The workflow of a video studio, end to end

The seven stages and what each one hands to the next

Every video job, from a fifteen-second social cut to a forty-minute documentary, passes through the same handoffs. The brief hands a written scope to pre-production. Materials hand footage, graphics and audio to the editor. The edit hands a numbered version to internal review. Internal review hands a cut the studio stands behind to the client. The client hands back a decision. Delivery hands files to the client, and archive decides what stays on disk and for how long.

In Tasked each handoff is a stage in a workflow definition. A stage has a type (work, review, approval or done), the roles that own it, the tasks it creates when a project enters it, and a default SLA in hours. The five video templates - Commercial, Corporate video, Documentary, Wedding film and Social content batch - are pre-built versions of this path. The Commercial template has ten stages: Brief, Script, Script approval, Pre-production, Shoot, Edit, Rough cut review, Final cut approval, Delivery and Done.

A stage can refuse to let the project leave. The transition from Brief to Script in the Commercial template requires every task on the brief checklist to be done; the transition out of an approval stage requires a granted approval. That is the difference between a board where a card is dragged forward and a workflow where a card is allowed forward.

• Work stages create tasks with a role and, where the template sets one, an estimate in minutes.
• Review stages are internal: the director and editor look before the client does.
• Approval stages carry an approval title and a rework stage the project returns to when changes are requested.

Where the time actually goes

Ask an editor how long a thirty-second commercial takes to cut and the answer is a day or two. Ask the producer how long the project took and the answer is five weeks. The gap is waiting: waiting for the client's logo in the right format, waiting for the script to be signed off, waiting for the second reviewer who was on holiday, waiting for a re-export after the note nobody wrote down.

Tasked measures this with the bottlenecks view in analytics: the median time a project spends in each stage, computed from the actual intervals recorded every time a project changes stage. When the Client review stage shows a median of four days against a template default of 72 hours, the number is not an opinion; it is what the last month of projects did. The same intervals feed process-audit proposals, which point at the stage that is consistently over its SLA and suggest a change to the definition.

The bottlenecks view is part of analytics, which is included from the Professional plan ($99 per month). On the Starter plan the stage intervals are still recorded on every project; the aggregate view is what the higher plan adds.

Where approvals sit and who owns them

An approval is a stage, not a comment thread. In the Commercial template there are two: Script approval, with a default SLA of 48 hours, and Final cut approval, with a default of 72 hours. Both are typed as approval stages, both name a rework stage, and both block the transition forward until a decision is recorded. The Documentary template swaps the script for a treatment approval at 96 hours; the Wedding film template has a single final cut approval at 120 hours, because a couple is not a marketing department.

The person who approves is usually not a user of the product. Tasked gives them a portal door with no account: a code, a link, a phone number that receives a one-time code, or an email. Inside the portal they can play the cut, leave notes on a frame, approve, approve with changes or reject, upload and download. A door can be scoped to one project or to everything that client has with the studio, and it can be view-only.

When an approval passes its SLA the studio can send a reminder to every door that is allowed to decide it, by email or SMS, with a cooldown of twelve hours between reminders on the same approval. The reminder points at the portal and never re-sends a credential. A door that was handed over by hand, with no email and no phone, falls back to the studio, because only the studio can reach that client.

Counting rounds instead of arguing about them

The most expensive number in a video quote is the number of revision rounds it includes, and the most common dispute at invoice time is how many were used. Tasked sets an agreed number on every project (two by default, up to fifty) and derives the used number from the review decisions themselves: a round is a review session that ended with a request for changes or a rejection. A session that ended approved consumes nothing.

When used passes agreed, the project shows the overage as a count, and an automation can fire on the same event to notify the producer or the account manager. Nothing is charged inside the product; the studio bills the extra round on its own invoice, with the record to back it. Changing the agreed number is written to the audit log, before and after.

What the producer sees on one screen

The same projects can be read as a board by stage, a list, a table, a timeline or a calendar, and each arrangement can be saved as a view. Search covers tasks, projects, comments and files and returns an answer, not only a list: asking which cuts are waiting on a particular client returns the cuts and the sentence.

Risk is computed rather than typed. Each project gets a score built from reasons that sum to it - a stage over its SLA, an approval waiting, a deadline close, rounds over the agreement - so a producer who asks why a project is at risk reads the reasons instead of a colour someone chose. The weekly owner report puts the portfolio, the bottlenecks and the risk list in one message.

• Board, list, table, timeline and calendar are the saved view types available today.
• The risk reasons are visible on the project, not hidden inside the score.
• The weekly report is sent to the owner of the organisation, not to every member.

Automations that follow the workflow

A rule in Tasked is written as a sentence: when a cut moves to Final cut approval, notify the account manager; when a project passes its agreed rounds, create a task for the producer. The sentence is compiled to a rule, translated back into plain language so the author can check it said what they meant, and simulated over the last month of the organisation's real events before it is switched on. The simulation shows what the rule would have done, so a rule that would have sent forty emails is caught before it sends one.

Triggers include a stage change, an approval decision, a new comment, an uploaded file, a deadline within a number of hours, a changed field, the revision limit and a schedule. Actions include creating a task, assigning, moving stage, notifying in-app, by email, SMS or WhatsApp, sending an email, setting a field, calling a webhook and starting an AI proposal. There is deliberately no delete or archive action a rule can take.

Delivery, archive and the thirty-day window

The Delivery stage in the video templates is a work stage with a short SLA (24 hours in Commercial and Corporate, 48 in Documentary and Wedding) and tasks such as exporting deliverables per spec or uploading the delivery gallery. Files reach the client through the portal download or through a share link that can carry a password, an expiry date and a download switch, and that can be revoked.

Archive is a decision about what to keep. A file deleted in Tasked keeps its bytes for the organisation's retention window, 30 days by default, before the purge removes them. The audit log is append-only and stays. The organisation's data can be exported as a bundle. The supporting article on delivery and archive walks through what is worth keeping for those thirty days and what is not.

Questions that keep coming up

Can I change the stages or the SLA hours in a template?

Yes. The template values are defaults. A project built from the Commercial template starts with the 48-hour script approval and the 72-hour final cut approval and either can be changed on that project.

Does the client need an account to approve a cut?

No. The client enters the portal through a code, a link, a phone number with a one-time code or an email. There is no sign-up and no seat.

How is a revision round counted?

A round is a review session that ended with a request for changes or a rejection. A session that ended approved does not count. The number is derived from the decisions, not typed by hand.

Which frame rates does the review player handle?

Eight: 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94 and 60. Drop-frame timecode is the default for 29.97 and 59.94. A file at any other rate is refused for frame math rather than approximated.

What does the trial include?

Fourteen days on the Starter plan's limits with no card: ten active projects, 100 GB of storage and three members. You can upload real files, invite a real client and record a real approval.