April 29, 2010

Vjoon's K4 Version 6 is packed with tons of new and exciting features...

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From a completely re-vamped Workflow Editor, to sticky notes you place anywhere, K4 Version 6 has delivered what publishers have been asking for

In my next few blog entries, I'm going to explore some of the latest features inside the brand-new, built from the bottom up, K4 Version 6 from Vjoon.

The wait is finally over! K4 Version 6 has been released, and it contains some very interesting and exciting new features. In this first installment, I'd like to explore how workflows are now handled in K4 Version 6.

You may ask yourself, why do I need such an expensive and feature-rich program to handle my InDesign and InCopy documents? The answer is simple; if you already realized what an enormous value InCopy can be in your editorial workflow, you have already made the leap needed to streamline your editorial experience in InDesign. But, the features you are really looking for are not in the basic InCopy and InDesign bridged workflow. If you have at least made it this far, it is time to rip-off the bandage that you have in place and start thinking about a database solution for your documents. Things such as versioning, the new task-based workflow, rights-based users, and an automatic database backup of your documents are standard in K4 Version 6. Never mind the fact that you can edit articles on the web, and initiate workflows for all kinds of file formats. Let's start by taking a look at the new task-based workflow.

Task Based Workflow

To know the past is to know the future. This saying also rings true in the publishing world. To fully understand how the first editorial database workflows were created, we must examine a product like the Quark Publishing System. From the very beginning, and still today, all of these workflow solutions have had one thing in common: a status driven workflow. Even inside previous versions of K4, the workflow was defined by a number of linear statuses. For example, editorial would have statuses such as First Edit, Second Edit, Ready to Place, Placed, Web-Sent, and Archived. Even though these statuses served as milestones that ushered documents along to the final stage, what they lacked was user-direction to the tasks that needed to be performed in order for the document to reach the next status.

One of the issues with a completely status-based workflow is that you often end up with statuses like "Spell-check", "Fact-check", etc. In actuality, these statuses describe tasks that need to be completed before an article or layout can move to the next status. Defining these tasks as statuses can be confusing.  But now that K4 Version 6 has a task-based workflow, you can define what tasks need to be accomplished to make it to the next status. 

Since these new tasks drive the workflow, users can now look to their Query panel to find out what steps need to be accomplished to finish their work. Even the most experienced layout and editorial person will admit that they have forgotten to do certain steps along the way, such as "Spellcheck." Because tasks like "Spellcheck" must be completed before the article can make it to the next status, K4 Version 6 takes the guess work out of what has been accomplished, and what still needs to be done.

It is in the assigning, working, and completion of tasks that users know what to work on, when to work on them and once completed, elevate those tasks to the next status. K4 now tells users what the next step in the workflow process is, and guides them through the process of completing tasks. In addition to articles and layouts, Version 6 also allows you to define specific workflows for other documents such as photos, graphs, advertisements, manuscripts, and spreadsheets.

To understand how this new task-based workflow can be setup, we must first look at the new K4 Admin.

This is the new K4 Admin interface.

When you're logged into the K4 Admin, you will notice that the interface is cleaner and much easier to work with. Once you open the publication you wish to edit, you will see several new categories. For this blog, we will be exploring how the new workflow category lets you visually setup a workflow for literally any object stored in K4. You can even have multiple workflows for the same object. Featured below is the new Workflow Editor inside K4 Version 6.

This is the new Workflow Editor in K4 Version 6.

Now let's take a look at how the new task-based workflow is structured in the new Workflow Editor.

This is the new visual Workflow Editor in K4 Version 6.

The new Workflow Editor inside K4 introduces a graphical user interface to the workflow process. One of the many advantages to having a visual workflow editor is that the administrator can print out the workflow, allowing each user to have a printed chart representing their workflow.

The name of the workflow appears at the top of the stack. It is represented by a light blue rectangle.

The pink oblong rectangle below the workflow name represents the output channel. The output channel controls which file extensions you can use; metadata and versioning.

Tasks are represented as yellow rectangles. Tasks control who can accept the task, what metadata is viewable and editable, and also who the assignment will default to.

Statuses are represented as blue rectangles, and usage is determined by category.

The new Workflow Editor in K4 Version 6 is extremely user-friendly. Once you have setup a workflow, all you need to do is activate it to test out what the user will experience.

The Editorial Experience:

For InCopy or InDesign users that have used K4 Version 5, many of the concepts are the same in K4 Version 6. You must first log in, and you can chose whether or not you will start a new document from scratch or from a template.

For more information on how to create InCopy templates in K4, please see my blog at: http://www.databasepublish.com/blog/how-create-dynamic-incopy-article-te...

What has changed in K4 Version 6 is the whole "Check In," "Check out" workflow. Instead of checking in documents, you now "Start a Workflow." Starting a workflow guides you through the tasks and statuses you create in the Workflow Editor. Instead of "Checking Out" a document, you "Accept a Task.

The tasks that get assigned to you can literally guide you through your workday inside of InCopy and InDesign. K4 Version 6 now instructs you on what task needs to be done next. You can view the tasks that have been assigned to you in the Query panel.

My Tasks

You can still search for pre-made Global Queries or define a custom search based on whatever section, issue, name, etc.., you want. But the exciting new feature is to simply leave the Query panel set to "My Tasks.'

Setting the Query panel to "My Tasks"

When the Query panel is set to "My Tasks," you only see the tasks that have been assigned to you, your group or category. You will still receive notifications when tasks are assigned to you as well.

Starting a New Workflow

To start a new workflow for a document within K4, chose K4 Edit > Start Workflow for Article.

The Start Workflow Window.

An editor can choose the issue, section, workflow, and output channel, as well as give the document a name. But, the new addition to K4 Version 6 is that you can see the next task and assign it to whichever group or person you want.  

Once you or someone else have "Started a Task," all you need to do to accept a task is watch your "My Tasks" panel and double-click the document that contains the task you need to accomplish.

Finishing a Task

When you have completed the task that has been assigned to you, you can now "Finish the Task," to move it to the next status.

Finishing a task in InCopy or InDesign.

As you finish your tasks in both InCopy and InDesign, you can also choose who will accomplish the next task.

Once the task has been finished, you will notice that the next tasks are listed below. You can assign these tasks to whomever you wish.

Once you click OK, the document will check itself into the K4 system. Another editor can then open the document and complete the tasks needed to move the document to the next status. Meanwhile the tasks that were setup in the K4 Admin work behind the scenes to guide the workflow toward its final destination.

In conclusion, the new task-based workflows in K4 finally give users the structured experience needed in an editorial system. It takes the guesswork out of who needs to do what task next, and streamlines the workflow process. Workflows can also be edited, updated or completely changed during the editorial process; and you can have a different workflow for many different document types within K4. The Workflow Editor in K4 Version 6 truly is a giant leap forward for editorial systems, saving publishers using the K4 system time and money along the way.                 

Posted at 07:21 pm by Robert Underwood

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