UWG Operations

UWG ran its creative intake, approvals, scheduling and proofing through Workfront. The contract was ending, and most of what Workfront did could be rebuilt on tools the agency already paid for. The one thing nothing in Microsoft 365 does is proofing: pinning a comment to a spot on an image, reviewing a video by timecode, comparing version three against version four.

So the plan had two parts: rebuild intake, approval, scheduling and tasks on Microsoft 365, and buy one proofing tool. I audited, planned, designed and built it, piloted it with a real job, and trained the agency on it.

It states facts and does not tell people how to do their jobs.

It never sends the same news from two systems. Ziflow already emails reviewers about proofs, and Planner already tells people they are assigned, so the platform stays silent on both.

Every name in every message comes from the live directory, so when someone leaves, the messages change with them.

An approve button never goes into a shared channel.

It sends its news by email, because a read of how the agency works showed that email and private chat are where people actually are.

As Director, Creative & AI Innovation at UWG, I led the whole arc: the intake audit, the Workfront exit plan and its deadlines, the proofing decision, the design and build of the platform, the pilot, and the role-by-role training. I built it with Rivetta Goodrich, Head of Project Management, who ran the project management, and Shi Li Liang in UWG IT, who handled the technology and the permissions.

The build is covered by 53 automated tests, and every message the system can send was rewritten until a person could use it without having helped write it.