We’ve added several new features that lead to faster content creation and more efficient collaboration across content teams. We’ve also given customers more control over the content lifecycle with new role-based access controls and the ability to kick off internal or external processes at any step of the workflow. This opens up a wide range of new use cases from automating translation processes to sending notifications via third-party services.

Of course, we didn’t ignore the developers. We’ve introduced webhook improvements that create new integration possibilities, and added the ability to copy all content and assets within a project to support various deployment and testing scenarios.

With so much going on, I can’t possibly cover everything in just those couple of paragraphs. So, continue reading below to learn more about each of these announcements.

Faster Content Creation with Content Groups

Content production is now faster, as the authoring interface groups elements based on similar characteristics or their intended use. This adds context for authors, making it clear what each field is intended for and whether or not it’s their responsibility. Often, content is created by multiple contributors with different areas of expertise. Content Groups make it easy to distinguish between these areas and allow each contributor to focus on their specific section.

Common Use Cases:

1. Metadata elements can be clearly distinguished from other fields, allowing an SEO expert to populate them while copywriters create the rest of the content.
2. Developers sometimes include website configuration details as part of the content model to control how that content will be displayed on the front end.
3. Subject Matter Experts may be responsible for elements related to their area of expertise (e.g., product specifications), while copywriters are responsible for the remaining elements.

More Efficient Collaboration with @Mentions in Comments

When reviewing content, users can now direct comments at specific contributors using the @name format. This notifies the contributor there’s something they need to respond to, without forcing them to read through every comment. Collaboration is now much more efficient as many comments are often not relevant to all team members.

Common Use Cases:

1. Subject Matter Experts can easily be called upon to respond to specific details within a content item, improving the accuracy of that content.
2. A reviewer may “assign” a content element to a contributor for feedback – for example, if there are questions about the specific wording to describe a product.

Role-based Access Control

Access to content can now be managed based on user roles, with the level of access configurable for each content type – view, edit, create, and/or delete. In addition to making the content more secure, the typical user’s view is also simplified as they’ll no longer see content they don’t have permission to view.

Common Use Cases:

1. Access to content can be managed according to different departments, preventing users from interfering with another department’s work.
2. Sensitive content (e.g., financials, acquisitions, etc.) can be locked down to a small set of employees until it’s ready to publish.
3. Website configurations are sometimes managed as content. These items can be restricted to technical staff who understand the impact of making changes to these configurations.

Trigger Webhooks from Workflow Steps

Webhooks can now be associated with any steps in a workflow and triggered when content items reach those steps. This makes it possible to kick off any number of internal or external activities throughout the content production process.

Common Use Cases:

1. Translation processes can be kicked off when content reaches the appropriate workflow step, allowing customers to create and review all language variants before any content is published.
2. Companies that use workplace collaboration tools (e.g., Slack) can be notified within those tools when content is ready to review.
3. Content can be enriched by data from other systems (e.g., ERP, PIM, etc.) based on details entered by authors. 

Copy All Content and Assets in a Project

Customers can now clone all content and assets in an existing project. Having multiple projects that contain the same content makes it easier to manage separate deployment environments and to ensure a safe testing environment that doesn’t impact anything in production.

Common Use Cases: 

1. Multiple projects make it safer for developers to test APIs and changes to content models.
2. Deploying new websites is now safer and easier, as separate projects can be used for staging and production environments

Hopefully, you’re as excited as I am about these new improvements. If you have any questions or want to dig into the new features yourself, check out our demo or get your hands on the free trial!