Every workflow consists of workflow steps that represent the state of a particular content item. What the steps symbolize is up to you. Choose the best way to divide your content creation flow according to how you work with each kind of content.
For every workflow you’ve come up with during the audit and discovery phase, consider the steps appropriate for the particular workflow.
Decide your naming conventions
Design your workflow steps based on your preferences and way of working. Here are a couple of ways to approach the workflow steps definition:
Process-based – To do, In progress, To review, To translate, Ready for publishing
Your options aren’t limited to what’s listed here. You can tailor your workflow steps to suit your business needs the best. You can also combine the workflows so that an item can switch from a schedule-based workflow to an activity-based one when your teams start working on it.
Define step transitions for clarity
For each workflow step, you can select other steps to which it can transition. Clearly defined step transitions help to avoid confusion and mistakes. For example, if you require content reviews, set the Draft step so that it cannot transition directly to the Published step.
Drawing prevents gray hair!
By this time, drawing your workflows as diagrams is a good idea. Up until now, it was enough to have a list of workflow steps per workflow. However, with the transitions, the simple lists could become very complex, and it’d be very easy to get lost.
You don’t need any special software for it. Just use pen and paper or whatever you’re comfortable with.Another option to note down the workflow design is to create a table, such as the one below.
Workflow step
Can transition to
In progress
To review, Archived
To review
In progress, To translate, Scheduled/Published, Archived
… and so on
…
However, if your workflow is complex, using a diagram is better because it’s easy to get lost in the table. Especially once you add roles to the steps in the subsequent design phase.
Use workflows for process automation
Developers can automate some of your team’s tasks using webhooks that are triggered when a content item’s workflow step changes.For example, notifying a specific group of people, extracting keywords automatically, or translating texts to different languages. Kontent.ai is an API-first platform, so connecting your content to other apps and platforms like Zapier, or Azure functions, is not a problem.
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If you end up with multiple workflows with the same steps, take note of these workflows. If the workflows remain very similar until the end of the workflow design, it's most likely worth merging them into one.
Not all content needs to go through every stepWhen you define step transitions, you can choose that certain steps can be skipped when they’re not relevant to a particular content item.In the example below, the Review step can transition to both Translate and Published steps, which means the Translate step can be skipped.
Draft > Review > Translate > Published
Draft > Review > Published
In Kontent.ai, there are three steps that are always part of every workflow and can't be renamed:
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