There was a time when the entire publishing system was operated by the collaborative efforts of numerous people. Hence, it was extremely labour-intensive. Still, the process was manageable as organizations had in-house resources for writing, editing, communication management, and the publication was restricted to hard copy printing.
But, in today’s digital world, this kind of work culture might fall apart as companies are working with a distributed workforce. Even the work processes have evolved over time, and content pieces are getting published on multiple platforms at a time. The whole process has become more elaborate with a lot of email communication going on between the writer, editor, designer, publishing team, and so on. So, without a proper publishing workflow management system, there is a high chance of version control issues, missed deadlines, and so on.
Therefore, it’s time to think about the automation of publishing workflow management systems. That way, multiple publishing workflow steps can be automated to simplify and streamline the whole process. Several tools are available in the market today to automate different steps of the publishing process. For instance, software for the content management process can ease the writer’s responsibility of sending the article to an editor. Such software can even detect simple grammatical mistakes and fix them. After editing, the editor can publish content pieces simultaneously on multiple platforms with just a click of a button.
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Benefits of publishing workflow management
The use of automation software in publishing workflow management can improve the work experience, accelerate the process speed, and streamline the system. Here are the key advantages of using automated publishing management solutions for better workflow management:
1. Simplifies the editing process
Editing has enormous importance in the world of publishing. So, a tool checking for simple grammatical errors, punctuation mistakes, or typos, with suggestions for correction, makes the editing job easy. Such solutions can help expedite the editing process, reduce the editor’s workload, and produce error-free content.
2. Improves communication
Workflow management systems ensure that writers, editors, and other team members remain well-connected and can collaborate effectively. It is good to use communication tools to stay connected and keep track of all conversations to avoid any miscommunication.
3. Increases productivity
With better communication and virtual collaboration facilities, all the team members can work together effectively, thus improving productivity.
With a well-established publishing workflow management system, the exact requirement can be promptly communicated to the writers or designers, reducing the need for rework. With a publishing workflow management system, coordination and version control can become much more manageable. It also helps decision-makers to map the complete publishing schedule for every project.
4. Eliminates redundant manual tasks
When multiple people work on their own copies to make changes, with a workflow management system, all the changes are automatically synchronized on the central document. This way, any confusion related to the latest changes made to the document and finalized copy of the content can be avoided. Along with this, unnecessary data generation can be restricted.
5. Increases trust, transparency, and control
With workflow automation, the duties of each job role and their goals become clearly defined, thus eliminating the need for micromanagement. As a result, an open and transparent work culture can be maintained throughout the organization.
How to automate publishing workflow management
In the current situation, when organizations are working with a distributed workforce from different locations, using an automated publishing workflow management system has become crucial. A well-constructed content and workflow management system can streamline content creation, editing, designing, and managing workflows for publishing on different platforms.
Here are the steps to automate a publishing workflow:
1. Integration of a Content Management System (CMS)
The first step is to opt for the right CMS according to your organization’s requirement and budget. The integration of a CMS will instantly create a centralized repository for all the content pieces with a complete tracking facility. CMS allows organizations to create, edit, add, review, publish, distribute, track, archive and update their content with proper tracking and management systems. It also allows users to deploy content across different platforms along with content performance tracking in real-time.
2. Provide secure access to users
Once the content management system is created, each of the users can be provided with secure access to the system to log in, create content, edit or design the same, according to their dedicated roles.
3. Enable plugins to automate cross-media publishing
Generally, publishers need to make their content available for print as well as electronic media. Therefore, format conversion becomes a crucial aspect of the content management process. This once-tedious task can be automated by using the appropriate plugins in your CMS. Be it XML, Microsoft Word, QuarkXPress, or InDesign, no matter which format is required, everything is possible with plugins.
4. Simplify the workflow with customizations
All good CMS software solutions come with a plethora of plugins, so that the software can be customized according to the organization’s requirements. The addition of specific plugins allows an organization to customize and automate the workflow. For example, using particular plugins, users can automate the detection of grammatical errors and correction. Moreover, the publishing of the content can be automated on different platforms simultaneously, using plugins.
Conclusion
Publishing workflow management software is an indispensable component of the modern publishing world. Automation is not just a choice anymore; it’s a necessity so that the publishing processes can be streamlined. To cope with the industry’s changing demands, especially after the pandemic, automating workflow management has become crucial. With proper implementation of automation software in the publishing industry, not only can the work process be simplified, but the productivity of an organization can also improve.
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