Review links for clients

A review link lets someone outside your workspace — a client, a sponsor, a colleague — watch an episode, read a storyboard or watch a film, and answer: Approve or Request changes, with a comment. They need no account, the page works on a phone, and their answer reaches your workspace at once. Each link takes one answer.

The three kinds#

Share an episode#

1. Open the episode. The Share for review card is under the video (an episode needs a finished video).
2. Optionally fill in Who it's for (optional) — a label for the link in your list, such as "Acme marketing". The reviewer sees it too, as "for Acme marketing", so write it for them.
3. Choose Open for: 3, 7 or 14 days (7 to start with).
4. Press Create link. The link is shown once: copy it now and send it to your reviewer. Its address begins with https://forge.storeswiki.com/review/.

The card then lists the episode's links, the newest 30: each one's label, who made it, until when it is open (or when it expired or was revoked) and its state — Waiting, Approved, Changes requested, Expired or Revoked — with the reviewer's name and comment once they answer. To stop a link before it expires, press Revoke, then Click again to revoke. An episode can have up to 20 open links at once.

What the reviewer sees and does#

The page says Private review at the top and "Your workspace asks for your review", then the title, the channel, the length, the label and when the link closes. The video plays on the page; the description is under About this episode.

Under Your answer:

1. Your name — needed, so you know who answered.
2. Comment — optional to approve. To ask for changes, say what should change; a sentence is enough.
3. Approve or Request changes.

The reviewer sees "Thank you — your workspace has your approval", or "your notes are with your workspace". The page then shows the answer, and says that a link takes one answer: to answer again, they ask you for a new link. A link that was revoked says This review link was turned off; one past its time, This review link has expired; an address cut short, This review link doesn't work.

What an answer does#

• Approve — the episode is approved, if it was not already. On a channel that asks for approval, it can now post on its slots. The episode's Details say it was approved through a review link. An approval does not release a held episode: a member still decides that.
• Request changes — a ready episode is held at once, with the reviewer's name and words as the reason, and any approval is withdrawn, so the schedule will not post it. Release it from its page once it is right, or make the change with Edit this episode.
• Either way, the workspace's owners and admins and the person who made the link are told in the app, with the reviewer's name and comment, and the link's entry on the episode shows the answer. A hold is also sent to your webhooks as episode.held.

Storyboards: asking people outside the workspace#

When a channel approves its storyboards first, you can ask people outside the workspace to answer them too:

1. On the channel's page, in Storyboards, tick Approve each episode's storyboard before it is made.
2. Under Also ask (optional), list up to five email addresses, one per line.
3. Press Save.

From then on, each storyboard that waits is emailed to every address, each with a link of its own — A storyboard for your approval, with Read the storyboard and the time the link works until. The link works until the board's deadline, set by the channel's Waits for an answer (1 to 168 hours). Your members answer the same boards in Approvals.

The reviewer's page says "Your workspace asks for your approval", with the board's title, its channel and when the link closes, then every beat. Their answer:

• Approve approves the board, and its episode is made — unless someone answered first, in which case their answer is kept and your team is told.
• Request changes rejects the board with their words: its topic goes back to the backlog with them, and the channel's next storyboard follows.

Owners and admins are told in the app. If the board was decided before the reviewer opens it, the page says so; past the deadline, an unanswered link says This review link has closed. A storyboard link cannot be revoked. To stop asking someone, remove their address from the channel's list: they get no new links, and the ones already sent work until their boards' deadlines.

Films and outlines#

On Pro and above, a film can be shared the same way, from its page:

• Share for review on a ready film: the reviewer watches a review copy — 720p and watermarked, never the film itself — with its chapters. A held film cannot be shared: it is for you only.
• Share the outline while the outline waits for your approval: the reviewer reads its logline and each act, with its setting and its beats, before anything is produced.

An approval of a ready film approves it to post, as a member's would; the first approval stands. A comment is kept with the link and also becomes a note on the film, which an improvement round can act on — unless the film is being made or improved at that moment, already has 20 notes, or the comment runs past about 1,000 characters. An approved outline is told to your team, and production starts when a member approves it — a reviewer never starts work that costs credits. On Agency and above, the film's review page carries your workspace's name instead of ours. See Long-form films.

Links for agency clients#

In a client workspace of an agency, an episode's review link is made at the agency's portal address, in the agency's brand, and an older link of that workspace is sent there too. The client's own people approve videos, films and storyboards in the portal, and the people a client's channel lists are not emailed storyboard links. See Agency mode.

Security and privacy#

• A link holds 32 random bytes, and our database keeps only a fingerprint of it, so it cannot be read back from there. An episode's or a film's link is shown once, when it is made, and never sent by us. A storyboard's link is emailed to its reviewer, and our copy of that email is deleted 30 days after it is sent.
• Whoever has the link can open it until it expires or is revoked: send it only to the person it is for.
• Review pages are never indexed by search engines, and say that only people with the link can open them.
• The video plays through a signed address that lasts at most 15 minutes (2 hours for a film's preview) and at most a minute past the link's own expiry. Revoking a link stops new addresses at once; one already given out keeps working until it lapses. An unknown, expired or revoked link shows nothing of the episode.
• Answers are limited to 20 an hour from one network address, for each kind of link.
• The reviewer's name and comment are kept with the link and shown to your workspace.

Limits and good to know#

• Up to 20 open links per episode, and per film.
• One answer per link. For a second opinion, make a second link.
• Links for episodes and films can be revoked; a storyboard's link closes at its board's deadline.

Troubleshooting#

Related#

• Approvals on your phone — your own team's approvals
• The editor and storyboards — storyboards and revisions
• Agency mode — client portals in your own brand