Edit Flow

Redefining your editorial workflow.

Description

Edit Flow empowers you to collaborate with your editorial team inside WordPress. We've made it modular so you can customize it to your needs:

• Calendar - A convenient month-by-month look at your content.
• Custom Statuses - Define the key stages to your workflow.
• Editorial Comments - Threaded commenting in the admin for private discussion between writers and editors.
• Editorial Metadata - Keep track of the important details.
• Notifications - Receive timely updates on the content you're following.
• Story Budget - View your upcoming content budget.
• User Groups - Keep your users organized by department or function.

More details for each feature, screenshots and documentation can be found on our website.

All development happens on GitHub.

We'd love to hear from you! For support questions, feedback and ideas, please use the WordPress.org forums, which we look at often. If you'd like to contribute code, we'd love to have you involved.

Installation

The easiest way to install this plugin is to go to Add New in the Plugins section of your blog admin and search for "Edit Flow." On the far right side of the search results, click "Install."

If the automatic process above fails, follow these simple steps to do a manual install:

1. Extract the contents of the zip file into your /wp-content/plugins/ directory
2. Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress
3. Write and enjoy the merits of a structured editorial workflow!

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Edit Flow work with multisite?

Yep, in the sense that you can activate Edit Flow on each subsite. Edit Flow doesn't yet offer the ability to manage content across a network of sites.

Edit Flow doesn't do X, Y, and Z. That makes me sad.

For support questions, feedback and ideas, please use the WordPress.org forums, which we look at often. For everything else, say [email protected].

Screenshots

1. The calendar is a convenient month-by-month look at your content. Filter to specific statuses or categories to drill down.
2. Custom statuses allow you to define the key stages of your workflow.
3. Editorial comments allow for private discussion between writers and editors on a post-by-post basis.
4. Keep track of the important details with editorial metadata.
5. View all of your upcoming posts with the more traditional story budget view, and hit the print button to take it to your planning meeting.

Upgrade Notice

0.9.9 Bump minimum PHP supported version to 8.0, WordPress minimum supported version to 6.0.

0.9.8 PHP 8.2 compatible with various bug fixes

0.9.7 PHP 8 compatible now with various bug fixes

0.9.6 Fix bug around post save, bring Gutenberg to Calendar filters

0.9.5 Fix bugs around slugs, plus some localization improvements and other bug fixes

0.9.4 Updates to post list custom status UI. Plus, updates to API and bug fixes.

0.9.3 Fixes for localization and notifications

0.9.2 Fixes issues with scheduling and trashing posts in block editor.

0.9.1 Bump PHP minimum to 5.6 to match WordPress core. Plus, various bug fixes.

0.9 Bump minimum version of PHP to 5.4. Start implementation of Block Editor compatible modules, various improvements and bugfixes.

0.8.3 Improvements and bugfixes.

0.8.2 Minor enhancements and bug fixes, translation updates.

0.8.1 Added Composer support.

0.8 Final readme and versioning changes for v0.8

0.7.5 New localizations; myriad of bug fixes

0.7.4 Support for non-Latin characters in custom statuses and editorial metadata; various bug fixes

0.7.3 Support PHP 5.2.x by removing the anonymous functions we mistakenly added

0.7.2 Contributors and other users without the 'publish_posts' capability can access custom statuses.

0.7.1 Enhancements and bug fixes, including defaulting to the proper date in the calendar and an Italian localization.

0.7 Complete rewrite into a modular architecture. Lots of polish added. Important note: If upgrading from pre-v0.6, please upgrade to v0.6.5 first

0.6.5 Fixes an issue where the post timestamp would be set as soon as a custom status was used.

0.6.4 Number of minor fixes and improvements, including proper support for bulk editing custom statuses, a 'Clear' link for clearing date editorial metadata, and better respect for user roles and capabilities in Story Budget.

0.6.3 Restored email notifications to old delivery method instead of queueing with WP cron because of reliability issues. Added option to see unpublished content on story budget and editorial calendar.

0.6.2 Two bug fixes: post titles should properly appear in email notifications, and bulk editing no longer deletes editorial metadata.

0.6.1 Proper support for custom post types. We removed the option to enable/disable Custom Statuses for Pages from the Settings page. Custom Statuses are enabled by default for Pages. To remove support for statuses, please see readme.

