File Markup and Approval for External Collaborators

Workzone's External Approval and External Markup features make it possible to invite anyone to review, annotate, and log an approval response on a file without them having to login to Workzone. Both of these features become available to external parties via the use of External Approvals.

External Approvals

When requesting approval on a document with the External Approvals feature enabled, external approval requests can be sent to any email address. Once the external approver’s information is entered and the approval is initiated, an email with a unique link will be sent to each approver allowing them to access a document approval page to log their response.

After clicking the emailed link, a page displays for approving the document with a View link. For standard image format documents, Workzone will open the document in a new tab in the browser. For other file types, Workzone will download the document for local viewing on the approver's device.

Initiating an approval request for external approvers starts using the Creating an Approval Request described above, while checking the box labeled External Approvers.

For first-time external approvers, the first name, last name, and email address of a new external approver is entered in the respective boxes for the row below the Add new label. Workzone will automatically collect those details for future approvals. Those external approvers that have already been entered previously can be selected in the box labeled Select existing, avoiding having to reenter their name and email address as a new approver.

For those existing approvers retained by Workzone, the names and email addresses can be updated, or those approvers can be removed from the Select existing box for future approvals altogether. These settings are found in the gear icon in the top right, from the All Workspaces view, where both Managers and Administrators can select the External parties page on the left in the Users section.

The Remove link on each row will eliminate the record of that external approver from the Select existing box for future approvals, though they can be added as a new approver again anytime in the future, while the Edit link on each row allows for update the name and/or email address of the approver.

External Markup

On any external approval request, the Advanced Markup functionality inherently available as a part of an external approval. When an external party visits the Approval page, any file type supported by Advanced Markup will display a "Markup File" link at the top of the page. This will provide the external party access to annotate the file using the Advanced Markup tools just as the internal team does.

In the Advanced Markup annotation canvas, internal users will be able to @mention external parties to ensure notifications are triggered to external parties. Similarly, external parties will have the ability to @mention internal users who had previously left a markup on the file to trigger notifications to those internal users. Internal users will not appear in the @mention list of users for an external party if the internal user had not yet logged an annotation on the file.