Productivity hacks in Kontent.ai loved by our very own content creators

Recently, our Customer Education team lead, Martina Farkasova, was preparing content tips and tricks for an onsite customer training. That got her thinking. She reached out to Kontent.ai’s own content creators and editors to ask about their most used features in the Kontent.ai platform.

We all found each other’s advice pretty handy, so I’ve compiled the answers here to also help you and your teams. From fan favorites to hidden gems, these features can have a major impact on productivity.

Full-text search for exact matches

Full-text search is at the top of the list, mentioned by four of our content creators. Especially since this is something that’s not always a given, it makes the feature feel extra special to us. 

• “Full-text search is probably my favorite feature, and it’s super helpful. Too many services and platforms now have just semantic search, but sometimes I really want to find exactly what I typed in!”
  Jordan Torpy, Product Marketing Manager
• “I like using full-text search to quickly open content items that I’m looking for (so, copy-pasting a specific phrase or a part of a sentence directly from the website). I feel like that saves a lot of time.”
  Zaneta Styblova, Content Manager
• “When searching for content, I do a mix of full-text search and refine results, mostly by contributor or content type to make sure I’m landing on the right piece of content.”
  Monica Raszyk, Senior Director of Product Marketing
• “Full-text search is a great help when you have lots of content items in your content inventory and need to find the one you want to update quickly.”
  Radka Uhlirova, Product Marketing Manager

Plus, with intelligent search as an AI accelerator on the way soon, the search experience in Kontent.ai just keeps getting better.

A content-first approach with Used in

Another major contender? The Used in feature in the informational side panel of a content item. Like our customers, we’re also big on reusable, modular content (It’s in our company DNA, after all!) But it’s extremely important to handle all content items—no matter how small—with care, since a change to a content item that’s used in one context could affect its meaning elsewhere. That’s where Used in becomes a big help.

• “When I do updates to a content item or want to reuse copy from a content item but not verbatim, I check the Used in reference to see which pages will be affected, and if I need to create a copy of that content item so that it won’t affect anything I don’t want to. It is extremely helpful to make sure unwanted changes don’t go unnoticed.”
  Lucie Simonova, Creative Writer
• “If I’m rewriting content, replacing or updating logos or links, or thinking about archiving something, I can easily reference Used in to see where else the piece of content is used. If my updates are going to cause a problem for someone else, I should discuss that with them directly.”
  Monica Raszyk, Senior Director of Product Marketing
• “Used in is super useful to check what pages will be affected by my changes.”
  Zaneta Styblova, Content Manager
• “I use Used in a lot to check for any related content I need to update.”
  Samina Minda Hossain, Content Developer

No mess, no stress assets

In our team, we have a few enthusiastic early adopters of Replace file in assets, a feature currently in our Innovation Lab. Replace file lets a user replace an asset with the newest version; from there, it gets automatically updated in all the content items using it. No need to create a new draft and republish. This approach also minimizes clutter in the asset library, ensuring only the latest versions of, say, a logo, G2 badge, or employee profile, are available for use. Here are the productivity hacks for asset management that we love.

• “Replace file is such a time-saving feature. Although Replace file is still in our Innovation Lab, it’s a 9/10; it works great for quick image replacements in the lessons or documentation when a capability or a feature reference gets updated often.
  Samina Minda Hossain, Content Developer, Customer Education
• “I’m obsessed with Replace file. We used it a bunch during a rebrand project when creating and testing new images on the homepage and product pages. I sing its praises whenever I think about how much time it saved us during that period.”
  Monica Raszyk, Senior Director of Product Marketing
• “Replace file is a perfect time-saver, as it lets you replace an asset with the newest version and it gets automatically updated in all content items using it.”
  Radka Uhlirova, Product Marketing Manager
• “I like categorizing assets into folders so when I’m, for example, looking for someone’s headshot, I go to the Author photos folder.”
  Zaneta Styblova, Content Manager
• “Insert new component is handy when we want to add an image to a blog or a success story, but I know I’ll want to reuse that image later.”
  Jordan Torpy, Product Marketing Manager

Saving time and sanity with AI

At Kontent.ai, we like to use our in-platform native AI accelerators to save time, do the boring work, or provide a second opinion. Check out what some of our authors value as they format articles, review copy, or finalize the details of a new piece of content.

