I have just come across the Edit Flow plugin. Currently at version 0.5.3 it promises to deliver a unified plugin for implementing a newsroom workflow within WordPress. In other words:

• Custom post statuses (e.g. assigned, draft, pending review, pitch, waiting for feedback).
• Editorial comments to provide feedback on posts.
• Email notification of changes to posts.
• Custom user groups.
• New post meta-data (e.g. description, due date, location etc).

The authors promises to bring additional features in the future and are currently conducting a survey to gauge priorities from their user base.

Currently the plugin offers similar features to what can be achieved from Peter’s Collaboration and Post Notes plugins, which I have used on other news websites. The idea of unifying these features in a single plugin specifically targeted at newsroom workflows is interesting though… and it will be interesting to see if this effort can provide an even better solution to this challenge. I’ve installed it and testing now.

Update: slides from Andrew Spittle describing the philosophy behind the plugin and functionality future releases.