Getting Started with EasyContent

Thank you for joining EasyContent! We hope this marks the beginning of our long journey together. This article will help you learn how to use our platform to its full potential.

If you are a complete beginner, we recommend following this article from start to finish in order. If you already know your way around EasyContent, this also works as a reference article. You can use the table of contents to jump to the part that interests you.

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 blue menu bar is the account menu. This is visible anywhere within EasyContent. The second one is the project menu, also known as the sidebar menu, located on the left side of the page.

ℹ️ If you are on the business plan or above, you can change the color of the account menu and replace the EasyContent logo with your own.

The exact set of menu items changes depending on your role and permissions. Let's take a look at all the available menu items.

Account Menu

The account menu contains navigational items for moving between different sections of EasyContent.

For a user with full permissions, the following items are available:

Projects - displays all projects you have access to.
Team
- Users - manage your team members.
- Roles - configure roles and permissions.
- Teams - create and manage teams.
Calendar - view your editorial calendar.
Integrations - manage your API keys, integrations, and webhook endpoints.
- We have official integrations with Zapier, Figma, and WordPress.
- You can use our API to create a custom integration of your own.
Reports
- Content Report - a chart of all your project's progress over a period of time.
- Communication - view all messages and comments.
- Credits usage - view your account's EasyAI credits usage.
Content Migration - migrate your existing content from an external platform into EasyContent.

On the right end of the account menu, the following icons are also present. From left to right, they are:

Messages - this envelope icon only appears if you are inside a project. Allows you to view your inbox for that project.
- In a nutshell, this is where you'll be able to send or receive messages from your team related to the current project.
Available credits - displays your remaining EasyAI credits and also allows you to purchase credit packs.
Help - access EasyContent's documentation.
- If you are inside a project, this will take you to that project's documentation page along with EasyContent's documentation.
Profile - your profile menu.
- Edit profile - change your name, email address, email notification settings, etc.
- Account settings - make important changes to your account, such as payment methods, plan, etc.
- My feedback - view feedback and ratings you've sent and received.
- Log out

Project Menu

The project menu contains navigational items for moving between different sections of a project. A project must be selected in the project selection dropdown for this menu to fully unlock.

For a user with full permissions, the following items are available:

All projects - displays all projects you have access to.
Project selection dropdown - select which project you want to work on.
Dashboard - the current project's dashboard, which displays an overview of its recent activity.
Content - displays the current project's content items that you have access to.
Briefs & Ideas - displays the current project's briefs (aka "to-do items") if there are any.
Files - view and manage the current project's files.
Documentation - view and manage the current project's documentation, along with EasyContent's system help articles.
- Use this to add a style guide and other helpful resources for your team members.
- The style guide can be referenced by EasyAI. This enables it to write articles that better align with your team's style.
Workflow - view and manage the current project's workflow statuses.
Templates - view and manage the current project's templates.
Categories - view and manage the current project's available categories.

Creating Roles

Creating roles and permissions is an important step that gives your team members access to only the features and areas of your account that are relevant to the tasks they need to accomplish.

In the account menu, click Team > Roles. Once you're on the page, you'll see the following default roles: Admin, Content Manager, Editor, Subject Matter Expert, and Writer. If you don't want to bother tinkering with roles and permissions, you can skip the next section and use the default roles for now. They are sufficient to get you started.

Creating a New Role

To create a new role, click the Add New Role button. A new role will appear. Rename it and give it an optional description, then press "Save". Your new role has now been created!

However, this new role will not have any permissions. This means a user with this role won't be able to see or do anything within your account. Scroll down the page, and you'll see the permissions section.

Find the new role you just created in the header of the table and notice that nothing is checked under it.

Let's say you want this new role to be able to create and manage briefs. Find the briefs section on the left side of the table and check the corresponding permissions you want to give to the role. For example, giving it the "view briefs" permission will allow users with this role to view all briefs, but they will not be able to create or edit them. The "manage briefs" permission will allow the role to view, edit, and create new briefs. You can hover over the question mark icon next to a permission item to view an explanation of what it does.

To learn more about permissions, you can read our complete guide to permissions.

Inviting Users

Now that you've learned how to create a new role and give it permissions, it's time to invite your team members. From the account menu, go to Team > Users to access the users page.

Find and click the invite button in the upper-right corner of the page. This will take you to the invite users page.

Once you're on the invite users page, you can start inviting your team.

