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Gathering design feedback and approval statuses from clients using the Commentful web app

Review links that you've created with the Commentful plugin can be viewed in the browser via the Commentful web app (without needing a Figma account) to allow anyone to leave feedback on your static designs without being in your Figma file.

Leaving general comments, text content and image content feedback

There are 3 different modes of feedback that a reviewer can use to provide general comments or text/image change requests:

Leave Comments

By clicking on the Leave Comments button (which is the default mode), a reviewer will be able to drop a feedback pin anywhere on your Figma frames and leave a general comment on that area of the design.

This feedback will need to be taken into account and actioned manually in Figma. You can also have a threaded conversion on these general types of comments by replying the original comment via the Commentful Figma plugin or directly in the Commentful web app.

Request Text Updates

By clicking on the Request Text Updates button, you can switch into a mode which reveals clickable areas where any Figma text layers are located in the original Figma frames.

This will allow a reviewer to click on any of these text areas and request text changes to that text layer.

When you view these text update requests in the Commentful Figma plugin, you'll be able to automatically apply these text content updates to the corrosponding Figma layer with one click.

Request Images Updates

By clicking on the Request Images Updates button, you can switch into a mode which reveals clickable areas where any Figma layers that contain Image fills are located in the original Figma frames.

This will allow a reviewer to click on any of these image areas and request an image update to that text layer by uploading an image file from their computer.

When you view these image update requests in the Commentful Figma plugin, you'll be able to automatically apply the image fill updates to the corrosponding Figma layer with one click.

Replying to general comment threads

You can reply to any feedback pins that were created in the Leave Comments feedback mode via the Commentful Figma plugin or directly in the Commentful web app.

Enabling desktop notifications and mention handles

While viewing a Commentful review link in your browser, you can enable desktop notifications for that review so you can be alerted when new feedback is added.

To do this, open the Notifications panel in the Commentful web app, then:

  1. Click Enable Notifications
  2. Allow notifications in your browser
  3. Optionally set your Display Name and Mention Handle
  4. Choose whether you'd like to be notified about All review activity or Only when I'm @mentioned

Once a reviewer has enabled notifications and saved a mention handle, other reviewers can notify them directly by typing @handle in a new comment or reply.

Mention suggestions will appear inline while typing @ in the comment field, making it easier to notify reviewers who have already enabled notifications on that review link.

Desktop notifications are enabled per browser/device, so if a reviewer wants to receive notifications on another computer or browser, they'll need to enable them there as well.

Editing Text Change Requests

You can edit any feedback pins that were created in the Request Text Updates feedback mode via the Commentful Figma plugin or directly in the Commentful web app by clicking on the Edit toggle button in the feedback sidebar (after clicking your pin), making any content updates in the text field, then clicking the Update Requested Text Change button too apply the update..

You can view a list of all the feedback that's been left on your current review link by clicking on the Show All Feedback button in the top right of the browser window.

This opens a feedback sidebar that can display the current review in multiple formats:

  • List View for reading through each feedback item one by one
  • Kanban View for organizing feedback into workflow columns
  • Table View for scanning the review feedback in a more compact format

Along with the comment or text/image feedback itself, the sidebar also includes filters for feedback type, author, completed feedback state, date range and free-text search.

If you prefer to review the feedback outside of the browser, you can use the Export Feedback dropdown to download a CSV file, copy the filtered feedback as Markdown or CSV, or copy an AI-ready summary prompt.

Searching your feedback

You can easily perform a text search of all the feedback by typing a word that queries for either the Comment content, the Username of the reviewer (this is the reviewer name that they set before leaving any feedback), or the Pin Number (if you already know the pin number you want to lookup).

Filtering completed feedback and visual pins

The feedback sidebar also includes a completed feedback filter with three options:

  • Include completed feedback
  • Hide completed feedback
  • Hide completed feedback (and visual pins)

If you choose Hide completed feedback (and visual pins), completed feedback will be hidden from both the feedback sidebar and the numbered pin overlays shown on top of the review frames, making it easier to focus only on work that is still active.

You can click on any feedback pin that was left on your Figma frames by clicking any the numbered Pin icon buttons that are floating over your designs, which will open up the feedback left on that pin as a pop-out panel on the right side of your browser window.

If you're browsing all of the pins in the feedback panel list instead, you can also click on the Pin icon buttons next to each feedback item in this list as well, which will automatically scroll that comment into view and briefly animate it to make it easier to see (which can be useful if you have lots of pins on the page at once).

Organising feedback into Kanban board statuses

You can optionally sort any feedback left on your designs into customizeable statuses by clicking on the Kanban View tab (while the Show All Feedback panel is open); this allows you to drag and drop feedback cards into different columns, re-arrange their stacking order in an existing column, or create, rename, re-arrange and delete the status columns themselves, to more easily track where things are at while working through feedback.

Setting the approval status of a Figma frame

Along with leaving feedback on your designs, a reviewer can also set the approval status of any Figma frame by changing the Approval dropdown menu to one of the following options:

  • Not Approved Yet
  • Approved (With Changes)
  • Approved

Changing the approval status will update the color and status label above that Figma frame in your Commentful web app review link; this will allow you to easily see the approval status of your frames at a glance.

Changing the view mode for the Figma frames

By default, all of the static Figma frames you've uploaded will be visible at once, where the reviewer can easily scroll vertically and horizintally to see all of the frames and add feedback where needed.

The way that the frames are displayed can be changed by clicking on a different View Mode button in the bottom left corner of the page when viewing a review link.

You or your reviewers can copy a direct link to any Figma frame in your review link by clicking on the Copy Link To This Frame icon button, which will copy a direct link to the clipboard.

Pasting this link and visiting it in your browser will automatically scroll to that Figma frame on the review link, and also highlight it with a colored outline to easily see which frame is being linked to.

This feature can be useful for sending a link to a specific frame that you would like a reviewer to look at or provide feedback on.

Updating your reviewer name

Before someone can start leaving feedback on a review link, they'll need to set their name (to identify who has left which pieces of feedback).

The name input will appear automatically if it hasn't already been set, or you can change this manually at any time by clicking on the Name button in the bottom right corner of the page when viewing a review link.

You can pre-populate a reviewer's name when sending them the initial share link by adding their name in the Review Share URL panel for the review in the Commentful Figma plugin.

If a reviewer also enables desktop notifications, their reviewer name can be used as the basis for a default mention handle, which they can customize in the Notifications panel.