0.6 New features, including story budget and editorial metadata, a completely rewritten calendar view, and many bug fixes, including one for editorial comments appearing in the admin.

Changelog

0.9.9 (May 24, 2024)

• Enhancements: bump lowest supported PHP version to 8.0 and lowest WordPress version to 6.0 (#727)
• Test fix: Update ESLint configuration and format JS files (#723)
• Enhancements: Move JS environment to node 20, upgrade packages (#725)

0.9.8 (April 10, 2024)

• Fix WP 5.9 deprecation notice with who in WP_User_Query (#701)
• Add PHP 8.2 fixes (#700)
• Bump @babel/traverse from 7.1.6 to 7.23.2 (#714)

0.9.7 (August 26, 2022)

• Bug fix: Allow scheduled posts to be shifted around on calendar (#614)
• Bug fix: Add back unpublish status, small css tweak for statuses (#613)
• Enhancements: Renaming some frontend calendar configuration variable (#615)
• Bug fix: Swap join() with implode() for PHP 8 compatibility (#627)
• Enhancements: Give each attribute in Edit Flow settings page a different id (#650)
• Bug fix: Fix test_story_budget_set_number_days_filter_invalid in PHP 8.0 (#644)
• Bug fix: Allow updating post slugs in Quick Edit and Classic Editor with a different status from published (#648)
• Bug fix: Fix jQuery warnings as WordPress upgraded it from 1.12.4-wp to 3.5.1 (#649)
• Enhancements: Remove redundant jQuery selector #the-list a.editinline (#668)
• Enhancements: Remove redundant jQuery selector #toggle_details (#669)
• Bug fix: Fixes non-variable being passed by reference (#667)

0.9.6 (April 26, 2020)

• Bug fix: Fix bug causing error on save button click for post after hovering over button (#604)
• Enhancements: Bring Gutenebrg to Calendar filters (#603)
• Enhancmenets: Tweak styling on Calendar (#605)

0.9.5 (April 8, 2020)

• Bug fix: Fix bug preventing previewing posts authored by other users (#597 -- props mallorydxw)
• Imrpovement: Status dropdowns are now be Edit Flow specific but filterable (#595)
• Improvement: Support i18n in Story Budget date picker (#569)
• Bug fix: Prevent multiple custom fields from being created (#591)
• Bug fix: Fix slug behavior (#575)

0.9.4 (February 4, 2020)

• Bug fix: Move 'Customize' link in metadata metabox to inside metabox (#590 -- props jsit)
• Bug fix: Fix ef_custom_status_list filter on get_custom_statuses (#587 -- props jsit)
• Bug fix: Keep save button text updated, without errors (#585 -- props WPprodigy)
• Bug fix: Add ef_week_first_day as script data to prevent echoing script tags (#582 -- props ryelle)
• Improvement: Deprecate ef_get_comments_plus (#581 -- props WPprodigy)
• Improvement: Cleanup block editor compatibility logic (#580 -- props WPprodigy)
• Improvement: Display custom statuses in post states (#579 -- props WPprodigy)
• Improvement: Clean up dashboard-note logic (#578 -- props WPprodigy)

0.9.3 (December 18, 2019)

• Bug fix: parse date time from numeric string instead of textual date (#546 -- props batmoo, cojennin)
• Bug fix: ensure status friendly names are used in notifications (#560 -- props batmoo, cojennin)
• Bug fix: fix WP Menu post title notice (#552 - props batmoo, cojennin)
• Updates to tests, build pipeline (props batmoo, dchymko, cojennin)

0.9.2 (November 24, 2019)

• Bug fix: Prevent issues with scheduling and trashing posts when using the block editor (#556 -- props cojennin, davisshaver, batmoo)

0.9.1 (November 4, 2019)

• Bug fix: Prevent custom status from being reverted when using Gutenberg (#521 -- props mikeyarce, batmoo)
• Bug fix: Don't break post previews when using custom statuses (#515 -- props rebeccahum)
• Bug fix: Don't auto-subscribe the current user when notification settings are changed (#540 -- props dchymko, jerclarke, mikeyarce)
• Bug fix: prevent fatals when editing posts on the frontend via certain plugins (#538 -- props kjohnson, dchymko)
• Bug fix: Don't break classic editor when custom statuses are disabled (#537 -- props batmoo, thesquaremedia)
• Bug fix: Prevent count() warning on PHP 7.2 (#534 -- props batmoo, NeilWJames)
• Bug fix: Prevent multiple plugin entries on the plugins page (#530 -- props batmoo, mboynes, joshbetz)
• Bug fix: jQuery compatibility issues (#499 -- props jameslesliemiller)
• Dev: Fix Travis CI Tests (props dchymko)
• Bonus props to jerclarke, mikeyarce, rebeccahum, rinatkhaziev, dchymko, and batmoo for helping with issues/PRs/testing.

