Editors love deadlines. Especially when they’re for other people. Half of the assignments given to writers in Camayak include a first submission deadline. But only 1 in 5 editors gives themselves a deadline to approve the work.
When we asked editors about this, almost all of them welcomed the benefits of also having deadlines themselves. So what’s stopping them?
Answer: many felt they couldn’t set approval deadlines with any confidence. Why? Because their digital platforms give them an elastic opportunity to publish whenever they liked.
“Firstly, I don’t know for sure when the assignment is coming in. Next, who’s available when it arrives? We’re trying to be timely but we usually just let the process run its course and publish it when it’s ready.”
Introducing: smart deadlines
Editors are busy people, so we’ve been working on a more automated way to build a digital publishing schedule. Today we’re launching smart deadlines to help contibutors and editors work towards more realistic targets.
As contributors submit work and editors approve assignments, Camayak looks at past performance to automatically suggest how long they’ll need for each stage of the process (writing and editing). This only happens if you don’t set submission or approval deadlines yourself.
The more you do, the more accurate smart deadlines will be. Your calendar will now show deadlines for every new assignment and includes some more neat features:
- A staff filter for seeing what your colleagues are working on. This includes everything they are specifically assigned to.
- “Add new” assignment to a specific day. Hovering over day lets you add an assignment slug to be scheduled for approval on that date. You can add up to five slugs for anyone in a desk to claim.
- Clearer distinctions between first submission and final approval deadlines. If you hover over an assignment for more than a few seconds, you’ll see the other deadlines that relate to it, too.
We’ll keep working on making deadlines even smarter. If you have any feedback or questions in the meantime, get in touch.
