Overview
SpecLink Cloud provides the ability to track changes in your project.
Within the current release, Track Changes functionality is for evaluation purposes only. It is not intended to cover the full breadth of features necessary to output documents with markup at this early phase. It is designed to let you evaluate basic features and behavior, without impacting your ability to export documents normally. Any section edited in Track Changes will export normally as though all edits have been approved.
Permissions:
With SpecLink Cloud Release 2.11 (May 2020) the permission setting for Track Changes has been added in the Role Permissions area of the People tab to provide access within the project's Summary Info.
Role Permissions
Set Track Changes Mode (Summary Info): Controls which user type has the ability to further control whether track changes are project or section-enabled, defaulted to “manager” role.
Project Summary Info
Track Changes Mode of the Project Summary Info allows users to select whether track changes are set at the section level, on across all sections, or off across all sections.
Included in the Evaluation Release
Current:
- Add/remove text
- Reviewing text edits
- Sequence selection and activation
- Choice Fields
- Global Terms
- Reference Standards
- Approve or reject all changes
- Print with Track Changes markup
In Process
- Spellcheck
- Find and replace
- Cut, copy and paste buttons
- Toggling user modifications in the Origin Column
- Linking
- Global terms (changes made across sections)
- Reference standards (changes made across sections)
- Step through changes
Permissions:
- Specific restrictions in place defined by collaboration role
Enabling Track Changes
To enable track changes for evaluation purposes, click the Track Changes toggle located in the Edit menu within any specification section.
Enabled, the toggle will appear in blue text.
When Track Changes is enabled from the Edit menu, the following message will appear asking you to confirm and acknowledge that you are aware that the Track Changes functionality is for evaluation purposes only at this time.
This message will continue to appear each time you access the track changes tool until the "Do not continue to display this message" option is selected.
Lock Tracking
Selecting Lock Tracking will prevent other users who access the section from turning off Track Changes mode. Only the user who locked tracking will be able to unlock.
Text Edits
When Track Changes is enabled, text edits, additions, and deletions will appear in red.
Additions will be underlined and deletions will appear with a strike-through as shown below.
Along with the red text, underline, and strike-through attributes, a dark grey line noting that a change is being tracked will appear on the right side of the paragraph line, opposite the sequence number. In the image below, the notification appears on the right side for sequence 0272 / #1 and 0273 / #2.
Reviewing Text Edits
Right-click on the text edit (red text) to reveal the review box.
Click the green check mark to accept the text edit. The text change will be accepted and the text will no longer be red.
Click the red check mark to deny the text edit. The text change will be deleted and the text will return to it's normal color.
Sequence Selection & Activation
Track Changes allows users to track selection and state changes of content when Track Changes is enabled. Selection will be visibly indicated now, with blue shading and a right-hand color bar.
Any associated print output will show changes made when the track changes print options are enabled on the print menu. Users can still accept changes individually by right-clicking, or at the section level with Accept All Changes option.
Choices
When track changes is enabled and a choice field is edited, the original choice will appear in red with a strike-through and the new choice will appear in red and underlined.
In the example below, "standard" appears in blue, noting a choice field.
When the choice is clicked, the choice field menu will appear.
When a choice is made, in this case, "custom" will be selected. With track changes enabled, the text will appear as below.
As part of the track changes functionality, the user, date and time a modification was made is displayed when the cursor is hovered over the modification as pictured below.
Global Terms
When track changes is enabled and a global term is added to the text, the newly added global term will appear in red.
In the example below the global term "Project Id" is being selected from the list of Global Terms...
...and is then added to the text. The image below depicts the Project Id as 13303 displaying in red.
Reference Standards
When track changes is enabled and a reference standard is added to the text, the newly added standard will appear in red.
In the example below the reference AMMA 2603 is being selected from the list of reference standards.
The selected reference is dropped into the section and appears in red text.
Approve or reject all changes
Track Changes now allows users to accept or reject all changes at the section level of a project or office master.
To access these options in the editor, first enable Track Changes under the Edit menu. Once any changes are made, two new options will appear on the Edit drop-down menu where users can accept or reject all at the section level.
There will be a confirmation pop-up that allows users to move forward with accepting or rejecting the edits.
Additionally, users can now control which user role can access to this feature under the Sections area of Role Permissions on the People page. This setting will be defaulted to System Manager initially.
Print with Track Changes Markup
Track Changes Options on the Print Menu include:
- None: No Track Changes Markup
- All: Print All Sections with Track Changes Markup
- Inherit Settings: Print Markup Only for Sections Currently in Track Changes Mode
Watch the video below to see the tools of Track Changes in action:
Comments
6 comments
Accepting tracked changes one by one can be quite time consuming. In standard industry practice, there are certain times that all changes must be accepted and then new tracked changes added. Is "accept all changes" a feature under development? Thanks!
What would be really handy is the ability to print or export a PDF that shows the un-selected paragraphs for review by others. Sometimes I must edit technical sections for others who do not have access to BSD. They need to see what options are available. This would be similar to "show all markup" in Word.
Hi Bob! Thanks for your comments. You can create an All-Text Draft on a section basis from the Print Menu under Document Drafts. Review the Printing / Exporting Documents & Document Drafts article for more information. Thanks! - Gary
In my testing when a paragraph or sequence number has been selected after track changes has been enabled it does not appear as new text like other additions, i.e. red & underlined. If the section has been issued & a paragraph that was not selected is now being selected it should show up as new text. Is this function in progress? Any linked paragraphs would also need to show as new.
When Track Changes are on, deactivating an active paragraph does not result in red strikethrough text. If I need to delete an active article or paragraph entirely and display the change graphically in the output as a deletion, I can’t deactivate the subject matter content; instead, I have to delete the text. This yields an empty numbered article or paragraph in subsequent versions, and it doesn’t renumber the subsequent articles or paragraphs. Is this the recommended methodology or is there a better way?
Philip, in my experience since that last update to track changes functionality (and I just double checked), when I deactivate a paragraph with trach changes on, it will not present as struck-through text as I am editing, but when I print with track changes on, the paragraphs will print as red strikethrough text. You can tell that this will occur by the red line on the right next to the paragraph. If you turn off track changes and then deactivate the paragraph, you will not get this red line, and the paragraph will not print as struck out when you go to print.
Check the way your deactivated paragraphs print, not just how they appear while editing. You will probably be pleasantly surprised.
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