Designing a content workflow with Arc XP

For new Arc XP customers, the onboarding process is an ideal time to examine existing content workflows for ways to make things more efficient for your users.

Here, we outline the steps and considerations for designing your content workflow when onboarding to Arc XP. While primarily focused on the initial onboarding, existing Arc XP customers who are adapting to change in their organization or launching a new project will also find the information detailed below helpful.

Replicate or reinvent?

Before diving into the specifics of the workflow itself, it’s worth reconfirming what a workflow is and also considering what your organization is trying to do by migrating to Arc XP.

What is a workflow?

First, a workflow is “the sequence of steps involved in moving from the beginning to the end of a working process.” At Arc XP, we think it’s important to consider more than just the sequence of steps but to also have a shared understanding of the following:

1. How things work – who does what, where to look, and why things work the way they do.

2. The settings that configure how your environment works.

Configurations and settings are a key step in designing a workflow. It is best to have a rough idea of how the applications will be configured prior to training end users established so that, when training does take place, it’s in an environment that is already configured to look and act how it will in production.

Customize the menu options and pick lists to be relevant to your business’ needs.
Decide which fields are exposed or hidden, and which are required.
Create article, image, video, and webpage templates catered to every production need that your organization encounters.

3. The automation that eliminates manual steps in the process.

The parts of your workflow that will be automated will depend largely on the preferences of your content teams, the technologies they have available, and the developer resources available for custom development work. Make sure any decisions about automation discussed with your content teams are also communicated to both the development team and Arc XP’s Customer Enablement (CE) team support engineers so that important details aren’t missed.

Ingest content and apply metadata and usage restrictions without user intervention.
Trigger task assignments and reduce unnecessary communication.
Send notifications to Slack, Microsoft Teams, and email addresses.
Configure webhooks to export content and generate reports for analysis.

An example content workflow from start to finish

Why are you migrating to Arc XP?

Are you trying to replicate your prior workflow exactly as it was using a new set of tools? Or, are you trying to use new technology to better meet your business needs in the most logical and efficient way?

Although the thought of changing how you create and deliver content to your audience can cause some resistance among your users, we don’t recommend trying to exactly mirror your previous workflows with Arc XP’s tools. Doing so often involves extra steps and not taking full advantage of the efficiencies the Arc XP platform provides.

While there will be instances where your organization needs to replicate an existing workflow – certain compliance protocols or existing technology integrations requiring specific steps for instance – generally, moving to a new technology platform will mean significant changes to how your teams currently operate.

For those users frustrated with your prior technology and/or workflows, moving to Arc XP can be a breath of fresh air. As they learn more about what Arc XP can do for them, designing a new workflow can be an exciting process that relieves anxiety and gives them a vision of how work can be easier and more efficient. Use migrating to Arc XP as an opportunity to design the simplest, most logical, and most efficient workflow possible.

Why spend time thinking about your workflow?

As you prepare to migrate to Arc XP you are likely thinking about your technology stack at large – the existing integrations with other tools, any custom development work being planned, and your website performance.

What sometimes comes as an afterthought is the experience of the individuals who will be working in Arc XP every day. Avoid headaches and future frustration by carefully considering how your workflow can improve the user experience.

Evaluating existing workflows:

Provides an opportunity to identify and address existing pain points and fully leverage the Arc XP platform.
Defines or reconfirms clear user roles and responsibilities.
Ensures a shared understanding of protocols and procedures.
Guarantees that users are leveraging Arc XP’s tools in the most effective and efficient ways.
Sets up your team for success with Arc XP.

Who should be involved in designing your workflow?

Stakeholders, change managers, and superusers

They bring a high-level understanding of past workflows, the scope of the current project, and a vision for reaching future goals.
These are also often your decision-makers with the authority to make changes that have larger implications on the project timeline and scope.

Lead content users

With their knowledge of past pain points and day-to-day operations, these individuals will have a good sense of which features are absolute requirements and which are “nice-to-haves”.
They will also know the skillsets and personalities of the end users and can advise on how receptive their teams will be to large changes in workflow.

Arc XP CE and technical account manager

We bring detailed product knowledge, best practice recommendations, and knowledge of how other clients are leveraging Arc XP’s tools.
We guide the process and make sure that important details are not overlooked and help clients when they are having trouble making final decisions.

When should you design your workflow?

