How to Streamline Your Editorial Workflow using Edit Flow

Most high traffic blogs and content based websites are maintained by multiple authors. This allows the website to grow more quickly as more people are adding content. It also allows the owner to take a step back and work on different things such as marketing.

Organising the authors who contribute to a website is very important, otherwise authors will frequently step on each others toes. One of the best plugins available for WordPress that will streamline your editorial workflow process is Edit Flow.

Edit flow adds several useful features that multi-author websites will love. Each feature was designed to make managing authors easier. The tools will also help you organise your workflow more efficiently.

Calendar

The calendar is one of the most useful tools. It allows you to see, at a glance, what posts are scheduled over that month. Hovering over a post will display links to edit, trash, and view the post. You can also follow the post for updates.

Custom Statuses

The default version of WordPress comes with statuses such as “Draft” and “Pending Review”. Edit flow adds additional statuses to WordPress including “Assigned”, “Pitch”, and “Waiting for Feedback”. It lets you add as many custom statuses as you would like.

Editorial Comments

Authors and editors can discuss posts and pages through a comment box that appears in the post editor. This is a great way for editors to leave feedback for authors and authors to respond to these comments.

Editorial Metadata

Additional information can be added to posts and pages. Edit Flow will add several pieces of information such as the contact information of the author, whether the post needs a photo, required length of the post, and due date. You can add your own custom metadata through this settings area too.

Notifications

Edit Flow also comes with a built-in notification system that can update any staff member about modifications to a post or page. Any additional custom post types that your website uses will be supported too.

Story Budget

The progress of posts and pages can be viewed on a story budget. This allows you to see what status each article is at and when you could expect them to be finished. Large organisations who write long articles will find this particularly useful.

User Groups

Edit Flow’s user group system will help you group staff into specific teams. It comes set up with several user groups including reporters, photographers and sales team.

Those of you who operate multi-author websites will find Edit Flow very useful. It is a great solution for allowing staff to communicate to each other and colloborate on articles together more efficiently. Website owners will also love the way it helps you to organise your workflow and plan articles over the coming weeks.

I encourage you to download Edit Flow and give it a try yourself.

Kevin