0.9 (January 10, 2018)

• Feature: Block Editor compatibility for Custom Status module. Props rinatkhaziev. See BLOCKS.md for details.
• Feature: new filter ef_calendar_item_html for Calendar module that allows to print custom markup for each day.
• UI Improvement: start removing arbitrary colors and conform to WP Color guide. A collective effort.
• UI Improvement: Add [NO ACCESS] and [NO EMAIL] to the list of notified users to indicate that a user doesn't have the access to the post and that a user doesn't have an email set, respectively. Props WPprodigy, jerclarke.

0.8.3 (June 14, 2018)

• UI Improvement: Made primary buttons on Settings screen consistent with WordPress UI. Props cojennin.
• UI Improvement: Display who particularly was notified about an editorial comment. Props goodguyry, WPprodigy
• Improvement: Updated Russian translation and documentation. Props achumakov.
• Improvement: Eliminate a few cases of raw SQL queries in favor of date_query. Props justnorris.
• Improvement: Cache calendar items for each user individually to prevent potential cache pollution. Props justnorris.
• Improvement: various i18n updates.
• Improvement: Move ef_story_budget_posts_query_args filter down to allow overriding the date query in Story Budget module.
• Improvement: Limit results in Calendar to 200 per page, potentially saving from trouble on websites with large amount of content.
• Improvement: Don’t generate rewrite rules for notepad as they're unused.
• Improvement: Support modifying HTML output of a Calendar day via ef_pre_calendar_single_date_item_html filter. Props cklosowski.

0.8.2 (Sept. 16, 2016)

• Improvement: Updated Spanish localization thanks to moucho
• Improvement: New Swedish localization thanks to Warpsmith
• Improvement: Japanese localization 100% on translate.wordpress.org
• Improvement: Updated Brazilian Portuguese translation. Props arthurdapaz
• Improvement: Internationalization improvements in settings and calendar. Props robertsky
• Improvement: Corrections made to Brazilian Portuguese translation. Props angelosds
• Improvement: Updates Travis CI to support containerization, PHP 7 and HHVM
• Bug fix: Fix PHP warning in class-module.php. Props jeremyclarke
• Bug fix: Add label to Dashboard Notes so it displays as "Dashboard Notes" when exporting
• Bug fix: Clean up PHP code to comply with PHP Strict Standards
• Bug fix: Removed deprecated get_currentuserinfo. Props kraftbj
• Bug fix: Adding $post param to preview_post_link filter to fix PHP warning. Props micahwave
• Bug fix: Calendar current_user_can capability check corrected. Props keg
• Bug fix: Clean up custom status timestamp fix and add unit tests to test different cases of the hack
• Bug fix: Fix error messaging for module settings pages. Props natebot
• Bug fix: Add check on user-settings.php to prevent error. Props paulabbott
• Bug fix: Add check for empty author when sending notification. Props petenelson
• Bug fix: Remove PHP4 constructor from screen options. Props mjangda

0.8.1 (Apr 13, 2016)

• New German localization thanks to Circleview
• New Spanish localization thanks to Andrew Kurtis from Web Hosting Hub.
• Performance improvements for the calendar, custom statuses, and editorial metadata
• Bug fix: Show "(no title)" on the calendar when a post doesn't have a title.
• Bug fix: Persist the future date position of a post on the calendar when a post is updated.

