With an increasingly complex global digital landscape, content teams increasingly depend on decoupled (headless) content management systems (CMS) to manage, publish, and distribute content. One way to promote quality and consistency for essential content endeavors is through a multi-tiered review process. Implementing such a review process within decoupled content systems champions greater editorial accuracy, collaborative efforts, and operational productivity.
Where Multi-Step Review Processes are Required
A multi-step review process is required where content undergoes various types of treatment editorial review, fact-check review, legal review, and brand review before publication. This is effective because it minimizes the opportunity for something to go live with mistakes, misinformation, or messaging that doesn’t align with brand standards. In addition, this is even more necessary when working with decoupled efforts, as content goes live in too many places and too many screens without one cohesive message. Contentful competitors often emphasize enhanced workflow customization to support these complex review processes, ensuring that each step is clearly defined and efficiently managed. Each step is necessary to ensure the best quality product is sent to publication.
Where Decoupled CMS Workflows Have Certain Defined Steps for Review
Decoupled CMS workflows operate with certain defined steps for review which create transparency and effective treatment at each step. These include but are not limited to: original writing/content creation, editorial review, subject matter expert review, legal compliance or check, brand review, and final approval. Each step can be clearly defined allowing transparency of content creation, expectation management, and ultimately leading to publication of actual content that is error-free, on brand, and for the right audience.
How to Integrate Automated Workflow Tools
Automated workflow tools can help facilitate a multi-step review process in a decoupled content creation system. Integration with content stages through automated workflows makes movement between content stages easier and provides automatic alerts and notifications for stakeholders at each respective stage. This decreases manual legwork, prevents logjams, and encourages timely execution and treatment of content at each step. Automated efforts save time and allow for teams to focus on quality versus transition and movement tracking.
Role-Based Access and Permissions for Review Processes
Decoupled systems consider role-based access and permissions essential as well since multi-step review processes both need organization and security. Organizations can assign permissions by role (editor, author, legal reviewer, content strategist) so that access is granted, and responsibilities are more manageable. This means no one person or role in the organization can change or approve content that isn’t theirs content can move through the review process it’s meant to go through in a structured, secure way without jeopardizing the integrity of the content.
Increased Collaboration from Transparency in Multi-Step Review Processes
Multi-step review processes are transparent when many content teams would otherwise remain disparate and unaware of who is doing what, when, and how in terms of global work. With an understanding of who is responsible for which parts of the review process, how long they have, and what they’re expected to produce, all stakeholders across the review process can collaborate better. Reviewers can leave comments and edits centered around specific junctions of the review process, which encourages situational awareness, communication, and the ability for content pain points to be resolved immediately. Transparency reduces redundancy and miscommunication, keeping all stakeholders on the same page and informed.
Real-Time Feedback and Revision Capabilities During Review Processes
Multi-step review processes can carry a lot of weight, so real-time feedback and revision capabilities should be integrated during effective decoupled systems. Whether revisions are completed directly in the moment or feedback is provided when time allows depends upon the scenario, but when collaborative opportunities occur, especially within the process of a CMS workflow, teams can edit and push content through faster. Real-time collaboration eliminates excessive processing time and allows for more accuracy while also maintaining a sense of speed necessary for timely publication.
Compliance and Legal Reviews Integrated into Step Review Process Reduce Risk
Mandatory compliance and legal reviews integrated into a step review process reduce regulatory or brand risk. When content review processes communicate that compliance reviews are required, they are more likely to pass the first time since the partners know that a compliance legal check is needed. Adding legal as part of the process of creation for content allows for issues to be raised before content is finalized, reducing the overall risk of compliance errors that lead to massive fines or poor impressions as a brand.
Opportunities For Growth from Scalable, Modular Review Workflows
Review processes that operate via a multi-step process allow for growth opportunities via scalability and modular creation. For businesses that desire to scale via replication, modular reviews allow for derivative milestones easily created by teams for like-kind content, areas, and projects. Scalable review processes do not sacrifice quality and ensure large-scale content creation efforts are executed with precision, accuracy, quality, and timing.
Tracking Through Reporting Benefits Operational Efficiency
If the review cannot be completed through tracking established in uncoupled CMS environments, reporting ability allows for creators to let management know about its status. They can track and report on needs for review assessment so that management can better gauge employee workloads and reallocate resources as necessary to keep content on the linear path to deadline desire. Tracking a review, too, fosters accountability and urgency, proactive rather than reactive actions. A task easy to track is a task easily delayed.
Transparent Content Version History
Content version history is crucial for the review process to remain accountable and transparent. For example, if someone is on the final approval step of something overdue for a long time, it’s essential to see who changed what on which date and who approved what in the prior steps. Thus, being able to access this information via the version history of the project not only makes for a smoother necessary final evaluation but also assists in auditing pieces later. Thus, version histories complement a decoupled system with fast multistep review processes because it helps compliance and clarity across extended review stages.
