Lead and supervisor guide

This page follows the work of the person who reviews and approves: spotting what is waiting for approval, reviewing, giving a verdict, asking for a retake, following the team. The review player itself is described in Review; signing in and the main window are covered in Getting started.

Bernard's interface is in English: labels are quoted as they appear, in italics.

My day in five steps

1. Spot the tasks waiting for my approval.
2. Open the files to review, alone or in a playlist.
3. Give a verdict: Approved, Not Approved or Pending.
4. Publish the review: Bernard updates the tasks and notifies the artists.
5. Follow the team: corrections in progress, activity, time.

Spotting what is waiting for my approval

A workflow contains three kinds of tasks: work tasks, done by the artists; validation tasks, which are stop points given to leads, supervisors or production; and script tasks (automatic). A validation task is a "go / no go" gate: as long as it is not Done, what follows does not start. In a workflow, the lead's validation usually comes before the supervisor's, then comes the next step.

To find your validations:

• in a spreadsheet, tick Current Tasks (Filters menu) to keep only the current task of each shot, and My Tasks for the ones assigned to you;
• in Spreadsheet Multi, read the current task of each step (Compound Current task): see Following my team;
• in the node view, validation tasks have their own icon.

Validations are assigned by department × role pair, like the other tasks (see Roles, permissions and assignment).

Reviewing: opening the files to approve

A validation task. Right-click the validation task › Open Files To Validate. Bernard plays, once each and in the order of your selection, the files to validate: first the files marked Validate on playlists, otherwise those of the tasks to validate, otherwise those of the upstream task of the same department.

Several shots at once. Select the files, shots or tasks of the same type, then Open: the videos open as a playlist in the order of your selection, with the Previous / Next buttons and the loop.

A playlist. A playlist is a group of the tree that contains items, tasks and files of a single project. Its right-click menus:

When the selection offers several possible files, a selection grid opens: one row per shot, one column per department, with the latest file of each department chosen by default (Last file, and Ignore v0 to leave out v000 versions). A temporary playlist follows the same logic but stays on your workstation; it is managed with the same menus and can be saved (Save as Playlist). The content of a playlist always follows the order of the project.

The details of the player (annotations, comparisons, shortcuts) are in Review.

Giving a verdict

In Bernard Review, you annotate, write your comments and choose a verdict for each file. When you close the player, Bernard shows a summary: one card per reviewed file, with the annotated frames, the file and its version, your note, the verdict in color and the task that is about to change state. Untick whatever should not go out, choose the category, then click Publish.

Approved moves forward by a single step. At each approval, only one task goes to Done:

1. as long as the work task (the one that carries the files) is not finished, it is that one;
2. then, the first unfinished validation task downstream (Validation Lead, then Sup, then Real…).

Bernard never goes beyond the next work task. When the whole chain is approved, the summary says so ("no validation left"). The card names the task that will be set to Done: check it before publishing.

Example (fictional). The workflow of shot SEQ010_SH0020 is: Tracking (work) → Validation Lead → Validation Sup → Animation (work). A first Approved sets Tracking to Done. A second one sets Validation Lead to Done. A third one sets Validation Sup to Done. A fourth does nothing more: Animation is a work task, it is up to the artist to do it.

What can get in the way.

• If the target task requires its instructions checklist and it is not complete, an approval ticks the reviewer's one when it is the one preventing Done; if upstream tasks are not finished, the summary names them with their state and shows a warning.
• A file attached directly to a shot, without a task: the summary lets you choose the task that will receive the review.
• Verdicts act according to your permissions on states (see Validating by hand).

Taking the task. In the summary, the Assign me box assigns the task to you before it goes to Done. The state of the task does not change because of the assignment alone.

Writing a note or a retake without going through the review

1. Select the shot or the task, open the Notes tab of the Properties panel, then Add a correction or note (or right-click › Add Correction or Note).
2. Choose the Context: the whole shot, a compound or a task.
3. Choose the Type: - Normal: a note. It notifies the recipients and changes no state. - Correction: a retake. Available only on a task (not on a compound, a whole shot or a template). The window turns red.
4. Choose the Category, the recipients (To) and, for a correction, a Weight (the weight is used for performance evaluation; you can ignore it).
5. Write the text, drop images into the text area, then confirm with OK or Ctrl+Enter.

If the note is about a file, the File line chooses the file and the version being commented on; the note's banner shows a Play button that replays exactly that version.

Importing instructions from a table. On a folder or a project, right-click › Instructions From Table: choose the template, paste (Ctrl+V) a table copied from Excel or Google Sheets, match each column, then confirm. The instructions are created in one go on the matching shots.

To make an instruction mandatory, open the task and tick its All Check Requested property: the artist can then no longer set the task to Done before ticking all the instructions.

What a retake does

A retake is an active correction as long as it is not ticked as done. As soon as a correction arrives:

When the artist has ticked the correction, the badge disappears and they can set the task back to Done: the following tasks become Ready again. Ticking a correction does not change the state of the task. To spot the shots that have retakes pending, use the Has Correction and Has No Correction filters of a spreadsheet.

Validating by hand

You can also change the state of a validation task without going through the review: the State property in the Properties panel, or the spreadsheet cell.

• To change the state of a task that is not yours, your role must have the Can modify the state of tasks assigned to others (override assignees) permission. Administrators always have it.
• Cancelling a task (Aborted) requires Can manually abort tasks.
• Setting someone else's task to WIP is only possible if it has a single assignee and that person is online.
• Done is refused if an active correction remains; with a required checklist that is incomplete, it is refused too (an administrator can override it after confirmation).
• The server refuses any state the graph does not allow (for example Done while an upstream task is not finished): the change is cancelled on screen.

Changing the structure of a workflow (adding or removing tasks) requires Can modify active Workflow structures (Add/Remove tasks) and is best done on the template: see Workflows.

Assigning and reassigning

You assign department × role pairs, not tasks one by one: see Roles, permissions and assignment and Assignment. Two supervisor actions:

• Assign Me (right-click on tasks, note window, review summary): you take the department × role pair of the task in place of those who were on it. The files of the item are downloaded to your workstation. The state of the task does not change.
• Reassigning a task in WIP: it goes to Pause and the time already spent stays counted for the previous assignees.

Following my team

• Spreadsheet Multi (Windows › Spreadsheet Multi): one row per shot, one group of columns per compound or per department, with the state of each step and its current task (name, state, assignees). You see at a glance where each shot stands. Setting it up is covered in Interface.
• Spreadsheet filters: Current Tasks, Has Correction, Has No Correction, My Items, and the header filters on the State column.
• Following rules (Bernard › Settings › Local Settings › Following, Add New Following Rule): Bernard notifies you when an object starts matching your rule, for example "the tasks of my department that become Ready". See Notifications and emails.
• Activity View (Windows › Activity View): what one or more users did over a period (Last hour, Last day, Last week, Custom). Add users in Users :, choose the period in Range :, filter with the search field. Without the Can view other users' working time (Access HR Data) permission, you only see your own activity.
• Working Time View: the team's presence and working time, depending on your permissions (see Time, presence and planning).
• The History tab of a task: who changed what, when and from which workstation.

What your role must be able to do

If one of these actions is refused, ask an administrator to check your Role Setting (Roles Setting).