Approval Studio

Project approvals made easy

Comments: I like the easy workflow of approvals.

Pros:

We tried multiple project management/project approval software before but it was either expensive or didn't match our requirements. We finally found Approval Studio and are very happy so far.

Cons:

For the brief period of using Approval Studio, we weren't able to find any flaws.

Customer-driven magazine - so much easier!

Comments: Great, I highly recommend this platform for anyone publishing magazines that work with multiple contractors, creators and clients. I was using a projects management tool and it became way to complicated to manage. This streamlined the whole process.

Pros:

Approval Studio provides a simple workflow for managing content creation with our contractors and clients. Simple project management, easy access to relevant files, and handles client feedback and proofing seamlessly. Adobe integration is a time saver, they just need to provide mm option in addition to pixels.

Cons:

The lack of custom domains or custom emails. Email editor requires a fair bit of editing to get the look right. We needed to send an email to our clients letting them know to expect an email from the approval studio, so they wouldn't ignore it as spam.

A seamless experience for design approval

Pros:

The Approval Studio offers a clean, intuitive interface that simplifies the design approval process for both designers and clients.

Cons:

A bit of learning curve to set up with client, especially when sending out the approval email to first client using approval studio, didnt realised the default email template doesnt contain approval button only text.

We were looking to upgrade from our old software

Comments: It has been great.. I love that they walked us through everything for set up. Approval Studio is always right there to answer all of our questions..

Pros:

How easy it is to put jobs into the software. 1 quick step and your job is in the Que. I do love that the support is always right there to answer any questions.

Cons:

We are limited to the types of files you can upload.

Approval Studio is the best markup tool for agencies and freelancers!

Comments: My experience with Approval Studio has been nothing short of fantastic, significantly enhancing my productivity and workflow efficiency. By leveraging its intuitive interface and robust communication features, I've streamlined collaboration with my clients, leading to clearer feedback and faster project iterations. The platform's ability to facilitate seamless communication has allowed me to spend less time deciphering client preferences and more time focused on delivering high-quality results. Overall, Approval Studio has been instrumental in optimizing my workflow and enhancing client satisfaction.

Pros:

Approval Studio stands out as the premier markup tool due to its unparalleled ability to bridge the communication gap, a feat that other similar tools have struggled to achieve. While many markup tools allow for basic commentary and annotations, they often fall short in facilitating effective communication between stakeholders. Approval Studio, however, has excelled in this regard by providing a platform that seamlessly integrates client feedback, ensuring that all parties involved remain on the same page throughout the design process. By mastering communication, Approval Studio has solidified its position as the leading choice for professionals seeking a comprehensive and collaborative markup solution.

Cons:

While Approval Studio offers extensive features and capabilities, it's worth noting that maximizing its potential requires navigating a learning curve that may take some time to conquer. Unlike more straightforward tools, Approval Studio's robust functionality demands a period of familiarization and mastery. This learning curve can be a challenge for those seeking immediate proficiency. However, for those willing to invest the time and effort, the rewards of mastering Approval Studio are well worth it. It's important to approach its complexities with patience and dedication, knowing that proficiency will come with time and practice.

Best tool for Streamlined Workflows within our team

Comments: Overall we love it as it saves a lot of time as we don't have to jump on unnecessary meetings with designers to provide feedback and rather just do it on approval studio and also keep a track on changes mentioned.

Pros:

The user interface is intuitive, making navigation a breeze. Love the commenting on video timeline directly and integration with Adobe is such a timesaver.

Cons:

Lack of external integrations and UI needs a refresh.

Must have for Graphic, Web, and Print Designers

Comments: Support has been outstanding. Setting up isn't the easiest because it's new. Like every other software out there, there's a learning curve, but when you have an online chat support available it makes everything easy to learn. Customer Support A+

Pros:

Branding. Being able to brand the application keeps us in front of our clients.

Cons:

I haven't found anything yet that I don't like. Of course everything can use improvement but no dislikes.

Design Approvals Made Easy

Pros:

Being able to share and manage versions with clients during the design phase is excellent and helps from many emails or even phone calls to talk about designs—an easy approval process for clients.

Cons:

Client Management: It would be great to have a section of client contacts that links to all their projects.