Adequate Training and Resources
A decoupled system with multistep review processes can only benefit from them if the organization provides adequate training and resources to ensure the content team is on the same page. With thorough documentation, proper onboarding and training over time allow reviewers to learn expected workflows, system capabilities, and what their specific roles during the process are. When people are appropriately trained, they are less likely to make mistakes, more likely to feel confident in their abilities to assess (and reject) pitches and pieces, and know how best to leverage a decoupled system for the advantages that such a structured review process can bring.
Workflow Optimization for Continuous Improvement
Multistep review processes necessitate continuous improvement. Organizations should evaluate regularly how performance is going, how teams are adjusting through necessary stages, and where improvements can be made to optimize solidified processes in the future. Thus, with an empathetic approach to assessing how the workflows are working, editorial teams can maintain agility and responsiveness to their review processes to continue timely effective quality content across multiple platforms.
Notification Systems to Reduce Review Responsibilities
Where a review process is multi-stepped, a notification system allows other reviewers to be made aware of what’s due when and what matters and is time-sensitive. Reviewers can receive updates which reduces delays and ensures that all parties are on the same page. Notification systems for key stakeholders at various steps allow organizations to review content in a more expedient manner, transfer from step to step more effectively, and make adjustments more quickly for maximum efficiency.
Review Workflow Dependencies Related to Other Teams
Certain reviews require the collaboration or consensus from more than one team, especially in a decoupled CMS environment where editorial teams and development teams and legal teams collaborate but operate separately. Understanding the dependencies related to other teams and assessing how such reviews can be processed (or not) based on feedback from other teams helps assess the big picture so that all team members understand when their quantification is needed and when further review will just bog down the process.
Review Feedback Opportunities
A multi-step review process should contain opportunities for a review of the review as well. Whether it be feedback on the process and ease of use of the multi-step review process or feedback on whether the content is accurate and needs further adjustment for improvement, consistently reviewing contributions allows for ongoing quality control. Feedback should be taken seriously and applied for future processes to ensure all reviews maintain the highest quality of work and address new editorial needs in the meantime.
Balancing Rigor and Flexibility in Review Processes
The best multi-step review process is thus a balance of structure and fluidity. Definitive steps with a clear process allow for in-depth content evaluations and protocol compliance, while modular incremental steps allow for process flexibility and rapid turnaround for time-sensitive or unexpected content needs. By blending these aspects, the editorial staff can maintain quality control without sacrificing integrity for quickness and adaptability. Therefore, review processes are only as effective as they are appropriate for changing content requirements.
Conclusion
Structured, multi-step reviews are essential to quality control, interdepartmental collaboration, and necessary efficiencies in changing work environments that decoupled content systems require. Decoupled or headless content systems provide an element of flexibility that allows content creators and editors to focus on content creation and distribution without worrying about the presentation layer. However, without a structured multi-step review process that focuses on proper representations, compliance needs, and quality control endeavors, organizations may fall short over time with relevance and appropriateness of content legally, as well.
Multi-step review processes include outlining the steps of the process from initial draft through peer edits to subject matter expert review, compliance review, legal review, and approval. Each step contains clearly defined expectations with transparent communication disseminated to all necessary parties involved. As the processes become more formalized, there is less ambiguity as to who is responsible for what or when. This creates accountability and reduces risk factors associated with lost documents, neglect, or inadequacies to perform within certain timeframes.
These steps can be automated as well so that manual efforts are drastically reduced. For example, utilizing scheduling software allows editorial teams to convey how pieces move from one stage of review to the next without having to check in physically to do so. In addition, such tools provide reminders and alerts to reviewers for their outstanding tasks. Decreased administrative burdens afford team members more time to focus on critical thinking and developmental strategies as opposed to spending valuable work hours focusing on low-level tasks.
Another byproduct of utilizing structured multi-step reviews is transparency, which fosters successful collaboration. When editors or compliance reviewers know where to access not only works-in-progress of their own but that of others, they are more equipped to assist and provide value based on contextualized understanding. Therefore, review processes create transparency via Gantt charts, agenda-driven meetings, and collaborative software that both pinpoints editors’ needs and allows for better feedback on others’ work.
Finally, there is continuous optimization potential when it comes to leveraging structured multi-step reviews. Editors can see how often reviews are completed and on time, creating percentage-based success indicators or qualitative feedback for potential improvements derived from past efforts. This agility gives editorial teams the ability to quickly and efficiently respond to evolving editorial needs, market conditions, etc. and safeguard against clear inaccuracy, compliance failures, and drops in productivity.
Ultimately, the ability to rely on successful structured multi-step reviews over time will allow organizations the opportunity to reliably scale content delivery as expanding audiences can rely on the same quality without deviation regardless of volume. Editorial teams should be able to comfortably handle larger endeavor workloads while efficiently adapting any changes they see fit necessary for organizational goals and audience needs. With structure, automation, transparency, and continuous improvement, editorial teams will have no choice but to confidently provide the best possible content across all platforms.