Fill in the name and email address.
Assign the invitee a role.
Click add another if you want to invite an additional user.
Click the assign projects dropdown.
- This will give you the list of all available projects in your account. Select the ones you want the invitees to be assigned to.
  - If this is your first time using EasyContent, you'll only see the example project here. Since you're just getting started, don't worry about assigning your invitees to a project for now.
  - You can always assign, reassign, or remove users from a project at any time.
  - In the future, if you don't assign your invitees to a project, they may not be able to view anything once they accept the invitation and log in. It is a good idea to assign them to a project upon invitation.
You can also attach an optional welcome message to the invitation. The invitees will see this message in the invitation email that'll be sent to the email address that you supplied earlier.
Press send invites to send the email invitation message to the invitees' email addresses.

Managing Invites

After sending the invitation, navigate to Team > Users in the account menu and click the "Pending invite" tab. Here, you'll see all invited users that are yet to accept their invitations. You can copy, resend, or revoke the invitation here. You can also update an invitee's information if necessary.

Note that if not used, invitation links expire 30 days after they were created. You can always regenerate a new one if that happens.

Your First Project

Now that you've created roles and permissions and invited your team members, it's time to create a project.

A project is usually a collection of tasks, deliverables, services, or a specific niche that your team will work on. Use projects to separate different objectives. For example, you might create a project for your team's blog and another for a client's content marketing endeavors.

Go to projects in the account menu. Once there, find the new project button and click it. A modal will appear. This will let you create a new project.

Give your project a name.
Expand the "Assign users to your new project (optional)" field.
Try assigning your invited users to this project.
- A user whose invitation is pending can still be assigned to a project.
Click the create project button.

After that, you will be redirected to the project's content items page. This page is where your content items will live. A content item is any piece of content, such as social media posts, newsletters, blog posts, etc.

Setting Up Workflow

Before creating a content item, let's set up your workflow first. From the sidebar menu, under the configuration section, click workflow.

Here, you can see the four default workflows: draft, editorial review, approved for publishing, and completed.

ℹ️ Each project has its own files, workflow settings, templates, and categories.

Click the add new status button to create a new workflow status. An input field will appear.

Click the gray circle to pick a color code for this workflow status.
Next, give the workflow a name.
Then, under the reviewing roles column, select the roles that will be responsible for this workflow status.
- For example, if you only assign the editor role for this workflow, then only users with that role will be able to claim, edit, or view this content item if it is currently in this workflow status.
(Optional) Afterward, under the auto due column, you can check the box and set a number of days.
- For example, if you set it to 3 days, then when a content item enters this status for the first time today, its due date will automatically be set to 3 days from today. You can still manually change the due date at any time, regardless of this setting.
(Optional) Check the read-only option if you want the content item to be in read-only mode in this status.
- No user, not even EasyAI, can make changes to the content item if it is in a read-only workflow status.
(Optional) Finally, under default assignees, you can select the users who will be automatically assigned to this workflow status whenever a new content item is created.
- For example, if you select Bob and John as default assignees for this workflow, when you create a new content item, they will automatically be assigned to this workflow status of that content item. You can still manually change assigned users at any time, regardless of this setting.
- Note that reviewing roles affect the selectable users under this setting. Only users with roles under the reviewing roles will be available for selection.
Once you're satisfied, click save, and your new workflow status is ready

You can drag and drop your workflow statuses (except the first and last) to rearrange them. Their order determines their position in the entire workflow.

Ratings

Aside from the workflow statuses, you can also configure ratings for each of the intermediate workflow statuses. Scroll down the page to see the default ratings.

When responsible users for the workflow status defined in the rating approve 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.

Creating a Content Item

It's time to create your first content item! You can use EasyAI to create one for you, or you can manually create your own. Leverage AI, keep it fully human, or utilize both; the choice is yours. Free trial accounts come with 600 free AI credits ($6 value) to try out our AI features.

Let's start with manual content item creation. Go to the content items page by clicking content on the sidebar menu. If you don't see it, make sure a project is selected in the project selection dropdown.

Click add first item to create a new content item. A modal will appear.

Fill out the title/summary field with your content item's title.
Under choose structure, select blank (free form). We'll talk about templates later on.
Expand the show optional fields link. This will allow you to add more details to this content item.
- You can add a description, keywords, and categories. These are optional, so you can leave them blank if you want.
Check the assign people after creating checkbox to allow assigning people to this content item after creation.
Click create item.
Since you've checked "assign people after creating" earlier, a new modal appears, asking you to assign people to this content item's workflow statuses. You can also set due dates for each workflow status. Go ahead and assign people to each workflow status and try setting due dates.
- If you've set default assignees to your workflow statuses, you'll see that they are already assigned to their corresponding statuses.
Click save.