0.8 (Dec 19, 2013)

• New feature: Dashboard Notepad. Editors and admins can use a notepad widget on the dashboard to leave instructions, important announcements, etc. for every WordPress user.
• New feature: Double-click to create a new post on the calendar, or edit the details associated with an existing post. Thanks bbrooks and cojennin
• Post subscriptions are now saved via AJAX, which means you can add or remove subscribers without hitting "Save Post". This is especially useful for editorial comments. Thanks cojennin
• Subscribe to a post's updates using a quick "Follow" link on Manage Posts, the Calendar, or Story Budget.
• Assign a date and time to editorial metadata's date field. Thanks cojennin
• Modify which filters are used on the calendar and story budget, or add your own. Thanks cojennin
• Scheduled publication time is now included in relevant email notifications. Props mattoperry
• Calendar and story budget module descriptions link to their respective pages in the admin for usability. Props rgalindo05
• New Russian localization thanks to te-st.ru
• Updated Japanese localization thanks to naokomc
• Updated Dutch localization thanks to kardotim
• Bug fix: User group selection no longer appears in network admin.
• Improved slug generation when changing title of Drafts thanks to natebot
• Bug fix: Permalink slugs are now editable after initial save. Props nickdaugherty
• Bug fix: Permit calendar filters to be properly reset.
• Bug fix: Posts, pages, custom post types, etc. can now be previewed correctly.
• Bug fix: Fix Strict Standards PHP notice with add_caps_to_role(). Props azizur
• Bug fix: PHP compatability issue. Props ziz.
• Bug fix: Correct calendar encoding. Props willvanwazer
• Bug fix: Check for $screen in filter_manage_posts_column. Props styledev.
• Bug fix: Correct Edit Flow icon size. Props Fstop.
• Improvement: Add editorial metadata to the Posts screen. Props drrobotnik
• Improvement: Visual support for MP6. Props keoshi.
• Bug fix: Catch WP_Error returning with get_terms(). Props paulgibbs
• Improvement: Better unit testing with PHPUnit thanks to willvanwazer and mbijon
• Bug fix: Correctly close out list item in editorial comments. Props jkovis

The following folks did some tremendous work helping with the release of Edit Flow v0.8: azizur, bbrooks, danielbachhuber, drrobotnik, Fstop, jkovis, kardotim, keoshi mattoperry, mbijon, [naokomc](https://github.com/naokom, natebot, nickdaugherty, paulgibbs, rgalindo05, te-st.ru, willvanwazer, ziz.

0.7.6 (Jan. 30, 2013)

• Bug fix for 3.4.2 compatibility.

0.7.5 (Jan. 29, 2013)

• New Japanese localization thanks to naokomc
• New French localization thanks to boris-hocde
• Allow custom post statuses to be completely disabled for a post type, preventing situations where 'draft' posts could disappear when the draft status was deleted.
• Better implementation of the hack we have to employ for editable slugs in the post edit screen. Thanks cojennin for the assist.
• Editorial metadata names can now be up to 200 characters (instead of 20 previously). Props cojennin
• Bug fix: Load modules on 'init' so the strings associated with each class can be properly translated
• Bug fix: Pagination functional again when filtering to a post type
• Bug fix: Pre-PHP 5.2.9 array_unique() compatibility
• Bug fix: Respect the timezone when indicating which day is Today
• Bug fix: Calendar should work for all post types, regardless of which are supposed to be added to it

0.7.4 (Nov. 21, 2012)

• Added 'Scheduled' as one of the statuses you see in the 'Posts At A Glance' widget. 'Private' and other core statuses can be added with a filter
• Sort posts on the Manage Posts view by visible editorial metadata date fields
• Modify email notifications with two filters
• Bug fix: Proper support for unicode characters in custom status and editorial metadata descriptions
• Bug fix: Show the proper last modified value on the story budget when the server's timezone is not set to GMT. Props danls
• Bug fix: Make the jQuery UI theme for Edit Flow more specific so it doesn't conflict with core modals
• Bug fix: Use the proper singlular label for a post type when generating notification text
• Bug fix: Post slug now updates when the post has a custom status.
• Bug fix: When determining whether a user can change a post's status, check the 'edit_posts' cap for the post type.

