Editorial Workflow Manager

Editorial Workflow Manager adds an editorial checklist to the WordPress block editor (Gutenberg) so your team can follow a consistent pre-publish checklist every time you publish.

It’s built for content teams, agencies, and editors who want a lightweight publishing checklist workflow inside the editor — with clear “ready vs incomplete” feedback — without hard publish blocking.

This plugin does not output anything on the front end.

What you can do

• Create reusable checklist templates (required + optional items).
• Assign different editorial checklists to different post types.
• Track per-post checklist progress in the editor sidebar.
• See readiness and progress in the post list table, sidebar, post status panel, and pre-publish panel.

Typical use cases

• Blog posts: SEO checks, featured image, categories/tags, internal links, fact check.
• News/Editorial: legal review, source confirmation, editor sign-off checklist.
• Agencies: client approvals checklist, accessibility checks, brand requirements.
• Teams: consistent publishing workflow across authors and editors.

Key features

• Checklist templates – manage reusable checklists as a custom post type.
• Template editor (row-based UI) – add, remove, reorder items; mark each item Required or Optional.
• Required vs Optional items – readiness is based on required items only.
• Helper text + reference links – add plain guidance text and an optional reference URL to each checklist item.
• Per-post checklist state – each post/page stores its own checklist progress.
• Gutenberg / Block Editor sidebar – “Editorial Checklist” panel inside the editor.
• Readiness + progress indicators
  • Sidebar summary with Ready / Incomplete and required progress
  • wp-admin post list Readiness column for mapped post types
  • Post Status panel summary while editing
  • Non-blocking pre-publish warning when required items are missing
• Different checklist per post type – assign templates in Settings.
• Default templates included on activation.
• Fresh-install quickstart wizard – choose post types, assign starter templates, and jump straight into the editor.
• Lightweight editor tour – auto-open the checklist sidebar once and explain required-item readiness.
• Backward compatible upgrades – legacy templates still work and upgrade to UUID-based v2 items when saved.

Getting started

1. Activate the plugin and complete the Quickstart wizard.
2. Choose the post types where editorial checklists should appear.
3. Confirm the starter template mappings, then open the editor.
4. Follow the one-time sidebar tour in the block editor.
5. Complete checklist items and watch the readiness/progress summary update.
6. Adjust mappings later in Settings → Editorial Workflow or edit templates in Checklist Templates.