Request for the Content Audit Plugin

With some of the tasks that have been assigned to the Training Team, there was a discussion on how to assign and keep up with the lesson plans moving forward. I had recently written a blog post on the Content Audit pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party and it seemed to address many of the needs we were identifying.

Knowing that you don’t just simply install any old plugin on make.wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ it was suggested that we identify the key features of this plugin that address our needs to see if it is worth the process of vetting it to be added or perhaps writing something custom to suit the team and make.wordpress.org at the same time. It was also evident that other teams might have similar needs, especially the docs, accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility), and theme review teams (or anyone else that has handbooks or guidelines that need to be kept up to date).

So here’s my attempt to identify the key features from the Content Audit plugin that would help the training team with its duties. For purposes of this list, I will refer to “lesson plans” which are Posts currently, but it can be used on Pages or whatever terms other teams use.

1. A Content Audit Overview dashboard that indicates the status of the various pieces on content under the stewardship of the team. It indicates how many have been audited (and are therefore in good shape), are outdated, or are under review.
2. The ability to identify “Content Audit Attributes” which are really stages in the workflow and could include such things as “approved,” “outdated,” “under development,” “ready for review,” “available for testing,” etc.
3. A custom fieldCustom Field Custom Field, also referred to as post meta, is a feature in WordPress. It allows users to add additional information when writing a post, eg contributors’ names, auth. WordPress stores this information as metadata. Users can display this meta data by using template tags in their WordPress themes. that allows for notes to be attached to each lesson plan. This could be used to indicate what work has been done or needs to be done, or any other message specific to that lesson plan.
4. The ability to assign a lesson plan to a “Content Owner” who is different than the author. It can help identify who is currently responsible for that lesson plan.
5. An expiration date. Any content that should be reviewed on a regular basis can have an expiration date that will provide automatic reminders that eyeballs are needed on that lesson plan. In the Content Audit plugin this can also include email reminders being sent to the Content Owner. It also displays messages on the front end for logged-in users with the proper permissions.
6. Columns are added to the All Posts screen that indicate the Content Owner, Content Status, Notes, and Expiration date. This makes for a very quick overview that contributors could use to identify the highest priority (or low-hanging fruit) from the list of things to be done.

I feel that the Content Audit plugin would be of tremendous help to the team. I believe it would help us be more effective in getting good, up-to-date lesson plans created more quickly, and make it easier for volunteers to contribute and for team members to manage the project (it could eliminate the need to manage progress and tasks in spreadsheets!). I also think that other teams deal with many of these same issues and could benefit from such features. I know it’s a rather large plugin, but we’re asking it to do a rather large job. I would like for it, or something like it, to be considered to help the Training Team get its job done.

Questions? Comments? Input from other teams? How do we proceed?

#content-audit, #requests