Client Review Site overview for users
Contents
The Client Review Site makes reviewing your work with clients easy with secure, one-click sharing. Your clients can access your work on the desktop or while on the go on their mobile device.
Client user accounts are free as part of your Flow Production Tracking subscription, so there’s no need to worry about additional costs. Notes made on the Client Review Site go directly back into Flow Production Tracking and are linked to all the important things in your project.
Below is a detailed rundown of the Client Review Site and how to use it.
First, add any work you’d like to review with your client to a Playlist. You can drag and drop the order of Versions in the Media App to sort the playlist to your needs. When the Playlist is ready to go, just click the “Share” button.
Preview mode
Once you’ve clicked on the “Share” button, a new window will open to show you the Client Review Site in preview mode. The view below the blue preview bar represents exactly what your client will see, so you can confirm that everything looks right before you send.
Above the player is your organization’s name and logo (if provided) and the Playlist details. The Client Review Site player also has a scrubbable timeline and play/pause controls, frame count, annotation and zoom tools, audio mute, full screen toggle, and player settings.
Under the player is Version detail information including Version Name and the Reason for Review field (if this field is left blank, you'll see `Add a message to this Version`). The Version Name area can be adjusted in Settings to display an alternate Client Version Name field if desired (more on that below). The Reason for Review area provides a place for you to enter notes for your client to help set context for why they're looking at the Version.
You can bulk update the Reason for Review on each Version in the Media App by revealing the Playlists>Reason for Review field. Just ensure your Playlist isn't locked to have editing enabled.
A Download link will display to the lower right of the player if you allow that option when sharing. This lets your clients download the file you originally uploaded to Flow Production Tracking for offline viewing or to drop into their cut. The link will not appear if you’ve turned off the ability to download the source file when sharing the playlist.
The source movie file is stored on the Version-level Uploaded Movie field.
Inviting people
When you’re satisfied with the preview and ready to send, click on the “Invite People” button. Type the name or email address of the person you want to share the Playlist with. You can share with your Client Users and traditional Flow Production Tracking accounts. The Recipient field will automatically remember those who you share with most frequently—providing quick access to those users without having the manage groups.
You’ll receive email notifications about this Playlist via Flow Production Tracking’s standard notifications. If you would like to receive the client-formatted emails, share the Playlist with yourself at this step.
If this is the first time you’ve shared with a client, you’ll need to provide a little information to set up an account for them.
You can add a message to the Shared Playlist invitation email. Select the “Security & Permissions” button to toggle share-specific settings, such as the ability to download source or whether to lock the playlist.
Flow Production Tracking can be used to provide your customers with access to playlist(s) for your benefit as part of your project(s), as described in more detail on this page. This access—or other limited access that may be offered by Flow Production Tracking from time to time—may be provided through separate downloaded application(s), the Flow Production Tracking Client Review Site(s), and/or similar limited Flow Production Tracking access sites, without purchasing additional Flow Production Tracking subscriptions. Your customers who you provide with such access are your Users under the Terms of Use. Autodesk reserves the right to limit the number of these users at its discretion.
Locking the Playlist
Locking a Playlist helps ensure that a Playlist shared out to a client looks exactly the same as when you prepared it. It’s also handy at studios where a lot of different people are working in the same Playlist. A Playlist can be locked in two main ways: by selecting the “Lock Playlists after sharing” option when sharing via the Client Review Site, or by clicking on the lock icon on a Playlist detail page.
While a Playlist is locked, no changes can be made to it and a banner will appear with details about who locked it. This banner will appear throughout Flow Production Tracking, including on Playlist detail pages, the Media App, Review Notes, Screening Room, and Screening Room for RV. If the user has permission to lock and unlock playlists, they’ll be able to unlock the Playlist from within the banner by clicking “unlock”.
After sharing the Playlist
When you’ve successfully shared the Playlist, you’ll see a confirmation and a new person-shaped icon will appear in the blue preview bar. That icon represents the Manage Shares menu, where you can revoke access to a Playlist, reshare the Playlist, and see whether your client has accessed the Playlist.
After you’ve shared a playlist, your client will receive a shared Playlist invitation email. Clients can access your work by clicking on the “View Playlist” button.
Settings
The Client Review Site settings can be found under the gear icon in the blue preview bar. In the settings menu there are two tabs: Project and Organization.
