Matias Ventura 8:08 am on July 4, 2023
Tags: gutenberg ( 481 ), phase 3 ( 12 )

Workflows

This is part of the Phase 3: Collaboration roadmap. The main projects are Real-Time Collaboration, Workflows, Revisions, Media Library, Block Library, and Admin Design.

Introduction

Provide seamless collaboration during the entire editorial process, from draft to publication. Allow users to add comments, suggest edits, and tagtag A directory in Subversion. WordPress uses tags to store a single snapshot of a version (3.6, 3.6.1, etc.), the common convention of tags in version control systems. (Not to be confused with post tags.) other users for peer review. Ensure the interface remains focused on a smooth experience for writers and editors.

Mockup showing a new cursor / tool option in the editor for adding "comments" to blocks.

Improve the publishing flow by customizing the review process, establishing what needs to be done before a publication is ready. For example, an author could leave empty media blocks in a story they are writing and mark them to be completed by another team member, ensuring the post cannot be published while empty placeholders are still there. This could also include other types of requirements, like word count, fields to be completed, and so on.

Make it straightforward to share different types of content, from posts to design changes, while controlling access through permissions. Connect with the adminadmin (and super admin) notifications project to capture comment reviews and mentions. Build upon improvements to the post revisionsRevisions The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision. interface to provide clarity over edit history.

The tools and infrastructure developed need to support simpler use cases (one author sharing previews with friends for feedback) all the way to larger editorial teams, managing deadlines, handoffs, and more sophisticated review processes. Plugins should be able to take it further.

While a lot of this work naturally aligns with unpublished content, it’s also important to consider workflows around already published content and pages.

Scope

This is a summary of the broad tasks we need to look into:

Introduce inline comments on blocks within the editor experience. Explore using comment types to store them. Allow marking comments as resolved. Status of comments also need to fold within individual revisions, so that it’s easy to see what specific edit state a comment refers to. Possible connection with “pending review” functionality.
Explore introducing support for “tasks” in publish flow. These would allow highlighting missing actions before a post is to be published. It can be connected to various post statuses (such as going from “pending review” to “publish” readiness, ability to have pending review status over already published content, or other custom statuses). Individual actions should be highly configurable by users and extensibleExtensible This is the ability to add additional functionality to the code. Plugins extend the WordPress core software. by plugins. Tasks can also go beyond publishing and be relevant for other plugins (like marking fulfilled orders in WooCommerce data structures).
Ability to share draft links with permission controls and clear revision browsing. This also extends to previewing and sharing design changes across the entire collection of features of the site editor.
Introduce extension points for in-app previewing. For example, a pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party might want to show how a post looks for subscribers and non-subscribers; with or without ad units; on an RSS feedRSS Feed RSS is an acronym for Real Simple Syndication which is a type of web feed which allows users to access updates to online content in a standardized, computer-readable format. This is the feed. or an email; etc. CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. should provide good mechanics for plugins to hook, control, and modify these views across editors in a way that integrates seamlessly with the editing flows.
Improve multi-entity saving to allow scheduling design changes on blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. themes that can be managed through the various revisions systems (styles, templates, patterns, pages, posts). Possibly allow naming future revisions to better manage and orchestrate changes throughout a site. Preview snapshots of a site before they go live.
Explore hook points for version controlversion control A version control system keeps track of the source code and revisions to the source code. WordPress uses Subversion (SVN) for version control, with Git mirrors for most repositories. systems to smoothly take over internal revision systems if desired.
Control access with granular permissions for patterns and templates rather than general locking. For example, lock patterns to “content only” for author roles but leave it open for admins.
Consider multi-author support on posts or improve how it can be represented as a side effect of real-time collaboration and revision authorship.

Get Involved!

There’s been a lot of interest from users, developers, agencies, etc, about these set of features. Many have already reached out over the last year and months to share experiences, insights, or existing plugin work to reference. Let’s capture and highlight feedback to ensure all use cases are represented.

#gutenberg, #phase-3

Weston Ruter 9:12 pm on July 5, 2023
Improve multi-entity saving to allow scheduling design changes on blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. themes that can be managed through the various revisionsRevisions The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision. systems (styles, templates, patterns, pages, posts). Possibly allow naming future revisions to better manage and orchestrate changes throughout a site. Preview snapshots of a site before they go live.

