1. IEEE Workflow
Management System
SSP Automating Workflow from
Acceptance to Publication Seminar
2 June 2010
San Francisco, California
Ken Rawson
Manager, Publishing Systems
IEEE

2. IEEE and Its Publishing Program
• IEEE is the world’s largest professional
technical association
• 38 societies and 7 technical councils
• 395,000 members in more than 160 countries; 45
percent of whom are from outside the USA
• Best known for its standards, such as the 802.11
wireless networking standard
• Sponsors over 1,100 conferences in 73 countries
• Publishes 148 transactions, journals and
magazines—approximately 1/3 of the world’s
technical literature in electrical engineering,
computer science and electronics
• Also publishes books and standards

3. IEEE Publishing Operations
• IEEE Publishing Operations runs as a
competitive publishing service to IEEE
Societies and Councils
• 85 peer reviewed journals
• 18 magazines and 11 newsletters
• Some IEEE Societies and Councils publish with
external vendors
• Having to operate as a competitive business
has driven continuous improvements and
increased efficiency
• Compelled the decision to move to a next-
generation editorial and production system

4. Move to Electronic Publishing Has
Transformed Publishing Process
• Volume of articles published has grown
steadily
• Web-based peer review = increased submissions
• E-first publication allows for faster dissemination
• Primary delivery model and “copy of record”
have shifted from print to electronic
• Focus of periodical process has become
article-by-article electronic publication
• DOIs for citation
• Online issues can reduce frequency of print
• Build issues in IEEE Xplore one article at a time

5. Working to Improve the Journal
E-Article Environment
• Processing and publishing single articles is faster
than waiting for all articles for an issue to be
completed – speed of publication improves
• IEEE uses two models for single article delivery:
• Pre-print model (accepted, unedited version)
• Rapid Post model (final copy-edited version)
• These models are similar to those used by other
publishers
• Print schedule:
• Issue production time reduced by almost 20%
• IEEE Workflow Management System (WMS)
launched at the end of 2007 to support an all-
digital journal workflow
• Extract author-supplied source files directly from
ScholarOne Manuscripts upon acceptance
• Now able to track text, graphics and ancillary files
in our processing queue

6. WMS Improves Efficiency of Journal
Production Process
• WMS is used by the IEEE Publishing
Operations Department to:
• Streamline and automate the editorial/production
process
• Provide the ability to quickly adapt to changing
business conditions
• Worked with consultants to build IEEE
customizations into third-party software
• Built in phases, beginning with vendor
proposals in 2004 and ending with launch in
late 2007
• Rolled out in 2008

7. Vendor Selection Process Was Detailed &
Comprehensive
• Did site visits to see existing journal
production CMSs
• Looked at a number of proposals, based on
all leading CMS available at the time
• Documentum
• Other proprietary systems
• Reviewed detailed written proposals
• Invited leading contenders in for
presentations
• Evaluated vendors using an evaluation
matrix

8. Matrix Captured Elements Most
Important to IEEE
• Vendor criteria
• References
• Prior experience
• Directly related experience (work on other publishing projects)
• Financial stability and long-term viability
• Technological stability of proposed platform
• Quality of the SOW
• Resources (amount & quality)
• Shows sophisticated understanding of project
• Proposed development process
• Point of contact
• Cost of project—realistic?
• Proposed schedule—realistic?
• Presentation
• Well-organized
• Responsive
• Demonstrates an understanding of IEEE’s business

9. Selected a Documentum-Based System
Building on Existing Solution
• Worked with Flatirons Solutions to customize
PubFusion, a system built for Wolters Kluwer
• Purchased base code and customized extensively to
fit IEEE needs
• Worked in phases, using an iterative design
process
• Phase 1: Functional specs, solution design
• Phase 2: Core functionality
• Phase 3: Automation
• Phase 4: Integrations

10. Defining Requirements, Developing
Workflows & Designing UIs Took Time
• Core team identified to work with Flatirons to
review process in detail
• Started in 2004, system went live at end 2007
• Called in larger groups of stakeholders for
review & input as portions of system were being
developed
• First step was to review existing workflows
• Workflow development in process while UI
prototypes were built, reviewed, refined, and
then reviewed and refined again
• Reviewing as the system was being developed
was critical to success

11. The Final Implementation Was Reasonably
Close to What We Expected
• The workflows, the most complex part of the
system, were reasonably close to our
expectations
• We are doing a major release in several days that
updates all of the workflows for the first time
• New workflows are more streamlined and more
flexible
• Integration with composition system went well
• The testing process was challenging
• The system was less stable than we expected at
launch
• We ended up launching without reporting
module

