Getting Started with EasyContent

Thank you for joining EasyContent! We hope that it's the beginning of our long journey together and that this article will help you learn how to use our platform to its full potential. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us via support@easycontent.io.

Your Account Structure

There are two main navigational menus in your account. The first one, the top white menu (#1), is the account menu. This is visible anywhere within EasyContent when you're logged in.

The bottom blue menu (#2) is the project menu. It only appears when you're inside a project.

🎯Business plan users can customize the background color of the project menu.

There is also a dropdown menu (#3) that allows you to edit your profile and account settings, along with other things. You can access it by clicking your avatar (the colored circle with your initials) at the top right corner of any page.

The exact set of menu items that will appear changes depending on your role and permissions.

Account Menu

• Project selection dropdown - quickly select the project you want to work on.
• Projects - displays all projects you have access to.
• Calendar - view your editorial calendar, update deadlines, assign users, create new content items, or create events.
• Team - contains the following submenu items:
  • Users - invite and manage your team members here.
  • Roles - create and manage roles and permissions here.
  • Teams - create and manage teams here. Teams are only for organizational purposes and don't affect a user's role and permissions.
• Integrations - generate and manage API keys for use in our WordPress plugin. You can also add and manage webhook endpoints here.
• Reports - contains the following submenu items:
  
  • Content Report - a chart of your project's progress over a period of time.
  • Communication - view all messages and comments from all users in the account.
• Help (the ? icon next to your avatar) - access EasyContent's documentation page (this page). If you are inside a project, you can create or view your custom documentation for that project.

Project Menu

If you are inside a project, the project menu will be populated with menu items. The exact set that appears will vary depending on your permissions.

• Dashboard - gives you a summary of this project's activity.
• Content - displays all the content items in this project and, depending on your permissions, allows you to edit, view, or manage them.
• Briefs - a page of "to do" items, upcoming tasks, or ideas that can be turned into content items. A brief becomes a content item when it's assigned to or claimed by a user. Users responsible for the first workflow stage can claim a brief.
• Mailbox - access your EasyContent mailbox for this project.  Communicate with other project members by sending and receiving messages. You'll also receive copies of the messages in your registered email.
• Files - manage all of this project's files.
• Configuration - contains the following submenu items:
  • Workflow settings - set up and manage this project's workflow statuses.
  • Categories - create and manage categories for this project. Use them to organize your briefs and content items.
  • Templates - create and manage templates that you can use on the content items in this project.
  • Project settings - configure this project's settings such as its name, assigned users, and more.

Creating Roles and Permissions

In this section, you'll learn how to create roles and permissions. In the account level menu, go to Team > Roles.

The following default roles are available to your account:

• Writer (writes the content)
• Editor (reviews and approves content)
• Admin (has full access to the account)

There are also content manager (who oversees content creation and can publish content items to external websites) and subject matter expert (mainly responsible for fact-checking, a must-have role in legal, medical, or other highly complex niches) roles. Those are for larger teams and are disabled by default, but you can activate them anytime.

🎯If you are a business plan user, you can create an unlimited number of roles.

Scrolling down the page will bring you to the permissions section.

Permissions are grouped by the application area they apply to. For example, you might want to grant all account-related permissions to the admin role, allow your content managers to manage everything on the project level, and provide your editors with access to briefs and content items inside a project.

Permissions define what users will see on their screens. For example, the "calendar" item in the account menu will only appear if the user has the "view publishing calendar" permission.

Inviting Users

After you've defined your roles, invite your team to your account by clicking the "invite" button on the "users" page (accessed from the account menu via Team > Users).

When inviting new users, you must assign them a role. By default, the role is set to admin, so be sure to change this accordingly. You can also immediately assign them to one or several projects if you want.

After the invitations are sent, the invited users will receive emails with links to join your account. You can copy the invite link by going to the pending invite tab and manually send it to them.

Creating Teams

Teams help you organize your users. To access it, go to Team > Teams in the project menu. You can also click the "Teams" button next to the "Invite" button on the Users page.

Your First Project

In this section, we'll guide you to creating your first project in EasyContent. Go to Projects in the account menu if you want to follow along.

Assigning Users

We will start by creating a new project and assigning users to it. Click the "Create a new project" button.

When creating a new project, you will be asked to assign users to it. You can always do it later, but it's a good idea to assign users to the projects they will work on immediately. Otherwise, even though they might be able to view and edit projects if they have the "manage projects" permission, they won't be able to participate in the approval workflow inside this project.