I understand this is essentially porting the idea of CustomizerCustomizer Tool built into WordPress core that hooks into most modern themes. You can use it to preview and modify many of your site’s appearance settings. Changesets to the Site Editor. For reference:
- Matias Ventura 10:29 am on July 6, 2023
  
  Yes, I expanded more explicitly about it on the revisionsRevisions The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision. post. Remains to be seen how much infrastructure can be just shared and augmented / decoupled.
David Levine (AxePress) 6:06 pm on July 6, 2023

> Introduce inline comments on blocks within the editor experience. Explore using comment types to store them. Allow marking comments as resolved. Status of comments also need to fold within individual revisionsRevisions The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision., so that it’s easy to see what specific edit state a comment refers to.

Just want to confirm that “inline comments” in this context refers to the *display* of comments inline in the Editor, and **not** the storage of comments as inline htmlHTML HyperText Markup Language. The semantic scripting language primarily used for outputting content in web browsers. markup inside the `post_content`.

(I think this was implied by “using comment types to store them”, just double checking).

The (imo still weak) justifications for storing blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. data as markup don’t apply to comments as they’re only meant to be rendered conditionally (permissions, depending on the workflow, and in the Editor) so a data-driven APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. that doesn’t require parsing block content would be a huge win for developers.
- Matias Ventura 6:50 pm on July 7, 2023
  
  Correct, inline is about displaying them next to blocks.
Davis Shaver 12:09 pm on July 8, 2023

Very interested in this topic! Maybe we could organize a WP Big Media virtual meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. for conversations around these various topics. Lots of need for this on the editorial side.
annezazu 10:12 pm on July 19, 2023
To bring in some insights from chatting with various large publishers, medium-small publishers, higher ed folks, and agencies over the last few months in the lead up to the start of phase 3, here are some of the items explicitly mentioned around workflow related items that resonate with what’s shared here:
- Support for required tasks that can be customized depending on the type of post and that have a built in “severityseverity The seriousness of the ticket in the eyes of the reporter. Generally, severity is a judgment of how bad a bug is, while priority is its relationship to other bugs.” type. For example, a task might be more of a nice to have than a necessity but both are worth calling out for the person to act on.
- Seeing changes that have occurred since you last opened a document (related to my note on revisions).
- Tie notifications into different tasks and the status of articles to reduce the need to pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” someone in a separate system. For example, perhaps legal needs to be emailed about an article or the media team needs to be notified that a post is ready for images.
- Ability to see open tasks/open notifications with ease, along with an at a glance view of where something might stand (this ties into the Adminadmin (and super admin) redesign and might touch more on pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party territory).
- Section level locking for different parts of a post, like the post content vs post title vs featured imageFeatured image A featured image is the main image used on your blog archive page and is pulled when the post or page is shared on social media. The image can be used to display in widget areas on your site or in a summary list of posts., tied into task management with perhaps reviews needed for each before publishing.
- Solid integration options with other tools, like slackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. or trelloTrello Project management system using the concepts of boards and cards to organize tasks in a sane way. This is what the make.wordpress.com/marketing team uses for example: https://trello.com/b/8UGHVBu8/wp-marketing., for notifications and state changes (draft to pending review).
- Easy draft sharing.
- Ability to publish with multiple authors.
At a high level, I repeatedly heard from folks more of an interest in collaboration in the form of the ability for multiple people to be in different parts of an article over true collaborative editing. Especially for larger to medium sized publishers, there’s less of a need for real time collaboration and more of a need for different sets of folks in an article at the same time with locked fields within. For example, someone from the photo team can place images without having the ability to edit the content blocks or a handful of folks being able to edit tags directly without getting in the way of the writers.
- Jeffrey Paul 7:38 pm on October 25, 2023
  
  +1 Yes to everything Anne said.
Zack Grossbart 11:24 am on July 25, 2023
I’m really excited to see this proposal. I’ve worked with many blogs with complex workflows as part of the development of my pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party the Editorial Calendar. Most of the blogs I’ve worked with separate their workflow into phases:

In the Ideation they kick around ideas and come up with post topics. This may include workshopping post titles coming up with a general timeline for posts. For example, “we’re going to do a new recipe post every Thursday.”

