Collaboration
5 min read
Achieve Collaborative Writing Nirvana with Wrike
Wrike tasks pack a lot of punch. Ideas about how an action item can be captured and executed are possible with fields for everything from duration and due date to task importance.
However, the real magic lives in the feature-packed task description section. Because the task description works like word processing software, content marketing teams around the world are leveraging task descriptions to draft, edit, and update their writing on a daily basis.
The benefits are many:
Tasks and their content live in the cloud. This means that you never need to scour through your email searching for the latest version of a document.
And you won't worry about whether or not your changes will be lost in case, say, your Word document suddenly decides to crash. Wrike autosaves your work every second so you never lose a single letter.
The Live Editor built into the task description area allows multiple people to edit and write on the same task, simultaneously.
Similar to Google Docs, each person’s cursor appears in the description area as a different color so you can see exactly who is doing what.
Revision history allows you to go back in time to revive or reference old versions of your text. No more "Where did that paragraph go?" You can figure it out immediately.
6 Tips to Improve Your Content Collaboration Efforts
1. Colored highlights point out specific comments and phrases.
Wrike offers six colors for highlighting text. Leverage these during the revision phase to call out sentences or phrases that need to be updated. This will quickly draw the reader's eyes to the areas that need immediate attention and ensure that all suggestions are addressed. If you’re stepping in quickly, simply highlight entire sections that seem clumsy or need rethinking. Highlighting is also an ideal reminder to add links, styling, and formatting.
Bonus tip: if your team is small enough, have every person adopt a fixed color so at one glance you know the red highlights are from Mary, and the purple highlights are from Richard.
2. Revision history tracks small and big changes.
Have you ever noticed the little clock in the formatting bar of the task description? With a couple of clicks you can step back in time like Marty McFly and revisit every second of your task’s existence. This is a great tool to see who’s made what changes, recover information that may have been accidentally deleted, and better understand the content's progress from start to finish.
3. Comments allow conversations and feedback.
Keep the conversation about the content right where the content is being created and edited. Wrike’s comments system makes it easy to request feedback from colleagues, add your own thoughts, and let team members know when you have completed your work on the task. By keeping the conversation where the work is happening, no one needs to jump back and forth between emails and documents. This minimizes the number of windows you need to keep open and helps you to execute more productively.
4. Folder tags move content through its life cycle.
If you’ve read my blog post on using Wrike as a CRM or using Wrike as a ticketing system, you’ll know that I’m a bit of an addict when it comes to tagging tasks. Managing the content process is no different. Create custom folders to track the life cycle of your writing from ideation to publication. Think about how your team operates and the steps you take when creating content before setting up a folder structure. If your team draws its ideas from a backlog, create a place in Wrike for those ideas to live. One approach could be to start with “Drafting,” then move the task through “Editing,” "Designing," “Scheduling,” and finish it off with "Published." Remember, there is no right or wrong way to set up your folders. It’s all about what makes the most sense for your team.
5. Subtasks and checklists track multi-step content projects.
If you haven't seen it yet, Wrike has launched Subtasks in Beta (you can enable them for your profile by visiting www.wrike.com/labs). Subtasks are a fantastic way to break down the creation process and keep team members on track. For example, there are multiple steps involved when sending out a newsletter. Create, schedule, and assign subtasks for each step to ensure individual team members are held accountable for their work and get it done on time.
Alternatively, you can use Wrike's simple checklists built into the task's description area. This option is perfect for small teams that work closely together and don't need full-blown subtasks to track their work efficiently.
6. Attachments help manage external files.
While we love to see you working in Wrike, we know that there are times you will need to create content outside of the workspace. After attaching your external files to the related task, Wrike supports version control and gives you the ability to edit Office files without downloading — two features that are critical for a collaborative content team.
Version control is perfect for tracking changes and updates to images and other visual files. In the attachments section, select "New version" or "Add new" (depending one whether or not you've already uploaded files) and select the version you want to view, or add your latest edition.
Wrike helps content teams, writers, academics, and freelancers complete their writing commitments with grace. Check out this video for some of these tips and tricks in action.
Let us know: How are you using Wrike to achieve Collaborative Writing Nirvana?
