Content that needs sign-off moves through a defined chain instead of being published straight away: Draft, then one or more review stages, then Published. Every handoff emails the right people and appears in their dashboard review queue.

Nothing about the chain is hardcoded. Statuses, roles, routing rules, SLAs and notifications are all defined in configuration, so the same plugin can run a two-step review on one site and a multi-stage compliance process on another.

Features

Custom review statuses between Draft and Published, with your own labels
Role-based approval — each step names the roles that may act on it
Conditional routing — divert items carrying a given taxonomy term down a different branch
Email notifications plus an “Awaiting your review” dashboard queue and admin-bar count
SLA escalation — re-notify approvers and escalate when an item sits too long, with an urgent override
Section-scoped editing — restrict an author to their assigned sections
Audit trail in its own table — shown on the post editor, browsable on its own screen, exportable as CSV, and optionally mirrored to Simple History
Works with the block editor, the classic editor and Elementor, on posts, pages and any custom post type

Configuring it

On activation a minimal default chain is installed. Export it as JSON from Editorial Workflow Tools, edit it, and import it back; imports are validated before they are saved. The /examples folder contains ready-made profiles.

OST Editorial Workflow