They may also reach out to writers to see which posts they’re interested in writing.

The results of this phase are:
- A list of potential posts
- A general notion of dates of publication
- Some ideas of who will write each post
Once Ideation is complete bloggers move in to the Assignment and creation phase. This phase is where they pick a specific writer for a post and that writer creates a first draft.

This phase is typically worked on with a general timeline in mind, but not a specific date of publication. This is also the most individual phase of the process since most authors write their rough drafts alone.

Once the draft is complete it moves to the Editingphase. This phase may be as simple as some small suggestions or take weeks of back and forth before a post is ready to go.

Once Editing is complete the post moves to the Scheduling phase where it’s scheduled for publication. Scheduling is complex and individual to each blogblog (versus network, site). Some blogs post on a regular cadence and others will try to match content to external events. All of my users (they are a self-selected group) wanted a larger view where they could see all of their upcoming posts and manage what will be published when.

WordPress has always had the ability to schedule posts to publish on a future date, but those dates are difficult to manage without an overall view.

During this time I’ve run into a few areas where I consistently receive requests for mutually exclusive user experiences. Here are a few of them:

Time scales: Some blogs post many times in a single day while others post only a few times a month. I’ve received many requests to change the time scale for viewing posts. The Editorial Calendar supports the option of viewing between one and 8 weeks at a time. I’ve also received requests to review a single day at a time.

Unified post types: Some blogs view each post type separately while others want a unified view of all post types. I’ve received multiple requests in each direction. The Editorial Calendar shows a separate calendar for each post type, but I’ve frequently provided the code to change that.

Post styles: Many users have requested the ability to change the style of post types by categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging.. These requests have varied so much that I ended up providing options for using custom CSSCSS Cascading Style Sheets..

In addition to creating a plugin I’m also a frequent contributor to the very large WordPress site SmashingMagazine.com. I’ve also worked as an editor for them reviewing content from others.

SmashingMagazine does almost all of their collaboration with authors outside of WordPress. My collaborations with them have followed these basic steps:

Developing the idea This is normally done over email where we discuss topics and the author creates a short description of the article (normally 1-2 paragraphs) and an outline for the sections of the article. The author also identifies any additional materials the article will need like images, coding, or videos.

Writing the rough draft: Once the idea is accepted the author writes a rough draft. This is normally done in Google Docs, but I’ve used Markdown in a GitHub repository in the past. I sometimes work with co-authors and I always work with an external editor. This is the place where I collaborate with them.

Acceptance: Once the article is complete the author sends it to the SmashingMagazine staff for acceptance. The staff may provide feedback, ask for additional changes, and send the article to review.

Review: Most articles I’ve written have included a peer review. This is also where I’ve worked as an editor. The peer review takes place in Google Docs and makes heavy use of the following features there:
- Versioning
- Inline comments
- Suggested edits
Formatting: Once the review is complete the article is formatted for publication by the SmashingMagazine staff.

Author Review and Publication: After the article is formatted the author is given a final chance to review it. Any comments I’ve had as part of that process were handled by email. Then the article is scheduled for publication.

I hope these examples are useful. Thanks again for working on this awesome feature.
- Zack Grossbart 11:25 am on July 25, 2023
  
  I’m sorry about the formatting. I thought this supported Markdown and the Preview feature wasn’t work. Now I can’t edit my reply. Hopefully it’s still readable.
  - annezazu 6:15 pm on July 26, 2023
    
    Updated this for you and with your consent! Thank you again for sharing these insights, both with your own pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party and in your experience as a contributor to SmashingMagazine.
    - Zack Grossbart 6:17 pm on July 26, 2023
      
      Thank you @annezazu
lesley.pizza 9:57 am on October 9, 2023

Really excited to see these features built. All of them seem like they’ve been a long time coming!

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Directory

Welcome!

Communication

Workflows

Introduction

Scope

Get Involved!

Directory

Welcome!

Communication

Introduction

Scope

Get Involved!

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