Setting Up Workflow

Once you've created your new project, you will be redirected to its Content page. This page will be empty, but what you need to know is that this is where your articles, blog posts, newsletters, social media posts, or whatever content you're working on will live. We refer to them as content items.

Proceed to the workflow settings page via Configuration > Workflow settings in the project menu.

Every project will have a default set of workflow stages which consists of the following: Draft > Editorial review > Approved for publishing > Completed.

You may also want to add stages like "Customer Review" or "Expert Review", depending on the purpose and type of content you put out, or just add any workflow stage you want or need.

After adding workflow stages, you can rearrange them in the correct order by dragging and dropping them into place.

Next, assign responsible roles under the "require action from" column. When a content item reaches a workflow status, any user with the role responsible for the said status will be able to claim the item if no one is currently assigned to it.

⚠️ If you don't assign a responsible role to a workflow status, no one will be able to claim or can be assigned to content items that are in that status!

Next, you may want to configure ratings for each of the intermediate workflow statuses. By default, we have the following ratings enabled for the "Editorial Review" stage:

When a user responsible for the workflow status defined in the rating approves or submits the content item, they will be asked to leave star ratings.

You can choose to delete these ratings if you don't need them. However, we have found that providing actual ratings to writers provides valuable feedback, ensures better quality control, and increases transparency for project administrators.

Configuring Templates

The final step of setting up your project is configuring content item templates.

To follow along, from the project menu, go to Configuration > Templates.

The first thing you'll see on the page is the default template. It has three tabs: Main Content, CMS Fields, and Example Tab. You may have noticed the eye icon next to a tab's name. It's a toggle for enabling and disabling the tab. Let's take a closer look at the tabs.

Main Content Tab

The main content tab has three default fields: title, main content, and files. You can rearrange them in any order as you see fit.

🎯Notice that they have a "system field" identifier. These are special fields that are tied to our CMS and API integrations.

You can add "general fields" to the main content tab. General fields are covered in more detail under the custom tab section later in this article.

You can add default text in the text editor by clicking "add/edit default content" in the "main content" field. You can use it to add written outlines or instructions for your writers. Note that this will only show up in new content items and briefs claimed or assigned for the first time.

The visible checkbox allows you to disable a system field if you don't need it. The required checkbox, when activated, makes it so the content item cannot be submitted or approved if the field is empty.

CMS Fields Tab

The CMS Fields tab is disabled by default. Click the eye icon to enable it.

It comes with multiple default fields, and most of them are used for SEO and can be synced to WordPress (more on that later). All default fields are system fields but you can add general fields here.

Example Tab

Finally, we have the Example tab. This is a showcase of all the available general fields. You can safely delete this, but if it's your first time exploring EasyContent's templates, we recommend that you check it out to familiarize yourself with our general fields.

Creating a Custom Tab

You can create custom tabs by clicking the "add a new tab" button. Give it a name then click the green check button and it will be created. There's no limit to the number of custom tabs you can create.

Your new tab will be empty, so you'll have to fill it with general fields. Currently, the following are available for you to use:

1. Single line text
2. Paragraph text
3. File/image upload
4. Checkboxes
5. Radio buttons
6. Date
7. Dropdown select
8. Heading
9. Guidelines

You can also add these fields to the default tabs alongside system fields. However, you currently can't add system fields to custom tabs.

Template fields can be reordered by dragging and dropping, as shown below. The order in which they appear here determines the order in which they appear in the Content Editor.

Create custom templates by clicking on the template selection menu and then clicking on "Create a new template". Give it a name, click the green check button, and your new template is ready.

If you want more custom fields or perhaps additional features or flexibility in the template editor, please let us know at support@easycontent.io or click "suggest a feature" in the page footer found anywhere within EasyContent. We'd love to hear your suggestions!

Adding Briefs to Your Project

Congratulations! The basic configuration is over and you can now start working with EasyContent.

Start by creating a brief for your writers. Click "Briefs" on the project menu, then click the "Add your first brief" button on the page.

When adding a brief, fill in its title. This name will be used everywhere in the project, so make it descriptive. It can be the proposed title of a content item, its purpose, or simply a task name.

Some good examples of a brief title would be:

• "About Us" page
• Best content marketing tools
• Why does my cat hate me?
• Write a blog post about cats

More detailed instructions for the brief can be provided in the "Description" field. If you need your writer to use specific keywords, include them in the "Keywords" field separated by commas.

When the brief is created, it can manually be assigned to a writer. A writer can also "assign" it to themselves by clicking the "claim" button on the brief page.