Needed to improve design approval confirmation and feedback

Comments: It has been almost a night and day improvement from our previous systems. Comments are all in one place, so no searching for emails about a project over a date range. Same for the client, they can see what questions they asked and the answer.

Pros:

Super easy to upload design mockups and even provide multiple options for the client to view, comment on or approve. Nice to get notified when client comments. Liked that revisions are easy to upload and track. The checklist is a nice way to be able to remind client to confirm that they have looked at specific aspects of the design. Ultimately that ability to get a report and show client confirmation when questions arise.

Cons:

Even for our technically savvy users, the zoom in/out was cumbersome to get use. The maneuvering within the design is a little clunky for clients. The simple mode is too basic and the full editing tools is too much for clients. Would like to see a basic arrow added to the simple mode, so the client can see what they are pointing towards, which makes it easier for the designer to get feedback.

A very good tool for proofing creative.

Comments: It does everything you need a proofing tool to do and, probably most importantly, the learning curve for clients is minimum. I tested this on some of my most computer illiterate clients and none of them really struggled to use it.

Pros:

Approval Studio has some well thought out tools for any studio workflow involving multiple stakeholders. You can use it for print and digital artwork alike and the before/after overlay features are a great tool to quickly check visually if amends have been correctly actioned.

Cons:

I found the zoom in/out speed to be a bit keen and you could quickly go from close up to birds-eye-view until you got used to it - I understand the team are making this a little less 'sensitive'.

Offer a comprehensive solution for streamlining, optimizing approval workflow

Pros:

Captures detail audit trails of the approval process and streamlining decision making to reduce waiting time.

Cons:

Limited third-party integrations so certain features or capabilities may lack with some users.

Quick, easy and efficient.

Pros:

It is by far the best I have tried. It is very graphical and intuitive. You can easily indicate anything. One of the best aspects is that there is a global vision of the project and also the particular visions of each participant.

Cons:

In Europe, security of personal data is necessary, including by registration. Access for individual participants could be improved.

Great Product for Client Approval

Pros:

It changed our workflow for client projects streamlining the approval process completely.

Cons:

Lack of a custom domain was an issue when I bought this product, however now I see they have updated and now include a custom domain option for users

Great Proofing Solution

Pros:

It helps to get clients and designers on the same page efficiently.

Cons:

I don't have any cons that I can think of.

Great system to manage the design works

Comments: I’m the infographics designer in the NV journal. Our department started to use Approval Studio some 8 months ago. Frankly speaking, we felt a bit skeptical about its benefits for us – we got used to reviewing the jobs via email and didn’t feel we need to change that. Especially, we weren’t happy about spending some time learning to use the new tool to its full potential. However, it took just a couple of editions (we are a weekly journal) for us to feel all the perks of Approval Studio and understand that going back to emails is no longer an option. Previously, all the comments and CRs were scattered all over the place in dozens of emails from different people, and some of them could contradict each other. We have had a few hard moments due to all that. Especially, when working with several different artworks and you just don’t have time to track all the requests
Now, with Approval Studio, we no longer need to keep everything in our heads. It’s easy to track who wants to change what, everything is in one place. You just read the comments, change the artwork, and upload the new iteration to the system. Editors are happy as well – they are sure that designers stick to their requests (or see the reason why they do not stick to those :). The system itself is very convenient and turned out to be not hard at all. Developers open to our requests and keep on updating the tool to make it even more comfortable. To describe the overall experience with one word – I recommend it

Pros:

The tool is convenient to use and keeps on improving with each update

Cons:

It takes time to figure out how everything is working, but it totally worth it

Vital for projects with lots of deliverables

Comments: Approval Studio was a great solution to the we-got-lots-of-stuff-to-review problem!

Pros:

This tool was absolutely crucial to organizing and tracking QA and approvals for a recent dynamic banner campaign. We had over 250 pieces of creative requiring internal and client approval and I can't imagine what the team would have done without it.

Cons:

Honestly I struggle to find any negatives. Nitpicking, but the interface could use a bit of a refresh to give things a bit more breathing room.

Online proofing tool perfectly designed for remote design teams

Comments: It's very good, we have more time for creativity and researches, Review and approval process became more straightforward but formalized. Clients like it look more professional then dozens of calls\emails.

