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Collaborating by importing markups during a parallel review

Collaborate with other parallel reviewers during the document review process.

You can collaborate with other parallel reviewers during the document review process using the viewer. This feature is called Parallel Markups Import. 

Ask your Project Administrator to enable this feature from Setup > Preferences > Project.
The setting Allow markups to be imported between parallel steps during a parallel review is located under Project Wide Settings | Viewer.

Tip!

This feature only imports markups created in the Online Viewer.  Markups created in external applications and added as a file replacement within the workflow are not supported for markup import.

How it works

During a parallel review, a document is sent to multiple reviewers simultaneously.

If the parallel markups feature is enabled on your project, reviewers have the option of importing markups submitted by users in other organizations who are within the same parallel step. This allows them to review the document in context of what the others have expressed, thereby increasing the collaborative nature of a parallel review. 

Reviewers in other organizations are alerted to markups that are available for import either:

  • when they open the document, or;
  • when they take the next action (such as adding or removing a markup) on a document they already have open. 

Imported markups cannot be moved or deleted by the importing reviewer. This is done to retain the integrity of the submitted markups. The importing reviewer can comment on the imported markups using the Comments panel on the right. A comment thread can be built against any markup that is imported.
 

Example

  • A document is submitted for review to three parallel reviewers.
  • The first two reviewers in the parallel step are from the Consultant organization. 
  • The third reviewer in the parallel step is from the Architect organization.
  • The lead consultant (reviewer 1) marks up the document using the viewer, and submits their review.

Scenario 1 – View markups created by users in the same Organization:

  • The second reviewer (also from the Consultant organization) opens the document after the first reviewer completes their submission. 
  • They immediately see the markups entered by the first reviewer because they are within the same organization.

 

Scenario 2 – Import and View markups created by users in a different Organization:

  • The third reviewer (Architect) also opens the document after the first reviewer completes their submission. 
  • In the Document Review screen, they see an alert stating 'New reviews are available for importing'
  • They click 'Import reviews...' which imports all markups created by the first reviewer into the document.

 

 

 

Multiple reviewers within a single review step

If there is more than one reviewer assigned to a review step, make sure everyone knows that markups are being imported. If two reviewers are looking at the document at the same time, and one of them imports markups from another review, the second reviewer will not see those imported markups unless they reload the page.

Reviewers within the same step will see each others saved markups.  As soon as one of them submits, the other reviewers within that step will no longer be able to complete their review, as the step will be completed.