Your new content item should now appear on the page. Click on it to view and edit it.

Using Custom Structure

Since you've selected blank as the content item's structure earlier, you'll see a blank page asking you about the type of content you're trying to create. There are several presets you can choose from. Click on one, and the page will be populated with several fields according to the selected preset.

For this guide, try selecting the blog article preset. You will now see that the page has been populated with multiple fields.

Near the top of the page, you should see two tabs: Content and SEO & metadata. You're now on the Content tab. Click on the SEO & metadata tab, and you'll see a different set of fields.

Tabs are used to organize your fields. In the blog article preset, fields are organized into two tabs: the content tab, which holds fields for the content item's main content, and the SEO & metadata tab, which is for SEO and metadata fields. You can create additional tabs, for example, a sources tab with a plain text field on which you can put your sources for the article. Or maybe another tab that contains another version of your article for A/B testing. The possibilities are endless.

Try creating a new tab:

Click the gear icon next to the tabs. A modal will appear.
In the modal that appears, click the plus icon.
Give the new tab a name. For example, sources or guidelines.
Click the green check or press ENTER on your keyboard.
Close the modal.

You should now see your new tab. Click on it and try adding fields. Try adding the paragraph text field:

Click the paragraph text card.
A modal will appear.
Give this field a name, for example, references or maybe article version b.
You can set the paragraph text field to be plain text or rich text mode.
- Plain text doesn't allow formatting. Rich text allows various formatting.
You can also select whether this field is required or not.
- If required, a content item cannot be submitted to the next workflow status if this field is empty.
You can also set a recommended length.
- This will display a hint if the text content of this field exceeds the recommended length.
After you're done customizing the field, click add field.

Try playing around with tabs and fields. You can rearrange, edit, or delete fields by clicking the three-dot menu next to the field names.

Using Templates

The second starting structure that you can select when creating a new content item is a template. While a custom structure offers flexibility, it can be cumbersome to recreate a structure every time you create a new content item, or, if you want to add a new field, you'll have to do it manually in every single one of your content items. That's where templates come in handy.

Templates are pre-defined structures for your content items. They can be applied to multiple content items at once. You can also edit it once, and all content items using the template will have the updated version in no time.

Creating Templates

On the sidebar menu, under the configuration section, click templates.

You'll see five default templates. Each of them is ready to be used and customized. But let's try creating a new one.

Click the create template card. You'll be taken to the template creation page. Give your new template a name and an optional description. Then click create. You'll then be taken to the template editor.

You'll notice that there are two default tabs: Main Content and CMS Fields. You'll notice that the CMS Fields tab is crossed out. Click on it to make it the active tab, then click the three-dot menu icon, then click show. The CMS fields tab was hidden and you just made it visible. If a tab is hidden, it will not show up in the content editor.

ℹ️ The default template tabs are system tabs. They contain system fields. Only system tabs and fields can be hidden or disabled. Learn more about templates here.

Click the Main Content tab to make it the active tab, and then click on it again. Now you can rename this tab. Try renaming the Main Content tab.

Next, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and you'll see the add a new field button. Use it to add additional fields to this tab. Try adding new fields and play around.

Right now, there are 10 fields you can add.

Single line text
Paragraph text
File/image upload
Single Image
Checkboxes
Radio buttons
Date
Dropdown select
Heading
Guidelines

Sometimes, two tabs aren't enough. So we give you the ability to create as many tabs as you want. Click the new tab button next to the CMS Fields tab to create a new tab. Give it a name and save it, and it'll be ready for you to add fields to it. Do note that system fields, which are the default fields under the Main Content and CMS fields tabs, cannot be added to custom tabs. You can learn more about field types here.

Changing a Content Item's Template

Once you've got a template ready, you can use it on your content items. You can easily change an existing content item's template at any time. However, do note that those that are using a custom structure cannot be changed to use a template.

To change a content item's template:

Access the content item you want to update.
Under the item details widget on the right sidebar, click the template name. A modal will appear.
Select your new template in the dropdown menu within the modal, then click change template.
The page will reload, and the content item will now be using the new template.

Changing from Template to a Custom Structure

You can convert an existing content item that's using a template to a custom structure. It will preserve everything, from the template fields and tabs, along with their data and arrangement, and convert them into matching custom structure fields. However, do note that once a content item is converted to use a custom structure, it cannot be converted back to using a template.

