A few months ago we posted an article titled Maintaining Those Pesky Popup Lists. That article presented a solution that not only provided control of all your popup lists in a single centralized form, but it also enabled you to delegate maintenance of these lists to non-administrator personnel.

We received many positive comments about this solution and also received several requests to take this solution a little further. One reader asked if there was a way to limit the values in the popup lists based on the data entered in another field. They currently have popup fields on their Job ticket for proof type, print device, paper type, paper size and print quality. Their request is to limit the values in those popups to what is appropriate for the selected proof type. Apparently, the paper type and sizes, and print quality available for the color accurate plotter differs from the paper and quality available for the black and white laser printer.

For this request, we added another dimension to the popup solution to allow filtering the popup lists for the selected proof type (which we called Category). This expanded solution provides the means for specifying the Categories and then entry of the related Field Names and list items. Since this popup data is entered into this Reference form, non-administrator users can be given access to maintain the list data.

Now, on the Job ticket, selecting a proof type filters the related popup fields to provide the appropriate lists of values. The number of values available in the popups is dynamically reduced. This has simplified the user's data entry and improved the data accuracy by only offering options appropriate for the select proof type.

Download and install this snippet to see how we created this multi-dimensional popup solution. We have annotated the included MetaScript to help explain the process. This may also help you to understand and utilize these features in your own solutions.

Do you have a use for a solution like this in your Virtual Ticket system? Or perhaps you have a completely different idea or request that you would like us to help you with? Let us know; we’re always looking for a good challenge.

Managers Dashboard

The redesign of the Management dashboard is one of the best UI improvements of Approval Manage 2012. We redesigned this dashboard by increasing the leading and vertical spacing, which creates an easy-to-scan proof list. Each proof contains one main action that is singled out with a bold typeface and each proof is presented in organized groupings that are made collapsible. On the expanded view, we’ve added a larger thumbnail of each file and displayed it under its corresponding stage name. Also included in the expanded view are more prominently colored “manage” buttons. These new, blue buttons have become the primary call-to-action color and tell the manager where to go to make any alterations to the proof itself.

Notifications

We as creative professionals are visual people. As such, the new Approval Manager 2012 has incorporated a thumbnail for every proof mentioned in your email. Each file thumbnail is aligned in a vertical column for quick scanning, so users can make their decisions faster. In addition, each proof requiring action contains the new, blue primary button as the dominant action to take. Manager’s notes are shown below each proof in a yellow field with increased padding. All of this is on new, taller rows making the email more comfortable to read, allowing you to quickly find your file.

Proof View

With the newly added group functionality, we’ve revamped how proofs get displayed for all roles. We’ve cleared out unnecessary stage clutter to only show current stage information, pertinent to that specific user. On each current stage, a new grouping of thumbnails is presented along with multi-colored circles representing the current review status of each file. The current stage is highlighted in a brighter yellow to show exactly what stage to focus on. Each current stage contains a single dominant action, our new, primary button to show what is expected of the user.