News UK is the publisher of The Times, The Sunday Times, and The Sun newspapers, some of the largest dailies in the United Kingdom, employing close to 5,000 people to bring news to its various readerships.
News UK found itself with a front-page challenge. As part of their business operations, they regularly onboard hundreds of journalists, photographers, and other professionals who need to come up to speed quickly on editorial and working standards. Often these staff is connected to News UK via their mobile phones.
Unfortunately, historically, much of the related onboarding content had been housed in either an outdated, hard-to-use legacy Intranet or a dated, printed book shared with new staff.
Meanwhile, News UK’s reader-facing digital properties had long been run on WordPress VIP. Staff who had been using Automattic’s internal tool called P2 to collaborate realized that the product would be an ideal fit for their own internal employee onboarding needs.
Joel Davies, Head Of Editorial Operations at News UK, explained that once P2 was established and integrated with their single sign-on provider he was able to customize P2 on his own, needing only help to establish a domain and single sign-on. He then worked with the editorial staff to add documents to P2. These documents included:
- Office wifi passwords.
- Style guides. Lengthy pages that define what words can and cannot be used in news stories.
- Policies statements for processes like expenses.
- Contact sheet to get in touch with management.
- News UK uses tags for every page to improve
search discoverability.Search
Using search in P2 it's easy to come back to the right messages and files when you need to. Use the search field to find a post, page or file. P2+ comes with advanced search to narrow results using filters and modifiers.
“Now I have a single site that houses both print and digital training guides for CMSes, phone systems, Slack, payment systems, and more,” said Davies. “And the best thing about it is that I was able to get senior print news professionals, who typically don’t use WordPress, to join the P2 and start posting in minutes without training within minutes.”
Why P2 Is A Great Fit For News UK
Both P2 and News UK’s editorial operations are built on WordPress, so there is no training required. P2 is a simplified version of WordPress, which allows users to easily
Posts let you share long-form, formatted content — like project plans or documentation — directly in P2. They are displayed in reverse chronological order.
Similarly, the P2 also offers a gateway to WordPress for additional News UK print staff at News UK who do not use WordPress. It makes a great introduction.
“P2 is easy to search and organize,” said Davies. “News UK has many internal tools, so it can take time to locate different documents. Having access to their P2, new employees have all the pages they need to quickly get up to speed.”
For more complex topics, P2’s WordPress video easily allows users to embed helpful video content directly on relevant pages.
In addition, many of P2’s pages reference other pages. With P2’s WordPress embeds, readers can get a summary of other pages quickly, without having to click over to them.
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News UK’s Joel Davies: “P2 has changed our lives for the better. We are looking at additional internal processes that we can improve with P2.”
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For News UK, P2 fits their need for a simple one-stop-shop for all staff to use, from new hires to management veterans who need to easily find policies or other critical information. P2 has become News UK’s private, go-to place for people to read, discuss, and learn how the company operates.
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