Project settings are specific to the project you’re in and carry over to new projects when the current project is used as a template. A change in this menu only applies to Playlists shared from the current project. This allows you to fine tune your settings and keep them with you over time. Included in this menu are default project settings for the following:
- Require a password to access a Playlist,
- When a Playlist share expires,
- Control over whether clients can see and create comments,
- Download source media, and
- Whether email notifications contain thumbnails.
Remember, these are just the defaults. All of these settings can be overridden while sharing a Playlist. Organization settings apply to your Flow Production Tracking site as a whole and are independent of the project. A change here applies to all playlists shared from the Client Review Site. In this menu, you can:
- Set up your organization name,
- List the contact email addresses your clients should contact in the event of a problem, and
- Add an organization logo.
You can add as many support email addresses as you need, just separate them with commas.
Feedback
Clients and Flow Production Tracking users can write notes and annotate in the Client Review Site. To submit a note, click in the note text box to the right—or below, depending on your screen size—of the player and type your message. To add an annotation, click on the arrow icon in the Timeline Toolbar and begin drawing directly on the frame. To add an attachment, drag and drop the file(s) onto the note area, and they’ll be automatically uploaded. When you’re done commenting, click the Comment button. Your notes, annotations, and attachments will be sent to everyone on the Playlist.
If you would like to approve the Version, click Approve. You don’t have to add any other comments, though you can if you’d like. Should you have accidentally approved a Version, you can change it back by clicking the “Unapprove” button.
Flow Production Tracking checks the “Client Approved” checkbox on Versions when someone approves it. This makes it possible to filter for client approved Versions while not changing how you’ve configured your statuses.
In addition to creating notes, you can also reply to previously made notes. By replying to a note, you’re continuing the conversation about that specific area of feedback. To reply, click on the Reply button. Replies behave similarly to notes and support written text and attachments.
Email notifications
Everyone on a Playlist will receive an email notification whenever a Playlist is shared, new notes or replies are made, a Version is approved, or new media is added to a Playlist. This helps keep everyone up-to-date on feedback or whenever new work is available. If you’re a Flow Production Tracking user, you’ll receive the standard email notifications as defined by your email notification settings. If you’re receiving too many email notifications, you can control which updates you receive by selecting “Email Preferences” under the “Signed in as…” button.
Clients
Upon your client’s first login, and depending on your password authentication settings, your client will be asked to set a password for future access. This password will apply to any Playlist shared with them from your Flow Production Tracking site.
Managing client users
If you need to manage your client users you can do so via the Client Users page. From the Client Users page you can add a thumbnail, enable/deactivate, and change the password of a Client User.
To reset a client’s password, toggle the columns to show “Password” and “Require a change of password at the next sign in.” Click on the link in the Password field, or select “Require a change of password” if you would like the clients to select their own passwords the next time they log in to the Client Review Site.
Clients can review your work by providing written or annotated feedback and attaching files. Notes submitted through the Client Review Site are also submitted to Flow Production Tracking and connect to all the right entities. When reviewing on an iOS or Android device, annotations are not currently supported.
Site Preferences
There are four Site Preference options available for the Client Review Site.
The first controls whether the Client Review Site is enabled. If you turn this option off, the Playlist Share button in the Media App will be turned off and Client users will no longer be able to access shared Playlists. Additionally, no one will be able to access the Client Review Site. This is handy if you ever need to completely shut down external access to your work.
The second preference controls whether IP restrictions are applied to shared Playlists. Note that this only applies to those with IP restrictions enabled. Contact support for more details on this premium support feature.
The third preference controls whether users need a password for all shared Playlists. And the fourth preference controls whether or not thumbnails will be displayed in Playlist notification emails.
Client Notes in Flow Production Tracking
Client Notes are built on the same foundation as a regular Note, but with some special additional features. A client Note is identified by the checked Note-level Client Note field. This allows them to stand out from other Notes, but preserves your ability to filter them just like any other Note in Flow Production Tracking.
Finally, since Client Notes usually need to be vetted through creative supervision and production, they will only appear for those with the “Can See Client Notes” permission enabled. This permission is only enabled for Admins initially.
The permissions labeled “Can Lock Playlists” and “Can Share Playlist via the Client Review Site” allow users to do exactly as it says. It also controls whether Client Notes are visible and a user can reply to them. This permission setting is initially enabled only for Admins by default for security purposes.
Notes that you create internally do not appear on the Client Review site. However, clients will see internal replies to Client Notes. If a client writes a Note, and you or another Flow Production Tracking user reply to that Note internally, the client will see that reply. Notes clients can see are highlighted by a blue border.
Client Review Site for clients
See Client Review Site overview for clients for more on how clients can use the Client Review Site.