Guide
How to set up an editorial workflow in WordPress
A working editorial workflow is a short list of stages, a clear owner for each move, and one place to see the plan. Here is how to build that with what WordPress already gives you, and where a plugin helps.
1. Name your stages
Start with the statuses WordPress ships: draft, pending review, scheduled and published. Most small desks never need more. Draft means someone is writing it. Pending review means it is ready for an editor. Scheduled means an editor has approved it and set a date. Published means it is live. Write those four definitions down and share them, because a status only works when everyone reads it the same way.
2. Give each move an owner
| Role | Write posts | Submit for review | Publish |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contributor | Yes, own posts | Yes | No |
| Author | Yes, own posts | Yes | Yes, own posts |
| Editor | Yes, anyone's | Yes | Yes, anyone's |
WordPress roles already say who can do what. A Contributor can write and submit for review but cannot publish. An Author can publish their own posts. An Editor can publish and manage everyone's posts. If you want writers to hand work over instead of publishing it themselves, use Contributors, or keep Authors and enforce the rule. Editloft's status transitions do the second: only editors and administrators can publish, schedule and unpublish.
3. Plan on a calendar
A list of posts tells you what exists. A calendar tells you what is missing. Put every scheduled story on one calendar, keep undated drafts in a separate pile, and look at the next two weeks at the start of each week. The Editloft editorial calendar does this inside the WordPress admin, with drag-and-drop dates and an optional iCal feed.
4. Keep a history
Sooner or later someone will ask why a story went live early or came back down. WordPress revisions show what changed in the text, not who moved the status or the date. An audit trail answers that in seconds. Whatever tool you use, record status changes, date changes and who made them.
5. Review it monthly
Once a month, look at where stories stall. If drafts pile up in pending review, you have an editor bottleneck. If the calendar is thin on Fridays, you have a planning gap. Change one thing, then look again next month.
Where Editloft fits
Editloft is a free plugin with three modules: an editorial calendar, an audit trail and role-based status transitions. It does not add custom statuses, editorial comments, notifications or a story budget. If you need those, read the Edit Flow alternative comparison first.
Questions
Editorial workflow FAQ
Do I need a plugin to run an editorial workflow in WordPress?
No. WordPress already has draft, pending review, scheduled and published statuses, plus roles for contributors, authors and editors. A plugin helps when you want a shared calendar, a record of changes, or stricter rules about who can publish.
What is the difference between a Contributor, an Author and an Editor?
A Contributor can write and submit posts for review but cannot publish. An Author can publish their own posts. An Editor can publish and manage everyone's posts.
How do I see who changed a post's status?
WordPress keeps revisions of the content but not a clear history of status and date changes. Editloft's audit trail records each one, with the person and the path it came through.
Free, open source, GPLv2
Try the workflow on a staging site
Editloft is free and takes a minute to install. Switch on the modules you want and leave the rest off.