• “Ask AI, the AI assistant in the rich text editor: You type // and get creative. It’s the one thing that saves my sanity whenever I need to present information in tables. I find it flexible and capable because it always works with whatever you have in the content item. For example, it can rework your list into a table, or even completely rework and rearrange tables. I also use it to assist in brainstorming ideas based on the content I already have.”
  Jan Cerman, Senior Content Developer
• “Ask AI is super helpful when I want to ensure my tone and grammar are optimal enough and to provide some title suggestions that I can build upon or be inspired by.”
  Samina Minda Hossain, Content Developer
• “Ask AI and the Make shorter request is very useful. When re-reading something I produced over and over again, I can sometimes become “blind” to fluff or clunky structures because what I read makes sense in my head. This helps detect the potential fluff and rewrite parts that might be confusing to the reader.”
  Lucie Simonova, Creative Writer
• “Generate image descriptions with AI is great for adding alt text for stock images automatically. I don’t have to write stuff like a young marketer with a laptop drinking coffee myself.”
  Zaneta Styblova, Content Manager

Smooth collaboration and tasks

Our customers and creators agree: Kontent.ai’s focus on collaboration has always been appreciated—with features such as comments, suggestions, simultaneous editing, tasks, due dates, workflows, and more. When used together, content production goes much more smoothly. Authoring in the platform feels very familiar to other document editors we’ve been using forever, so the learning curve isn’t all that steep. 

• “I actually assign tasks to myself in content items that are nearly ready but are missing something that I’m waiting for (an image, a quote from someone who hasn’t sent it yet, etc.). This helps me not forget stuff.”
  Zaneta Styblova, Content Manager
• “Suggestions are just great, because with one click, you can approve it and it makes the review process much faster. I also like assigning tasks to myself to make sure I don’t forget anything, like adding the Open Graph image, checking if the tags fit when working with duplicated content items, or filling out the “update date” after updating content in a blog post. I don’t need to write these notes anywhere else because I have everything in one place.”
  Lucie Simonova, Creative Writer
• “Adding comments is extremely useful when I send my content for reviews. I mark parts of the content I wrote with comments providing explanations, suggestions, etc. It’s a really great collaborative tool that can help reduce the time for the reviewer to find any changes made in the content.”
  Samina Minda Hossain, Content Developer
• “I like using the Auto-replace with suggestion feature. I think it’s a quick and easy way to incorporate specific feedback on wording and typos.”
  Monica Raszyk, Senior Director of Product Marketing

Three cheers for comparing versions

In the same vein as the previous section, three of us called out the ability to compare versions specifically. Comparing versions allows authors to track changes over time, improve collaboration, easily revert to previous versions, maintain consistency and quality control, and improve accountability and transparency.

• “The color-coded version comparison, similarly to doc-style editing, is useful when I want to check what’s been overwritten during reviews or to find out how people accepted some of my suggestions.”
  Monica Raszyk, Senior Director of Product Marketing
• “I love comparing versions to see the other person’s new edits.”
  Zaneta Styblova, Content Manager
• “Using versions, I find it super useful to see any past edits and observe what changes were made, revert back to the previous version, or shuffle between versions when needed.”
  Samina Minda Hossain, Content Developer

Speeding up publishing workflows

Once we’re happy with a draft, it gets prepped for publishing. A few interesting features, including previews, taxonomies, validations, and (un)scheduling publish dates, help our content creators feel confident for the go-live.

• “I really appreciate that I can preview and edit in Web Spotlight without having to open an extra window to preview content.”
  Samina Minda Hossain, Content Developer
• I like the validation options for individual elements. Validation for text elements has saved us a lot of headaches in the past because, in some cases, the text needs to be written in a specific pattern. This is a way to ensure it happens and I really like that. I know that in some tools this isn’t possible.
  Jan Cerman, Senior Content Developer
• “Scheduling publishing is very useful, and it’s been very helpful for rebrands, blog posts, and press releases.”
  Jordan Torpy, Product Marketing Manager
• “When I use a specific taxonomy term to mark multiple items for publishing, I use that term in my filters to help speed up the process of bulk publishing.”
  Samina Minda Hossain, Content Developer

Fall in love with your faves now

Using these features can make a real difference in your daily tasks, helping you work with ease and focus. Try them out today, and see how a few simple tweaks can improve your workflow.

And for more information about any of these features, be sure to visit our Learn portal. It’s packed with practical guides, documentation, learning paths, and more to help you get the most out of your Kontent.ai experience.