WordPress 3.5 was released in December 2012, and the developers are already hard at work on WordPress 3.6. The full feature list of the new version of the CMS is not yet confirmed, but one update that is likely to make it into the release is Edit Flow. This new feature will turn WordPress from a simple blogging platform for entrepreneurs and individuals into something that is suitable for use for enterprise-scale content web development.
Edit Flow has been a WordPress plugin for a long time, but there are plans to integrate it into the core. As the name of the plugin implies, Edit Flow allows companies to create an editorial workflow for their content. This means that they will be able to use an editorial calendar, and also set up a series of stages that content must go through before it is published.
While the standard edit > preview > publish workflow is fine for smaller publications, news organizations and big brands need something more sophisticated, where a freelancer can create a post, photographs can be chosen, and then the content of the post can be approved by an editorial team before the post is proofread and then published.
Some companies have used user-groups and workarounds to put together something that resembles a workflow, and other companies rely on emailing documents to each other or using cloud editing systems to prepare content for publication. These solutions are workable, but the margin for error or confusion is large. If a true workflow system makes it into the WordPress core then this will be a huge step forward for the content management system.
WordPress 3.6 is still a long way from release. The feature development freeze is not scheduled to happen until March 11th, and the update will be released on April 22nd. This means that there is plenty of time for even more exciting features to be added.