12. WMS Is Based on an End-to-End
Digital Workflow
• All articles and other materials for publication
are imported directly from external systems
(i.e., online peer review systems)
• The ability to import manually exists
• Articles move through the production process
based on pre-defined workflows, milestones
trigger the update of schedule information
• Important not to over-engineer—need flexibility
to react to changing business needs
• Contact with authors, EICs, IEEE staff, and
others is done through system portals

13. WMS Provides All Involved With Real-Time
Information About Content in Our Queue
• Through web-based portals, WMS gives
authors, editors-in-chief, and society staff the
ability to
• Check the status of an article
• What has happened, what will happen and when
• Update personal information (bio, photo, contact
information)
• Review article proof and submit alterations
• Contact IEEE editorial staff
• Review the queue of articles available for publication
(EIC/society)
• Create issue line-ups (EIC/society)
• View information about page budget and pages
published (EIC/society)

14. IEEE WMS Content Flows
Journal
Articles
IDAMS
Workflow Digital Asset
Management Mgmt. System
System
Conversion
and
Outsourced
Vendors
Xplore
Author Production Print
Gateway Portal Vendor

15. Other Benefits of WMS Include
Component-Level Content Management &
Enhanced Reporting
• WMS is designed to manage our content at
the component level
• Figures, photos, multimedia, text
• This will prepare us to act on opportunities for
component-based publishing
• Better, more automated tracking through the
production process allows for more detailed
reporting
• Audit trails, milestones, and system events can all
be used to create meaningful, targeted reports

16. Training End Users Is a Critical Part of
the Process
• Staff training was done using:
• Demos
• FAQs
• User guide
• Weekly open user group meetings
• Expert Users on the floor
• Blog site
• Centralized help desk
• Despite best efforts, training & documentation
were challenging
• Training of authors done using FAQs and user
guides
• Planning EiC/Volunteer training now

17. What Does WMS Look Like?
• Screen shots illustrate some system
highlights
• Inbox view: editorial staff interact with WMS
through the inbox
• Highly customized to provide ability to organize work in
different ways
• Tasks sortable by columns
• Additional filters to screen visible tasks by type,
publication, issue
• Metadata
• Used to automate the production process, for reporting,
and to track performance to schedule
• Detailed tracking of process/system events
• Easily identify bottlenecks
• Analyze where time is lost/gained
• Measure staff productivity

19. Extensive use
of metadata to
drive
automation and
reporting
Metadata fields
with asterisks
are required

20. Detailed
tracking of
process is
possible

21. What Does the Publishing Operations
Production Portal Look Like?
• Screen shots show some prototype highlights
• Journal-level dashboard summary view for EiCs
• Shows pending tasks, article production summary, issue
management summary, metrics and the next issue close
date
• Society-level summary dashboard for Society
Officers
• Similar to the EiC dashboard, but across all journals for a
Society
• Read-only for production operations!
• Master queue for EiCs to view and manage articles
• Sort articles in a variety of ways, assign issues to articles,
move articles between issues, review articles, approve
issues for publication

23. Society Officer dashboard

24. Review and edit issue line up:
change order of articles;
add/delete articles through
this “master article queue”

25. The Author Gateway- an Author Connection
to the IEEE
Landing Page
Create & maintain profile;
biography to be used as needed by
Author Profile
IEEE staff

26. Tracking Articles Through Production With
the Article Tracker
View status of each article in progress:
What stage of production? Article Tracker
Is proof available for review?
What happens next?
Milestones & Status

27. Overall Benefits of WMS to IEEE
• WMS has enabled IEEE Publishing
Operations to increase the amount of content
published with flat staff levels every year
• Number of pages increased 7-10% per year
• We add new journals every year
• Improved staff morale (work remotely)
• Handles both in-house edited and composed
journals and outsourced journals
• Supports an all-digital workflow
• Has enabled Pub Ops to respond more easily
to new business requirements and
opportunities
• Enhanced reporting

28. Lessons Learned
• Separate key features from the merely important
• Vendor selection is crucial to your success
• Project time and budget will be more than you
estimate
• Big projects are very hard to estimate accurately
• An iterative development process works well
• Make sure you have enough cycles planned
• Think about what you’ll do if you run out of cycles
• Plan upfront for an ongoing maintenance and
enhancement process
• A comprehensive training and deployment plan
are critical

29. Q&A
• Questions?
• Comments?
• Concerns?