Loftware launches Smartflow 26.1

The new release, according to the company, enhances collaboration and shortens time-to-market, enables customers to review and approve packaging artwork faster, offers greater workflow flexibility and improved ease-of-use. 

‘Smartflow 26.1 enhances support for real world situations in artwork management, adding more flexibility and accuracy to packaging project execution by making it easier for customers to add new tasks to active project workflows as they occur,’ said the company in a statement.

With this capability, users can update task dependencies to a project to reflect new timelines. In addition, this new release increases flexibility by adding an option which allows additional users in the project owner (PO) role to share in managing a project workflow and tracks all changes by PO, after the initial PO role is assigned.

‘It’s all about the user experience,’ stated Loftware director of product management, Glen Bradlee. ‘Software is only as good as the user’s ability to easily accomplish their goal; Smartflow is already a very intuitive and easy-to-use solution. This release, which responds to customer feedback, makes Smartflow even more flexible by empowering users to more easily manage their artwork projects,’ he added.

Among the improvements is a new color separation capability for Loftware DaVinci, a tool which enables Smartflow users to proof digital artwork online and collaborate through the product launch process. The color separation capability builds on Smartflow’s core capability, providing users the ability to view one or more selections of the color separations of an artwork as part of the proofing process. Smartflow 26.1 also allows customers to toggle on or off layers such as cutter profiles that may obstruct the view of the artwork.

Additionally, Smartflow 26.1 faciliates collaborate on projects by enabling targeted comments in the project discussion. With this enhancement, packaging managers can identify specific stakeholders or roles using the ‘@’ symbol. Smartflow 26.1 also allows users to attach files to comments, making them accessible in one central location.

Other enhancements included in Smartflow 26.1 include the ability to reuse and modify existing digital assets with approved DAL file versioning. This minimizes confusion and delays by offering a full history of versions and ensures that only the latest approved version of an asset is available for use. It also tracks comments related to approvals, which is important in validated environments.