0.7.3 (Jul. 3, 2012)

• Bug fix: Support PHP 5.2.x by removing the anonymous functions we mistakenly added
• Bug fix: Only update user's Story Budget saved filters when the Story Budget is being viewed, to avoid other views setting the filter values

0.7.2 (Jul. 3, 2012)

• Users without the 'publish_posts' capability can now use and change custom statuses. Props Daniel Chesterton
• Support for trashing posts from the calendar. Thanks Dan York for the idea and a bit of code
• Updated codebase to use PHP5-style OOP references
• Fixed some script and stylesheet references that had a double '//' in the URI path
• New edit_flow_supported_module_post_types_args filter allows you to enable custom statuses and other modules for private post types

0.7.1 (Apr. 11, 2012)

• Show the year on the calendar and story budget if it's not the current year
• Allow users to save post subscriptions the first time they save the post. This also fixes the bug where a user wouldn't be subscribed until they saved the post twice
• Changed the behavior of notifications for the user changing a status or leaving a comment. Previously, they'd receive an email with the action they just performed; now they do not. This can be changed with a filter
• New Italian localization thanks to Luca Patané
• Bug fix: Auto-subscribe the post author to their posts by default but make it filterable
• Bug fix: Only show authors in the user dropdown for the calendar and the story budget. This new behavior can be filtered out however
• Bug fix: Metaboxes are registered with proper priority. Props benbalter
• Bug fix: If a user hasn't ever opened the calendar before, the date should default to today, not the Unix Epoch
• Bug fix: Prevent editorial metadata filters from stomping on others' uses by actually returning the original value when we don't want to manipulate it
• Bug fix: Specify a max-width on <select> dropdowns in the calendar and story budget so long values don't break formatting

0.7 (Jan. 9, 2012)

• Entire plugin was rewritten into a modular architecture (e.g. each feature is broken into a module you can enable or disable). One point of the modular architecture is to make it much easier for others to contribute new features. For the end user, there’s a brand new settings page where you can manage your modules. Each module then registers a configuration view for module settings. Most have options to choose which post types you’d like it activated for, along with other configuration options.
• Calendar is far more functional. Content is viewed in a six week view by default, and number of weeks is configurable in screen options. Posts can be dragged and dropped between dates. Click on a post title to get the details about the post, including editorial metadata.
• Custom statuses can be drag and drop ordered with AJAX. All statuses (including core ‘draft’ and ‘pending’) can be edited or deleted.
• Editorial Metadata terms can be ordered with AJAX. Terms can be made “viewable” and then will be displayed on the manage posts view and calendar if enabled.
• Story Budget shows “viewable” editorial metadata and fixes a few bugs, including not showing posts in a subcategory of a parent category.
• Notifications/subscriptions are filtered so you can disable the auto-subscribing of authors or editorial commenters.
• Important note: If upgrading from pre-v0.6, please upgrade to v0.6.5 first to ensure all of your data remains intact.
• Read the full release post

0.6.5 (Sept. 19, 2011)

• Bug fix: Workaround for a bug in core where the timestamp is set when a post is saved with a custom status. Instead, we update the timestamp on publish to current time if a custom post date hasn't been set. Thanks saomay for help tracking the bug down.

0.6.4 (Jul. 22, 2011)

• Display unpublished custom statuses inline with the post title, per WordPress standard UI
• New number type for editorial metadata, so you can have fields like "Word Count"
• Dropped the admin option for disabling custom statuses on posts. It didn't work, and this is handled by post_type_supports()
• Add a 'Clear' link to editorial metadata date fields to allow user to easily clear the input
• Bug fix: Proper support for bulk editing custom statuses
• Bug fix: Contributor saving a new post respects the default custom status, instead of reverting to 'draft' as the post status
• Bug fix: Better respect for user roles and capabilities in Story Budget
• Bug fix: Custom statuses in Quick Edit now work as you'd expect them
• Bug fix: Show all taxonomy terms (most likely categories) on the Story Budget, regardless of whether they include published content
• Bug fix: If there are no editorial metadata fields available, a message will display instead of leaving an empty post meta box

0.6.3 (Mar. 21, 2011)

• Restored email notifications to old delivery method instead of queueing with WP cron because of reliability issues.
• Better approach to including files so Edit Flow works properly on Windows systems.
• Option to see all unpublished content on story budget and editorial calendar with a filter to include scheduled posts as unpublished content.

0.6.2 (Jan. 26, 2011)

• Bug fix: Post Titles were broken in email notifications. (Thanks kfawcett and madguy000!)
• Bug fix: Bulk editing any post types would cause editorial metadata to occasionally be deleted. (Thanks meganknight!)

