Mediagraph allows you to set up workflows, multi-step processes that can achieve many different objectives. Standardizing and automating steps with workflows is a great way to increase the ease and efficiency of processes you and your organization use frequently.
What should I know about workflows?
- Workflows are multi-step processes that can automatically move files from one container to another to accomplish different tasks.
- Workflows are made up of a combination of individual steps.
- Each step happens in a container (a Folder, Collection, or Lightbox).
- Approval steps can be added to a workflow when a selection is required.
- You can give specific members permission for one or all steps, depending on your objective.
- You can link steps to outside applications such as Dropbox, Lightroom, Wordpress and Adobe Creative Cloud.
- You can use workflows to make files available to specific members, by automatically sending files to a Lightbox or Collection.
Let's take a close look at a simple approval workflow, in order to get a better idea of how it works. In this example, we want to take all incoming files from a member group and approve ones that can be used in our social media feed. All approved files will be made available to the Social Media Team.
Social Media Approval Workflow
This workflow has three elements: a Submission, an Approval Container, and a Destination Collection.
Create a New Workflow
Prepare your Containers
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Make sure that Contributions are Enabled for the Group who will be uploading: in this case, the Social Media Team. Adjust the Contribution Request settings if necessary.
(To access, navigate to Manage>User Groups>Group Name>Edit>Add Contributors.) -
Create a Lightbox where Approval will take place. Make sure it has a name and a description, so you know what workflow it is for. If you would like to give anyone else approval privileges, invite them to this Lightbox now. In the screenshot below, a Social Media Manager has been added as a Lightbox Member.
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Make sure there is a Destination Collection in the Social Media Team’s Library. If this is for a specific event, you may want to make a dedicated sub-collection.
Create your new Workflow
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In the Workflow tab of your Mediagraph account, click Add New Workflow.
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Give your new workflow a Name and Description (optional).
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Open the first accordion to name your first step. Let's call it Auto-add to Approval Container.
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Select the correct source container. In this case, let's open the Storage Folders accordion and select the Social Media team’s Group Uploads folder.
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Make sure Forwarding is set to Auto Approval. Now, any file added to the Social Media team's Group Uploads folder will be automatically forwarded to destination chosen in the next step.
- Close the top accordion and open the Destination accordion.
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Select the approval container you set up earlier.
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Click Add Workflow Step
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Give this step a name. Let's call this one Approve and Send to Team Library. You can also add specific approval criteria in the Instructions box.
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Change Forwarding to Manual Approval.
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Select which members will have permission to approve files.
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Close this accordion and open the next Destination accordion.
- Select the Collection you want approved files to be made available in, as set up earlier. When the accordions are closed, you will see a synopsis of each step.
- Click Save Workflow.
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Test your workflow to make sure it works correctly: Add a file to the Source Folder you chose, then approve it by selecting it in the approval container you chose.
Multi-stage Approval Workflow
Multi-stage Approval Workflow
You can add multiple elements to a workflow. Sometimes, you may need two or more stages of approval. There may be a preliminary approval by a manager before final approval is made by a department head or member of the legal team, for example. You can easily add further levels of approval by sending files from the first approval container through additional approval containers on their way to the Team Collection. These additional approval containers can be set up to include different criteria and even different members.
These multi-step workflows can be set up in the same way as the single-step one demonstrated above. A basic synopsis of the process is as follows:
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Plan the steps you want to include in your workflow.
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Make the necessary containers, if they don’t already exist.
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Build the new workflow.
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Test your workflow.
In the diagram below, we have added a second round of approval before files are made available to the social media team.
Pro Tip: Notice that the two Approval Lightboxes are in the same project, since they are related to one another. Each Lightbox can have the same or different members, and includes a comment thread for discussion about approval or rejection of files.
Workflow Enhancements
You can enhance your Workflows to fit your organization's needs in many other ways:
Add multiple sources - It’s also possible to add multiple sources. There are two main ways to do this. You can run the workflow through two source containers sequentially. And you can also make a second (or third) workflow which adds files from a second source to the approvalcLightbox.
Send files to Hootsuite - You can use Zapier to connect your destination Collection or Lightbox to Hootsuite.
Send to a Lightbox instead of Collection - If you want to make the approved files available to a small subset of your team only, you can send them to a Destination Lightbox instead of the Team’s Library. This gives you greater control over who has access to the approved files.
Bring in files from more than one Source - You can direct files to the approval container from multiple sources. You may have files coming into a different Storage Folder, through a watched Dropbox folder for example. It is possible to set up multiple workflows which auto-forward files to the same Approval Lightbox.
Send files out for Lightroom Processing - You can use Lightroom integration to send approved files out for processing and further enhancement. An Approval Lightbox, for instance, can be linked directly to Lightroom Cloud from inside Mediagraph's workflow builder.
Send approved files to Wordpress - You can use Zapier to automatically send files from your destination Collection or Lightbox to your Wordpress Media Library.