Archive

Archive for the ‘By role: Author’ Category

How to Remind Reviewers and Approvers that the Deadline is Coming

January 28th, 2009

There have been a few discussions about how to manage when Reviewers or Approvers (both roles are a type of Reviewer) have been unresponsive and need a reminder that the deadline is coming.  Here are a few things you should know and do about this problem.

You can always selectively re-broadcast to people in the existing phase.  The difference is that:

  • As the Author, if you haven’t made any changes to the document since your last broadcast the *same* version will be resent *and* your notification message will be pre-filled with the content message of your last broadcast.  e.g. nothing has changed so you are just *re*-sending the same version.
  • If, as the Author, you have made minor changes you can still selectively send to anyone currently in the phase.  So you could exclude people on the list that you feel would be redundant to resend to.
  • The limitation is that you can not re-broadcast a previous major version - but you can always selectively broadcast as covered above.

The short answer to this question is to simply broadcast the current version but to only to the missing Reviewers. They will get an email message as usual, and you can customize that broadcast message to their lack of feedback and/or approval.

One last point: if you are re-broadcasting the same version, the persons who already received that version will be un-checked by default when you go to the Broadcast page (see the screen capture attached).  This helps prevent confusion as to why a Reviewer should receive the exact same version twice -Q4 Press always tries to minimize “version hell”

 uncheckedusers1.gif

How to Work with Images is Q4 Press

December 17th, 2008

Here’s a feature we’ve been asked for many times!  A couple of days ago we added a the ability to work with images in a Q4 Press document.  Authors, Reviewers, and Approvers can review, suggest, and track changes in the revision history, in the same way that you are used to working with content now.  Use the following link to see a slideshow (on www.SlideShare.net) of how to work with images in MS Word and then import the document into Q4 Press - I encourage you to use the FULL screen mode to better see what’s going on.

Working With Images In Q4 Press

imageinsertedandrightaligned.gif

Or if you prefer you can download a PDF with the same information)

Q4 PRESS - Complete Training ScreenCast **NEW

August 8th, 2008

Screencast IconQ4 PRESS - New Training ScreenCast (updated Aug 2008):  A complete training screencast that covers all features for both Authors and Reviewers. Includes a full table of contents so you can quickly skip ahead to the section you’re most interested in.

New Q4 PRESS ScreenCast - Author Training

July 25th, 2008

Screencast IconNew Author Training ScreenCast (updated Aug 2008): View a 30-minute screencast that explains the Author’s role within Q4 Press. Includes a walk through of all the major functions.

Updated Q4 PRESS User Guide for Authors

July 22nd, 2008

Below is the latest Q4 PRESS user guide for Authors. Enjoy!

Download the Author User Guide in PDF (1.5mb)

How to view all the items in your task-list

March 27th, 2008

One of the great many features of Q4 PRESS is the ability to easily view and merge document changes from multiple people through a simple interface.  As an Author, you have the ability to view all the pending document feedback in your task list.

After you have completed working with a Reviewers changes by clicking “I’m finished with this item” you can still go back and view the Reviewers notes or edits.  The default view is to show only unhandled edits and feedback when you are viewing a document:

view-feedback-1.jpg

You’ll notice there is a ’show removed’ check-box at the bottom of your task list.  If you want to check a previous edit or comment from a Reviewer, simply click that check-box and you’ll see all edits and comments for the current phase:

view-feedback-2.jpg

The green check-mark on the item in your task list shows that you’ve already finished working with those changes but you still have access to view those previous changes and can incorporate them into your document.

New Records and Reports Screencast online

December 10th, 2007

Screencast IconCatherine Crofton has just completed a new records and reports screencast. It can be found at the bottom of the Screencast page.

Working with Word formatting - Tabs vs. Tables

November 28th, 2007

When working with Word documents there is a formatting trick that is sometimes used to mimic what looks like a table. Instead of creating a table and putting content into two separate cells you can use tabs to push words to the right or left and give the content the look of being in a table.

The problem with this is when imported into Q4 Press the tabs are lost due to the word document being converted to HTML which doesn’t have any way to display a “tab”. Read more…