Your project management tool is humming along as it should, with all your tasks assigned, deadlines tracked, and everyone knowing what they're working on. But when it's time to review that new video campaign, suddenly the world ends. Feedback comes from everywhere all at once, and by the time you've collected everyone's input, you've got three different versions floating around.
The thing is, this isn't your team's fault. It's not even your project management tool's fault. Platforms like monday.com, Asana, and ClickUp are brilliant at what they do, but they were never built to handle the messy, iterative, deeply collaborative process of creative review and approval.
Below, we'll show you exactly where project management tools fall short when it comes to online proofing, and more importantly, how pairing your existing PM platform with a purpose-built proofing solution can transform your creative workflows without disrupting the systems you already have in place.
Project management platforms like monday.com, Asana, ClickUp, Wrike, and Jira are excellent at keeping teams organized. They help you assign tasks, track deadlines, manage workloads, and keep cross-functional projects moving forward. For many creative teams, they’re the operational backbone.
But when it comes to reviewing and approving creative content, these tools start to show their cracks.
While most PM platforms offer some form of file attachment or comment thread, their “proofing” capabilities are usually limited to:
They weren’t designed for deep creative collaboration. There’s no markup layer for precise feedback, no automated workflows for routing proofs, and no audit trail to ensure accountability or compliance.
If your team is juggling feedback across PDFs, Slack threads, email replies, and column updates — it’s not just inefficient. It’s a sign your PM tool is doing a job it wasn’t built for.
The good news? You don’t have to rip and replace. You just need to pair your project management system with a purpose-built proofing solution like Ziflow.
In tools like Asana or monday.com, comments are tied to tasks, not the creative itself. You can’t annotate directly on the asset, track changes across versions, or prevent out-of-sequence feedback.
Ziflow fixes this: Centralize all comments, markups, and decisions directly on the file (video, PDF, HTML, or image) complete with version control, side-by-side comparison, and decision tracking.
PM tools don’t offer conditional routing, multi-stage approvals, or role-based access. You’re stuck with manual updates, status columns, and chasing reviewers in Slack.
Ziflow fixes this: Automate creative approvals with flexible workflows, deadline triggers, parallel stages, and granular reviewer permissions so nothing gets missed.
Need to track who approved what, when, and why? PM tools can’t provide e-signatures or maintain detailed audit trails.
Ziflow fixes this: SOC 2 compliance, audit-ready logs, e-signature support, and version history that holds up to regulatory or internal scrutiny.
Most PM tools only support a handful of static file types. Interactive ads, live websites, motion design, and long-form video? Not so much.
Ziflow fixes this: Review over 1,200 asset types, including HTML5, rich media, and 3D. Ziflow works across your entire campaign — from web and video to print and packaging.
Reviewing one file at a time inside a task list makes it nearly impossible to see how creative assets work together.
Ziflow fixes this: Review all assets in a campaign (video, banner ads, social copy, and landing pages) in a single review flow. Everyone stays aligned.
When teams use Ziflow alongside their project management platform, they see a noticeable difference in how smoothly creative work gets done. Projects move faster, confusion drops across the board, and the overall quality and quantity of creative output improves.
Ziflow brings structure to the most chaotic part of the process: content review and approval. Instead of chasing feedback through tasks, Slack threads, or email, teams can manage all their creative collaboration in one place without disrupting how they already plan and track work.
The result? Fewer bottlenecks, fewer errors, and more time spent producing great work, not managing it.
Ziflow integrates natively with:
“I had no idea until now that I could have been connecting this to my Asana projects… There is no other system like Ziflow, honestly. We used Asana for project management, but it was too complicated for clients to use for file reviewing or just didn't differ from emailing it to them.”
“Ziflow is a fantastic proofing tool, especially if you work with external parties. Being able to airgap our proofs from our project management software makes working with other teams in our org and external contractors a breeze. Especially in regard to other managers who might get a little too into the weeds if they were allowed access to the full project history.
I've found Ziflow incredibly easy to introduce to new users and have been happy with the variety of file types it handles. There's not much more to say on a positive note that a trial wouldn't convey just as well or better than I can here; I encourage you to test it out for yourself!”
“We tested a lot of other platforms and Ziflow is the best by far. We were able to easily integrate it into our systems to track status along with other elements. They take the management out of the design process so you can concentrate on what you do best... Creating!”
“Looking for a true proofing platform (rather than just something that allowed commenting). It (Ziflow) was software that meant our pain point without trying to do too much more. We already have a general project management software - I wasn't looking for something that required duplication of that part of work. Just a platform for proofing that excelled in that area. Ziflow is that at a reasonable price.”
Watch this video to see how McDonald’s streamlined creative collaboration with monday.com and Ziflow.
Yes. PM platforms like monday.com and Asana offer basic file attachment and commenting, but Ziflow provides enterprise-grade proofing tools like side-by-side version comparisons, markup on over 1,200 file types, automated workflows, and compliance-ready audit trails that help creative teams scale feedback and speed up approvals.
Ziflow integrates natively with monday.com, Asana, Wrike, ClickUp, Jira, and others, allowing you to launch proofs, sync statuses, and trigger automations without leaving your existing project management system.
By automating multi-stage approval workflows, tracking every version and comment, and integrating directly with your PM system, Ziflow reduces review time by up to 50%. Teams avoid duplicate feedback and never lose track of approvals.
Yes. Ziflow can push proof status updates, like “In Review” or “Approved,”directly to linked tasks in your PM platform. This ensures real-time visibility without manual updates or duplicate work.
Project management software helps you move projects forward. But without a dedicated creative review platform, your workflows stay manual, messy, and prone to error.
Adding Ziflow doesn’t replace your project management platform, it supercharges it.