To update a content item to use a custom structure:

Access the content item you want to convert to a custom structure.
Under the item details widget in the right sidebar, click on the template name. A modal will appear.
Click the detach template button in the modal, then click change template.
The page will reload, and the content item will now be using a custom structure.

Creating Briefs

Briefs are "to-do" items that can be converted to a content item. Think of them as your collection of ideas or content that you're saving for later. Instead of creating a new content item and cluttering the content items page, you can create a brief and assign it once the right time to work on it comes. A writer can also come in and claim it for themselves once they are ready to work on it.

On the sidebar menu, go to briefs & ideas to access the briefs page.

Let's add your first brief. Click the add your first brief button. A familiar modal will appear. This is the same as the one for when you're creating a content item.

Fill out the title/summary field with your brief's title.
Under choose structure, select whatever structure you want for your brief.
Expand the show optional fields link. This will allow you to add more details to this brief.
- You can add a description, keywords, and categories. These are optional, so you can leave them blank if you want.
Make sure to uncheck the "assign people after creating" checkbox.
- If this is checked, you'll be asked to assign people to the brief. When you do that, this will automatically turn into a content item instead.
Click create item.

Your brief should now appear on the page. You can edit its details by clicking the three-dot menu icon under the action column. Under the same column, if your role is responsible for the first workflow status, you can also claim the brief, or, if your role has the right permissions, assign it to someone else. Claiming or assigning a brief will convert it into a content item.

Working with Content Items

The majority of your time with EasyContent will involve working with content items. The number of tabs and fields will vary depending on whether you selected a custom structure or a template when you created a content item. However, there are some features and items that remain consistent on the content item editor page that you should know about.

For this section, we'll be using a content item created using a custom structure with the blog article preset. Go ahead and create a content item, set its starting structure to blank. After that, open the content item and select the blog article preset. You should now have a basic content item ready.

Let's take a more detailed look at the other items and features that can be found in the content item editor page.

Actions Section

Under the tabs, you'll see various items. The items that appear here will vary depending on the viewing user's permissions and the content item's current status. For this content item, if you followed the earlier instructions, you should see the following items:

Workflow selection dropdown
Save version button
Share button
Export dropdown menu (the chevron icon pointing down)
Edit with AI button

Editor Sidebar

Not to be confused with the sidebar menu, the editor sidebar is the sidebar that appears on the right side of the page when editing a content item. It's got three tabs: controls, comments, and versions.

Control Tab

The control tab contains various controls for changing the content item's metadata, template, workflow, assigned users, and deadlines. Some of the items here will not be interactable if a user doesn't have the right permissions.

At most, there are three widgets under this tab: messages, item details, and workflow:

Messages - appears when you receive a message corresponding to this content item.
Item details - allows you to change the content item's name, template, categories, keywords, and description.
Workflow - allows you to change the current workflow, deadlines, and assigned users, as well as submit, approve, or reject the content item.

Comments Tab

The comments tab allows you to view and reply to comments left on the content item. You can also edit your own comments here.

You can leave a comment directly in this tab, or you can highlight text in any rich text editor and add a comment to it. You can also comment on a content item field, on an individual file, or even on different parts of an image for images uploaded to a single image field.

Versions Tab

The versions tab allows you to see all saved versions of the content item.

A version or snapshot of the content item's current state will be saved when the following happens:

You press the save version button.
The item is submitted, approved, or rejected.
The workflow status has changed.
Edits were made by EasyAI (a version before the AI edits will be saved)

You can rename a version, see who created it if it's a manual version, and preview a version to see how it differs from the current one.

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.

ℹ️ You can choose to use the project's style guidelines with EasyAI when generating a new content item.

Select a project where you want to add documentation to in the left sidebar, then click Documentation.

Alternatively, you can also click the "Help" icon on the account menu. Just make sure you've selected a project on the left sidebar first.

You can create a style guide by clicking the "Add style guide" button. A style guide can be applied to or linked to multiple projects. Use this to create general writing guidelines for your team. When generating content via EasyAI, you can also reference this style guide to guide the AI into generating content that aligns with your team's style.

You can also create additional project documentation articles by clicking the "Add new category" button. A new block will appear, prompting you to assign a name. Enter the category name (e.g., Helpful resources) and save it by clicking the save icon. Once the category block is created, click the pencil icon, and the "Add help article" link will 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. Please feel free to reach out to us at support@easycontent.io with any questions or feedback.

Happy collaboration!

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