The Permissions Add-on for PublishPress is Here

The slogan of PublishPress is “Professional Publishing Tools for WordPress”. The latest PublishPress add-on allows a large team to work effectively in WordPress.

By default, WordPress offers a fixed set of publishing permissions:

• Contributors can write their own posts.
• Authors can write and also publish their own posts.
• Editors can edit and publish posts by anyone on the site.

There are some WordPress plugins that allow you to customize these permissions, but they're all working within a limited set of options.

After talking to hundreds of companies, we've realized that many of you can't fit your company's processes around WordPress' limitations:

• Some teams need a “Copy Edit” status for users in the”Copy Editor” group.
• Some teams want a “Needs Legal Approval” status for users in a “Legal” group.
• Some teams require a “Creative Approval” status so their branding experts can sign off on the post.

Today, we're releasing an add-on to solve those problems.

PublishPress Permissions

We have just released the PublishPress Permissions add-on, which allows you to decide your users publishing capabilities. In this first version, there are two permission options:

1. Edit metadata
2. Move content to a status

Let's describe both of those features …

1. Edit metadata

Metadata is a PublishPress feature that allows you add extra information to posts. The metadata will appear in the right sidebar, next to your posts. For example, the editor of a site can set a First Draft Date and enter Assignment details. Here's an example:

However, you wouldn't want your content creators to edit this metadata. After all, if they're running behind schedule, they could move their deadlines and change their assignments! So, with the PublishPress Permissions add-on, you can decide which user groups can edit metadata. In this example, only the Administrators can enter or change metadata:

2. Move content to a status

By default, most WordPress users have access to the “Publish” button. Anyone who is an Author, Editor or Administrator can publish content.

If you need more flexibility, then PublishPress Permissions is the solution.

The image below shows the content permissions available with the PublishPress Permissions add-on. You can choose which statuses are available to each user group.

If you haven't used PublishPress before, you should know that it allows you to create your own publishing statuses and user groups. So, in short, you can customize your publishing statuses, user groups, and the permissions that link them together.

How would this permissions chart work out for real users?

The image below shows what users in the Author group can see. They can save the content to the “Pitch” and “Pending Review” statuses. Or, they can publish the content.

This next image shows what users in the Contributor group can see. They can save the content to the “Pitch”, “In Progress” and “Draft” statuses. They can not publish the content – the Publish button is hidden from them.

It's worth noting that the permissions are cumulative. This means if someone is in both user groups, they will get the permissions from both groups. For example, this image shows someone who is in the Contributor and Photographer groups.

The Vision for PublishPress

This new add-on fits into a the vision for PublishPress: to create powerful publishing tools for WordPress.

Here are the current add-ons available:

• Content Checklist: Make sure all your site's content meets your standards.
• Slack Integration: Get comment and status change notifications inside Slack.
• Permissions

And here are upcoming add-on releases:

• Revision Management: Allow users to submit changes to published content. These revisions can be scheduled and / or approved.
• Better Notifications: Keep up-to-date with the content updates that you are most interested in.
• Multiple Authors: Assign multiple authors to one content item, and easily display their information.
• Multi-site and Multiple support: Write on one site, but publish to many sites.
• Pre-publishing checklists for WooCommerce: Allows WooCommerce teams to define tasks that must be complete before products are published.

Create your own publishing workflow

We hope that PublishPress Permissions gives you the ability to create your own publishing workflow:

• You control who gets to use the “Publish” button.
• You decide who gets to submit content to different statuses.
• WordPress publishing can meet the needs of your company.

Do you have any questions about PublishPress? Please let us know in the comments or contact us.

Click here to get a copy of the PublishPress Permissions add-on

Summary

If you are part of a WordPress team, give PublishPress a try.

In addition to Permissions, you'll also get:

• The best Editorial Calendar in WordPress
• Content Overview to get a clear picture of all your planned and published content.
• Comments and Notifications to leave feedback and keep your team in the loop. You can even send these to Slack.
• Metadata to give your team extra information about each post.
• Custom Statuses so that WordPress matches your team’s workflow.
• The ability to show multiple authors on a single post.
• A Content Checklist to make sure all your content meets your high standards.

WordPress for Teams. That's the goal.