We recommend starting workflow conversations early in the migration project to familiarize key stakeholders and user leads with the capabilities of Arc XP’s tools. Later, when the site is partially built and planned custom development work is in progress, we circle back for a detailed workflow discussion with the intention of having everything set before your teams go live with Arc XP and your site is launched. Here is a rough timeline of how the workflow conversations generally progress:

Project kick-off

Client stakeholders, superusers, and change managers are invited to learn about Arc XP’s tools and receive a customized Arc XP Editorial Overview (1.5 - 2 hours) from their Customer Enablement training consultant.
Arc XP’s Customer Enablement team works with your team to establish requirements, priorities, user personas, and a rough workflow sketch.

Mid-project

Your Arc XP CE training consultant holds a sequence of deep dive calls to initiate workstreams dedicated to refining the workflow. These typically include discussions about permissions, WebSked configuration, and page curation methods. (More detail is available in the Workflow Design Checklist section.)
At this point, you are asked to test settings, permissions, and workflows in your Sandbox setting to ensure everything is working as intended.
Your users can get a head-start on training by taking advantage of the full course list in Arc XP University. There they can choose to follow the Content Creator, Developer, or Website Administrator learning tracks – whichever is most useful for their role. Taking the time to study the resources in Arc XP University means that users will already understand the basics of Arc XP so future trainings can start at a more advanced level and be more productive.

Editorial training (lead-up to launch)

The Arc XP editorial lead will conduct customized train-the-trainer workshops, incorporating prior workflow decisions.
It is at this point you will want to conduct your user training and use that to consider workflow feedback and make any needed adjustments.
After adjustments have been made, your team copies settings and configurations from the Sandbox into your Production environment and validates the expected behavior.

Launch

Your new workflow is live and in use! On day one, we encourage your team to focus on core functionality and hold the iteration of advanced features for when initial core functionality kinks are worked out.

Post-launch

Following your launch, we encourage you to focus on refining your workflow. Use the insights from your teams to identify what has been working well and what needs to be re-examined.
Once those refinements have been implemented, explore more advanced functionality and automation to augment your initial workflow.

Workflow design checklist

As we work with your team to design your workflow and prepare your environments, we utilize the following checklist to ensure all areas are addressed. Note that this checklist takes into consideration other dependencies not listed here.

Permissions

Okta Groups – Register your users in your Okta instance and add them to the appropriate groups, for example: Reporters, Editors, Devs, Admins, Video Editors, etc.
Roles - Create profiles of user personas that detail the exact actions users in that role can and cannot take.
Squads - Link users together (in Okta Groups) and the permissions they’ll have (Roles) to complete the process of configuring Permissions. When configuring the Squads in a multisite management context, you’ll be able to set which websites the Role permissions apply to.

Sites

Sections - The sections created here will constitute the content taxonomy on your site. A lot of attention goes to curating content on the homepage to keep it fresh and relevant to readers. But most of the content will be published to the section where it will live.
Hierarchies - Navigation elements on websites, such as header navigation bars, hamburger menus, and page footers are configured here. Choose which sections, sub-sections, and links you want to display to visitors to the website.

Arc XP Composer

Settings

Embedded Content Elements - decide which content element types you want to be available to users when working in Composer. Remember that this is where any custom embeds you have created will be listed.
Planning/Meta Tab - decide which fields you want your users to utilize in the Planning and Meta tabs, and which fields will be required to both save and publish a story.

Templates - think through all the content types your team creates and the scenarios they respond to (including special news events, holidays, sports tournaments, political elections, etc.). Media customers often start with templates for regular news articles, breaking news events, and opinion or columnist articles, and then gradually add more to the list as they get more comfortable working on Arc XP. For B2B and B2C teams, these templates often encompass product pages, blog article templates, public and corporate relations, etc.

Arc XP WebSked

Workflow Statuses (aka Schemas) - Workflow statuses should outline the main steps that content passes through in the production pipeline. A newly provisioned environment will come with Draft, Edit, and Publish statuses. Think through the steps in your production process. Which steps are the main milestones along that path? Consider adding statuses like Legal Review, Embargo, Correction, Translation Needed, and others.

Remember: workflow status updates can trigger the creation and automatic assignment of tasks. Think about which of these statuses also implies that a certain task needs to be completed, and if so, set up a task trigger and notification (listed below).

