Requirements

To complete this tutorial you will need to install the following software and files:

Contribute 3

• Try
• Buy

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Approvals and Collaboration

Contribute 3 facilitates implementing approval and collaboration procedures where no predefined workflows exist. Thanks to a new flexible approval system, you can control precisely who edits and publishes web pages.

Users can easily send their content to others for review, including web professionals, for example, whose task it is to perform a technical review before the content can go live.

A key component of the new approval system in the Draft Console (see Figure 1). This summarizes the work in progress, including the status of all drafts and reviews.

Figure 1. Examining all the work in progress on a website in the Draft Console

Sending a Document Draft for Review

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The draft review process in Contribute 3 begins when a writer sends a draft to another user:

1. Click the Send for Review button in the toolbar. The Send for Review dialog box appears.
2. Select whichever Send for Review option is applicable and click the Send button.

Once the writer sends the document(s) for review, Contribute displays the message box shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Confirmation dialog box after sending a document for review

Writers can undo the send operation by clicking the Undo Send button located on the toolbar.

Reviewing a Draft

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Once a writer has sent a draft for review, the reviewer sees the message box (see Figure 3) and the file appears in the reviewer's Contribute Pages panel (see Figure 4).

Figure 3. Notification of incoming file to review

Figure 4. Pages panel

Reviewers can click the Draft History button in the Draft Status panel at the bottom of the window to see the latest comments that have been added for that particular draft (see Figure 5).

Figure 5. Viewing the draft's status

Rolling over a draft document in the Contribute Drafts panel displays a ToolTip similar to the one shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. Sample ToolTip for a draft document in the Contribute Drafts panel

Reviewers may also receive e-mail notification from the sender, alerting them that they have a draft ready for review. This occurs if the sender selects the Notify Recipients Through E-mail option in the Send to Other User dialog box that appears when they click the Send for Review button. The Web Publishing System also sends draft notifications by e-mail automatically.

Selecting the document that needs attention displays a series of buttons on the toolbar, which include the option to edit the draft document (see Figure 7).

Figure 7. Review buttons in Contribute 3

If deemed necessary, the reviewer can make further changes to the draft by clicking the Edit Draft button on the toolbar. Once they complete their review, they can either publish the draft by clicking the Publish button or click Send for Review if they want someone else to review the draft prior to publishing.

Manually Refreshing the Drafts Panel

Although performing actions such as editing a draft, sending a draft for review, or publishing a draft refreshes the Contribute Drafts panel automatically, there are certain occasions when you may need to do it manually—for example, if you leave Contribute running and someone sends you a draft to review.

To refresh the Drafts panel manually, select View > Refresh Drafts or click the Refresh button on the Drafts panel. Whichever method you use, Contribute synchronizes all drafts and displays the new draft.

Understanding the Approval Workflow in Contribute

Contribute 3 uses the following folders to manage the approvals workflow:

• _mm/Ct2004/messaging/users contains a folder for each Contribute user for whom the administrator has enabled approval permission. Each user's folder is populated with a series of XML files that identify which drafts the user has within the system.
• WIPMetaData contains a series of files that maintain the draft history and the current location of the draft within the approval system (WIP stands for work in progress).
• _notes stores draft information such as the draft status, submitter's name and e-mail address, and the date the file was last published, if relevant.
• MMWIP: For each file in the approval system, Contribute generates a random folder name (such as 05bc0cac08b41e55) and a random filename (such as 92874f9967a24cdd.htm), which represent the draft document as it passes through the approval system.

When a reviewer views a documet, Contribute creates a LCK (lock) file for the page within the website folder structure and a CHK file in the WIPMetaData folder. These files indicate that the file is in use by the recipient and tracks changes made to the file.

Once the draft is finally published on the website, the random folder and file used to track it is removed from the MMWIP root folder.

 

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