Pros:

Simple and clear interface of Lite version. Having all the CRs and comments in one place is convenient. Real time annotations right on the artworks help to stay on one and the same page. Keeps the team and the client on the right track :) CRs are very specific and on time.

Cons:

No auto-scheduler, drag-and-drop is not supported, videos are not supported. Animated gifs are broken down by frames.

Approval Studio - a great solution for our business

Comments: It has solved a tedious process for us getting approvals and managing the creation of media.
We are delighted with the support team. They are very responsive and add new features as requested. So important to us!

Pros:

1. It has helped to streamline the process of creating media for customers, negotiating between our agency, the Graphics Team and the customer 2. It has helped us obtain feedback and approvals. 3. Multi language. That's a real plus for us. 4. Relative ease of use. Must be easy for the customer to interface with the media. 5.Of all the software we reviewed (at least thirty) it had the most comprehensive list of features.

Cons:

Its still developing but they are adding new features all the time

We optimized our artwork approval workflow

Comments: We improved our approval workflow and sped up releasing process. Also, we are 100% sure that the final piece is correct, and we will not run ads with mistakes. Also, we communicate live in the review tool, even though we are often working remotely.

Pros:

Our favorite things are the easy approval process and review tool features. The first one allows us to approve the file or request changes quickly. As for the features, the eyedropper is extremely useful, and compare modes are of great use as well. Also, a spellchecker helps us notice ads' mistakes and quickly resolve them.

Cons:

Cannot remind anything bad. To reveal all aspects, I need more time.

Convenient way to approve the graphics files with no overtime

Pros:

Proof report. My team is protected now :)

Cons:

The service is still in the development, I hope they introduce some task management system like Trello or else. So far I'm using ApprovalStudio for collecting feedbacks and change requests and Asana for task and projects. Having automated integration would be a plus for me.

A great tool for remote work

Comments: After a couple of weeks, the app became an important part of our workflow. Whenever we need to check some image or document, we use it. The good thing is that it saves everything and you can check all the feedback and previous versions to see if you did everything right. A very useful tool, our team likes it a lot.

Pros:

Our team can chat online directly in the comments under artwork when we need to discuss something. It makes remote work much easier, and it was the main feature we wanted from a design review app. Also, the review tool is quite good, together with compare modes.

Cons:

We had to go through several training sessions and it took some time for our designer and clients to get used to it. Other than that, it's ok.

Excellent choice for design approval in remote teams

Pros:

Our team really enjoyed how simple our approval process became with Approval Studio. We no longer exchange endless emails and can use compare modes to make sure we haven’t missed anything. Good to have everything organized in one place — design files, reference documents, project info, timeline, etc.

Cons:

It took us a bit of time to get used to the new workflow although it’s not really a problem of the tool itself.

It is a great help for our marketing projects

Comments: We use visuals for our marketing and we must always be sure they are good. Approval Studio helps us to do it and saves much time. We can focus on other marketing tasks more because we are never stuck with graphics review anymore.

Pros:

We've been working with graphics for a while and had some problems with our flow - you can never find any art files you send to somebody to review in the stack of emails. This app has everything in one place, feedback too. This makes our work with graphics much faster.

Cons:

It would be cool to have some more brand customization options for your company.

Lite version – the best choice for freelancers

Comments: For me, as a freelancer, every hour spent on everything except working is losing money. Thus, Approval Studio helps me to decrease these hours to minutes. Clients are satisfied as well because it also saves their time.

Pros:

I love that interface and workflow are so friendly that it is impossible to spend much time on something except working on the artwork. Also, you do not need to create an account for your client – just share the link. It greatly saves time, which is crucial for people like me.

Cons:

Nothing concrete. Love Approval Studio.

Best choice for design proofing

Comments: A great tool for image proofing, now our work with images and designs is fully automated and it helps us save a lot of time. The app is a good extension to already existing project management tools, but I hope with time they add new functions that would help it fully replace project management tools.

Pros:

A bunch of different possibilities in Compare mode. It’s easy to spot the differences between two versions of the image and track the changes.

Cons:

I found a small inconvenience - when there are too many annotations, all comments in the right panel shifted somewhere beyond the screen. Though with the latest release it has been fixed.