Background
Document reviews can take place at one of two points in a document's workflow:
When a document is first uploaded to Plexus and that workflow includes a review stage or
When someone in the approve or signing stages has requested a change to the document and it has been sent for review.
A reviewer is typically pre-defined in the platform by your user roles or delegation rules. There are two types of reviewers.
Default reviewers: Any user with the Reviewer role assigned to their account.
Assigned reviewers: Someone that's been specifically assigned to the review stage, using a delegation rule or an edit to the workflow.
Initiating a document review
If you're a designated reviewer for a given document, you'll receive an email notification when it's time to review that file. Click the Review button in the email to start the process, or access the file from your Recent notifications on your dashboard.
From the document details page shown below, with the right permissions, you'll be able to initiate the review stage of the workflow.
Step 1. To initiate a document review, click Mark in review from the workflow timeline.
This will let the document's author know that you are looking at their document. It will also timestamp the document workflow with the date and time you made the change.
You can view the document using the preview pane located directly below the Review workflow tile. From here, you'll be able to suggest your changes on the document as required.
Editing a document during the review stage
To make a change to the document in Plexus directly, click Edit document and make changes as outlined in more detail here. You may also be required to approve tracked changes from other collaborators.
Top tip! If your organisation uses Word Online to edit documents, check out this guide instead.
Reviewing a document outside of the platform
If you'd like to review the document outside of the platform, you can click the Download button to save the file on your device.
You may opt to make changes to the document if it's in an editable format, and you may opt to upload a new version as part of your review.
Comparing versions of the document
As you, or other users in the platform, begin to make changes to the document, you will notice an option to Compare any two versions of that file side by side. Select any two versions of the document using the checkboxes and click Run comparison.
Viewing previous versions of the document
Temporarily revert back to previous versions of the document by selecting it from the Version dropdown.
Adding comments
You can also add comments in the comments section.
Completing your document review
Once you've reviewed the document, you can either Accept or Decline the document.
When approving or declining the document, you can choose to add additional comments to the activity feed as part of your response. Both the nominated owner and author of the document will be notified.
If your document has unresolved tracked changes, you will be able to progress the document to the defined approval stage.
Alternatively, if the next stage of the document workflow is sign, you will be prompted to resolve those tracked changes to prepare the document for signing.
After the review stage
If you Accept the document, the file will progress to the next defined stage in the workflow timeline.
If you Decline the document, the nominated owner and author of the document will be notified. These parties will be able to restart the workflow, with the option to Send for review again once the appropriate changes have been made.
Do you have questions about the Review stage of your workflow? Get in touch via live chat or e-mail [email protected]