If you cannot assign a user to a brief or a content item, make sure that:

1. The user is assigned to the project where the brief or content item resides.
2. The user's role is responsible for the first workflow status of that project.

Working with Content Items

After the brief is assigned or claimed, it becomes a content item and is transferred to the Content page. You can access this page through the project menu > content, as shown below.

The number badge next to the content menu item (#1) shows the number of content items you're currently assigned to or need your attention. To view or edit a content item, click its name under the title column (#2).

Editing a Content Item

🎯Some of the elements described below may not be visible to all users depending on their permissions.

If you're using the unedited default template, there will be two tabs on the content editor page: "Main Content" and "Example Tab". There's also the "CMS Fields" tab, but it's disabled by default so it will not appear. Refer to the Configuring Templates section above for more details.

The Main Content tab is where most of the work will take place. This tab contains three default fields: title, content, and files.

The title field should contain the article's title.

The content field is where your content's body or text and images will live. Below is what it looks like when you've added text and images to it.

The files field contains the files you attached to the content item. To add images to the text, you first need to attach them here.

Click the add files card to access the current project's files library and look for files you want to attach to the content item.

You can also upload files from your computer if you can't find a suitable asset from the files library. Remember that any files you upload to a content item will be added to that project's files library and will become accessible to anyone who can access the files library.

Learn more about the files library here.

The Example Tab is for showcasing general fields. We assume that this is your first time using EasyContent, so we recommend that you check it out to see our general fields in action.

Finally, we have the CMS Fields tab. This is disabled by default.

To enable it, click the customize template link.

Then click the eye icon next to the CMS fields tab to enable it.

When enabled, it will have the following fields by default:

• Featured image
• Excerpt
• Tags
• Custom post slug
• Meta title
• Meta description

If you set up WordPress integration, then most of these fields can be automatically synced along with the content item's main text when you use the "Publish to WP" button, allowing you to publish a content item without having to log in or switch to your WordPress website. Learn more about WordPress integration here.

Let's go back to the Main Content tab. Above the title field, you will see the Actions section. It contains buttons that let you submit or approve the content item, send it back for rework, save version, or publish it to WordPress if the integration is set up. You can also export it as HTML or DOCX or generate a shareable link that you can share with anyone (similar to Google Docs).

Sidebar

Next, we'll quickly check on the sidebar and its widgets. These can help you work with the content item more efficiently.

The sidebar is divided into three tabs: Controls, Comments, and Versions.

Sidebar: Controls

Under the control tab, the widgets that will appear will depend on user permissions and current activity in the content item, but at most you will see the following:

Messages. Displays all correspondence related to the content item you are viewing. If your role doesn't have the "view communication report" permission, you will see only the messages you've sent or received.

Item details. Displays the content item's description, keywords, notes, and categories. You can edit this by clicking "edit" at the bottom of the widget.

Workflow widget. This displays all workflow-related information. It allows you to approve or reject the content item, change its status, or assign it to other people if you have the "manage content items" and "manage people and deadlines" permissions.

Item feedback. This widget displays feedback received by the writer from other approvers. To use this, configure ratings on the "Workflow settings" page.

Sidebar: Comments

The comments tab displays all comments left on a content item. You can add a comment here for the content item. If you leave a comment on the content item's text or a field, they will also appear here.

Sidebar: Versions

The versions tab will display all saved versions of the content item. You can learn more about versions here.

Integrating Your Project with WordPress

You can publish your content items directly to a WordPress site with just a click of a button. You can also pull content from the website into your project. This will allow you to edit and update your WordPress articles within EasyContent without switching back and forth.

To set it up, install our WordPress plugin and generate your API keys on the "Integrations" page. Our WordPress plugin works with both the classic text editor and the new Gutenberg text editor.

Creating Documentation for Your Project

If your project requires additional documentation, such as style guidelines for your writers and editors, directions for other approvers, or any other helpful information, you can create it with EasyContent.

When inside a project, click the "Help" icon on the account menu.

On the page, click the "Add new category" button. A new block will appear, asking you to give it a name. Enter the category name (e.g., Style guidelines) and save it by clicking the save icon.

Once the category block is created, click the pencil icon to see the "Add help article" link appear. Click it and you will be redirected to a page where you can write your new help article.

When you have more than one category, you can drag & drop to reorder them on the page.

Further Steps

Congratulations! If you've made it this far, you should now be familiar with EasyContent and ready to get started. Feel free to reach us at support@easycontent.io with any questions or feedback.

Happy collaboration!