internal and external stakeholders. Here are some of the immediate benefits you’ll experience after you enable proofing in a sheet.
Make content the star
In Smartsheet, you create one proof per row to keep it front and center. You’ll never need to dig through a long list of files attached to a task to find the most recent version of a creative asset or document. Upload an image or PDF to your proof (video and other documents coming soon!), and view a preview in the right panel at any time.
Dedicating each row to one proof also emphasizes the existing context and power of your sheet for managing content production. Stakeholders can automatically alert content creators to new tasks, remind them as deadlines approach, quickly create reports and content calendars, and much more.
Show reviewers what they need to see
Proofing in Smartsheet opens up the review process to every appropriate stakeholder while also protecting your data.
Send review requests to internal and external stakeholders to take them directly to a dedicated proofing review page—reviewers don’t need to be shared to the sheet or even in your organization.
Iterate with clarity and speed
Smartsheet proofing reduces review cycle times by removing points of confusion for both the reviewers and content creators.
The review page cuts out unrelated and potentially distracting information so reviewers can completely focus on providing feedback. Automatic version control ensures that they will always review the most up-to-date content.
Content creators will finalize their content faster thanks to the clearer feedback that’s possible in Smartsheet proofs. Reviewers can directly mark up the proof with annotations and comments, discuss their reactions with the creator and each other, and log their approval decisions.
Content collaboration is for everyone
If your team uses, creates, reviews, or collaborates on content in the course of your work, I’m confident that you can benefit from our new content collaboration capabilities.
You can work with your clients to launch new campaigns, manage contract reviews across all of your vendors, and put together onboarding materials for your employees. The list of opportunities truly goes on and on.
We’re just getting started
While I’m thrilled to share today’s release, this is only the beginning for content collaboration in the Smartsheet platform.
Our product and engineering teams are already working hard on the next enhancements, and I look forward to sharing more news in the coming months as we continue to transform how your teams plan, manage, and review your content.
Visit the Smartsheet Learning Center at any time to learn more about proofing.