0.6.1 (Jan. 9, 2011)

• Custom Post Type support for custom post statuses, editorial metadata, editorial comments, notifications, (Thanks to all who requested this!)
• Added search and filtering tools for user and usergroup lists
• Email notifications are now queued to improve performance and avoid issues with spam
• Posts in calendar now have a unique classname based on the status (Thanks erikajurney)
• The "Posts I'm Following" widget has a cleaner look
• Bug fix: Users without JavaScript no longer see the status dropdown
• Bug fix: Users with JavaScript no longer see the respond button for editorial comments
• Bug fix: Contributors should not have the ability to publish through Quick Edit
• Bug fix: Proper i18n support (Thanks Beto Frega and others)
• Bug fix: Editorial Comments issue in IE (Thanks asecondwill and James Skaggs)
• Bug fix: Always email admin feature was not working (Thanks nicomollet)
• Bug fix: Notifications for scheduled posts did not include links (Thanks erikajurney)

0.6 (Nov. 9, 2010)

• New feature: Editorial Metadata. Previously, Edit Flow had 'due date', 'location' and 'description', as available editorial metadata. We've expanded this functionality to be completely customizable; admins can add any number of editorial metadata with the following types: checkbox, date, location, paragraph, text, or user dropdown.
• New feature: Story Budget. View all of your upcoming posts in a more traditional story budget view. Posts are grouped by category, and view can be filtered by post status, category, user, or limited to a date range. Hit the print button to take it on the go.
• Completely rewritten calendar view now saves filter state on a user by user basis. Also, highlights current day, and displays status and time for each post.
• Temporarily disabled QuickPitch widget until we rewrite it to support editorial metadata.
• Bug fix: Editorial comments should no longer show up in the stock Recent Comments widget or in the comments view in the WordPress Admin. The comment count number should also be correct.
• Bug fix: Duplicate custom post statuses and usergroups are handled in more sane ways (aka creating, editing, and deleting should work as expected)

0.5.3 (Oct. 6, 2010)

• Fixes issue where default Custom Statuses and User Groups were returning even after being deleted

0.5.1 (Jul. 29, 2010)

• Editorial calendar improvements: filter by category or author
• QuickPitch stories get default status instead of pitch status
• No email notifications for “Auto Draft” post status
• Backwards compatibility with WordPress 2.9.x

0.5 (Jul. 3, 2010)

• Calendar view for visualizing and spec assignments at a glance
• Improvements for WordPress 3.0 compatibility

0.4

• Users that edit a post automatically get subscribed to that post (only if they have the manage subscriptions capability)
• Edit Flow automatically hides editorial comments if the plugin is disabled
• Moved default custom status additions to upgrade function so they don't get added every time you activate
• Bug fix: remove editorial comments from comments feed

0.3.3 (Feb. 4, 2010)

• Added tooltips with descriptions to the Status dropdown and Status Filter links. Thanks to Gil Namur for the great idea!
• Fixed the issue where subscribed users/usergroups were not receiving notifications

0.3.2 (Jan. 28, 2010)

• Fixed fatal error if notifications were disabled

0.3.1

• Small bug fixes

0.3

• Note: Edit Flow now requires 2.9+
• Notification emails on status change now have specific subject lines messages based on action taken
• Action links in comment notifications now take the user to the comment form; i.e. clicking reply link in the email will focus on the comment text box and reply to the message
• Usergroups!
• Assign users and usergroups that should be notified of post updates
• Removed notify by role option since it's redundant because of usergroups
• Added "Always notify admin option"
• Added option to hide the status dropdown on Post and Page edit pages (default set to show)
• Added option to globally disable QuickPitch widget
• Bug fix: Custom Status names cannot be longer than 20 chars
• Bug fix: Deleted users are removed as subscribers from posts
• Bug fix: Blank menu items should now be sorta hidden

0.2

• Custom Statuses are now supported for pages
• Editorial Comments (with threading)
• Email Notifications (on post status change and editorial comment)
• Additional Post metadata
• Quick Pitch Dashboard widget
• Bug fix: sorting issue on Manage Posts page (Mad props to David Smith from Columbia U.)
• Other bug fixes
• Better localization support

0.1.5

• Ability to assign custom statuses to posts