7. Managing Your Editorial Tasks

Now that you have set up your first Editorial project, you are ready to start tracking and managing your task lists. Throughout the Editorial module, there are a variety of ways for you to manage your active Editorial tasks, get an overview of the immediate next actions within a project, and view a history of all of the previously completed tasks on a given title. This article will cover the Editorial Checklist tab and the Editorial Schedule tab, which are both designed to help you streamline the Editorial process by using the Schedule Templates that you configured earlier. 

It should be noted that it is not mandatory to use both of these tabs. In the case where one tab better suits the needs of your business, you can choose to only view that one on your Editorial projects. 

The Editorial Checklist Tab

The Editorial Checklist tab is designed to function like a checkbox list: here, you can tick off tasks that have been completed as part of this project's Editorial process. 

The task list you will see on the left-hand side of the screen is pulled from the default Editorial Checklist schedule that you created earlier. From here, you can set deadlines for each task and check the box next to each field when they are completed. If you have set up schedules other than your defaults, you will be able to change which schedule applies to this book by selecting from the Available Schedules dropdown menu. 

There are a number of other things you can do on this screen, including: 

• Setting the Next Action - this dropdown menu links through to the field found on the Title tab, but new tasks can be added by clicking on the field and typing in Free Text. When you mark a task as completed in the Editorial Checklist schedule, a pop-up will appear asking if you would like the next task to be set as the 'Next Action'. 
• Adding key dates for your Target Contract Date, Target Pub Date and the day your contract was sent. 
• Checking off when the following tasks are completed: 
  • Reviews Returned
  • Feedback Given
  • Contract Returned
  • Budget Created
  • Approved
• Add any additional notes in the Comment field

If you have the "In Checklist" box checked, tasks on this tab will be displayed in the Editorial Checklist Report.

The Editorial Completion Schedule Tab

The Editorial Completion Schedule tab provides more ways for you to track and update Editorial tasks and deadlines. This tab was designed to record milestones that needed to be hit before a book could enter the production process, and provides options to assign tasks by role or type. 

The first thing you will see on this screen is the Active Tasks section. This allows you to make a record of the tasks that are currently being worked on within your project, and by whom. This can be particularly useful for recording your review process.

In order to add a new Active task, follow these steps: 

1. Choose a task type from the dropdown menu
2. Choose a role from the dropdown menu - this is the role that the task's assignee has. 
3. A list of assignees will then appear - these are pulled from the contacts tab. In the screenshot above, the role is 'Editor', and Sally and Haymitch are the two contacts marked as Editors in the Contacts tab.
4. Press Update at the bottom of the screen. 

You will then be able to view and edit the task within the active task list. From here, you can indicate when the task was sent, when it's expected and if it's been received.  You can also add notes and indicate that the task has a cost attached. 

By selecting the '+' button, you can use the thumbs up/down icons to demonstrate whether a task was rejected or accepted. 

Once a task is marked as complete here, using the blue 'Completed' button, it will be shown in the Previous Tasks list so that you always have a record of what has been done on your project. 

There are two further aspects to this screen: 

• Decisions - here, you can record the dates on which key decisions surrounding the project were made (eg. when was the project accepted)
• The Editorial Completion Schedule - this list will be populated by the tasks that you configured in the default Editorial Completion schedule that you created earlier. From here, you can record the dates on which tasks were requested, expected to be completed, and when the work was received. To select an alternate schedule template, select the setting button, and select from the list:

Next, we will cover how you can use the Editorial module to generate draft P&L's.