Before we started using Expressionengine here at Electric Putty we build most of our websites using a proprietary CMS, in fact our CMS pre-dates our company.

The imaginatively named epCMS began life way back in 2002, a time when the content management landscape was very different to today; third party CMS solutions were thin on the ground and every web agency worth its salt was developing their own. It evolved slowly over the following six years into a successful, feature rich and flexible system. But, as our client roster grew it became increasingly difficult to maintain a proprietary system and so in 2008, with some reluctance, we made the switch over the EE.

I say 'with some reluctance' because, without wishing to blow our own trumpet too much, there were a lot of things our CMS did really well - some, in fact, better that Expressionengine. It was designed with ease of use in mind and we spent a lot of time on the interface ensuring our users, many of whom had only rudimentary computer skills, could manage their websites with ease. Another thing it did really well was handle Workflow, something which we have really struggled with since make the switch.

The way we see it, to enable a successful Workflow you need a few basic concepts:

• Editors: People who can add and edit content
• Publishers: People who can add, edit and publish content
• Preview: The ability to see an 'non live' entry exactly as it will appear on the website
• Drafts: The ability to create a second version of an entry which can be edited without affecting the live site

You also need an interface which is transparent and easy to use. The current status of an entry needs to be immediately obvious and updating the status of a entry needs to be as easy as clicking a button. Previewing should be instant and in-line, you shouldn't need to go anywhere to see what your entry will look like.

On most of the above, out of the box at least, EE fails. Sure, it has the tools to grant and deny access to different statuses on a group by group basis, but the status drop down is a very unsatisfying method of moving an entry through a workflow and something our clients struggle with. It has no previewing facilities at all, indeed enabling the 'real' previewing of 'non-live' entries has been a real challenge. But the biggest obstacle of all to a successful workflow is the inability to create a draft - there is simply no way to update an existing entry without updating the live site or taking it off-line.

Faced with these short comings we began work on Better Workflow - our Add-on which aims to bring a real workflow process to Expressionengine. For the initial release we have opted for simplicity over flexibility.

Configuration

As far as settings go you specify which channels will use BWF and you can assign a 'role' to each user group - either Editor or Publisher.

The statuses are not editable in our initial release; when you enable the Add-on it creates a status group with the following statuses:

• Closed
• Draft
• Submitted
• Open

The life cycle of an entry

When you assign a channel to use BTW, it's settings are updated to use this status group. BWF also changes the default status for that channel so an entry starts its life in Draft. From here it moves to Submitted when the Editor is ready for review and then on to Open when the Publisher wants to put it live. An Editor can then put an Open entry into Draft and this creates a second version so that it can be updated without affecting the live site. From here the life cycle continues as before until the Publisher updates its status to Open at which point it replaces the current live version. In our model the Closed status is used exclusively for archived entries.

Moving between statuses is done via buttons on the publish screen. The statuses that are available to each role at a given point are also pre-defined in our initial release based on the rules above.

With BWF it is also possible to Preview an entry in any status - even 'Closed'.

Looking forward

Currently we have what we consider our Alpha release with all the key features working. We still have a few bugs to fix and some decisions to make about integration with other Third Party Add-ons - the likes of Structure, Playa and Martix all add to the complexity of BWF. We are demo'ing BWF next week at the London EE meetup and after that will be recruiting some testers for a private beta. If you're interested in becoming a tester or have any thoughts or comments we'd love to hear from you.

Many thanks, Malcolm

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