Pitching

Platforms - Places users can pitch content to that is waiting for review. Common examples of WebSked platforms are your website’s Homepage team or your social media team.
Publications - Including newsletters, newspapers, and magazines, where the user is pitching content to a specific edition of that publication. Using a webhook notification (listed below), Arc XP can send content that’s been curated as a Publication in WebSked to a third-party system downstream, such as a Print CMS or email service like MailChimp.

Groups - Not to be confused with Okta Groups, which are used for permissioning, WebSked Groups are used to organize tasks based on the teams they are assigned to. There are no permissions or restrictions for viewing and claiming tasks from Groups, so users will have to know which Group has the tasks they should be looking for. Examples of Groups in a newsroom could be Reporters, Editors, Photo Editors, Video Producers, etc.
Tasks - Configured in WebSked’s “Company” settings, these are the types of tasks the system will have available. Think, what actions your users will need to complete: Edit, Copy Edit, Photo Request, Video Edit Request, Translation Request.
Task Templates - Task Templates are useful for standardizing how tasks get assigned. Unlike tasks that are assigned automatically by a change in workflow status, these templates are used when manually creating a task and want to have certain fields already filled out for different situations your teams will encounter.
Task Trigger - Configured within the group’s settings, these can be set to respond to changes in workflow status and can create and automatically assign a task to a group or individual.
Notifications - Configured within the group’s settings, these can be set to respond to a range of user actions and automated actions that happen through WebSked and the content creation apps. Notifications can be sent to Slack, Microsoft Teams, Email, or via Webhook. The Webhook notification is of particular interest because it unlocks a range of custom workflows for our clients because it can be used to kick off API calls used in an integration or automation with other third-party systems.

Arc XP Photo Center

Metadata Configuration - In Photo Center, most of the workflow design will be related to configuring which metadata fields you want to use and how they will display to the user.

Manage Image Types - Types (such as Photograph, Graphic, and Illustration) can be set to display different sets of metadata fields. You can also set which of those fields are required to save the image.
Manage Templates - Templates are dependent on the Types (for example, if there is a Type called Photograph, you might have templates for “Photograph: News” and “Photograph: Sports”) and you can use them to pre-fill the visible metadata fields.
Image Metadata Configuration - Here you can set which metadata fields will be visible in the four corners of the image thumbnail on the Image results list in Photo Center.

Arc XP Video Center

Types - “Types” are Video Center’s version of templates. Pre-determine metadata field values to streamline the process of creating new videos.
Platforms – In Video Center “platforms” refers to the downstream destinations your content is published to.
Live Events - If you are planning on using Live Events, either fed by the Arc XP Mobile App’s video streaming capability or by another source feed, be sure to identify this to your Arc XP team so that they can be properly configured and validated.

Global settings

Tags

Settings - There is one setting to either enable or disable and it dictates whether users working in the Content Creation Apps can create tags on the fly (i.e., typing directly into the “Story Tags” metadata field) or if they can only apply a tag that already exists in Tag Manager. This setting not only has a significant impact on workflow but also on how tags will be used on the front end of your website.

Distributors & Restrictions

For any Inbound feed your team utilizes a “Distributor” will need to be created which enables the feed to show up as a filtering option in the app where the content is discoverable. (Text content in Composer, images in Photo Center, videos in Video Center.). If you have usage restrictions on the content ingested through these feeds, these can be configured in “Restrictions”.

Arc XP PageBuilder

Designing your PageBuilder workflow is a little different from the steps outlined for Arc XP’s content apps as it will depend on a wide range of factors. Make sure you have all the information available from the other people working on this onboarding project before making any workflow recommendations, as we don’t want to recommend anything that clashes with other decisions that have been made about how the site will work.

It is important that the following items are determined, and those decisions known across the team:

Are you utilizing the out-of-the-box components included with Arc XP Themes or are you developing your own blocks?
What pages and templates will you be using?
Do you have resolvers created for all your templates, including story/article sub-types?
Will you have multiple versions of your homepage?
What blocks and chains will you use on your homepage?
How will you get content into the blocks and chains you are using? Will you use manual curation of individual stories? Content feeds that populate list blocks? Or a hybrid of the two and use collections. If using Collections, will you use Dynamic Backfill?

Oftentimes, the first three items on the list above are things that have already been decided or configured by the time you are planning your workflow. The last three items are areas where Arc XP’s editorial consultant can help design a workflow that is both efficient for your users and ensures that the workflow meets the best practice recommendations for a performant website.