Implementation of the vjoon K4 publishing system for both the News and the Journal to allow editors and layout production staff to work concurrently while keeping editorial content in an easily exportable format for the Web.
The Florida Bar is the organization of all lawyers licensed by the Supreme Court of Florida to practice law in the state. The organization has two publications, The Florida Bar News (News) and The Florida Bar Journal (Journal), that serve the legal community throughout the State. The Florida Bar News is the primary means by which The Florida Bar communicates topical information to its members. This twice-monthly tabloid carries news about all levels of the organized Bar, other law-related organizations and current legal issues. The Florida Bar Journal, with articles selected in a peer review process by the editorial board, is the premier source for scholarly, topical articles on Florida law. The publication is produced 10 times each year and is mailed to all active members and subscribers.
Staff for both publications must go through an arduous process to rekey content into an antiquated IBM Notes platform to make it available for publication on the Web. The Florida Bar decided that the Notes solution must be eliminated and replaced with a more modern tool and approach. The organization retained DPCI to analyze the current situation then recommend best practices and technology to improve workflow and reduce costs.
The Florida Bar selected vjoon K4, a publishing system that works in conjunction with Adobe Creative Cloud to allow editors, designers, and production professionals to collaborate more effectively. For both the News and the Journal, vjoon K4 would allow editors and layout production staff to work concurrently while keeping editorial content in an easily exportable format for the Web.
Our team met with The Florida Bar's editorial, design, and production staff to review existing workflow, along with any challenges the teams were facing.
Next we gathered requirements for the system, helped identify impediments in the current publishing workflow and offered suggestions on how to improve the process with a K4 status-based workflow. We also helped The Florida Bar define its metadata needs, as well as the organization's permissions/security model across multiple titles. The focus was to design a workflow that would allow the editorial team to not only create content and run it through workflows for print, but to use the same solution to publish content to the Web.
Next, our team installed vjoon K4 at The Florida Bar in the cloud on MS Azure. We configured the vjoon K4 system in accordance with the publishing requirements and presented the prototype solution to the publishing staff for feedback. Based on that feedback, we modified the configuration until The Florida Bar staff agreed that it would meet their needs.
For publishing online, we configured the vjoon K4 XML Exporter to automate the export of InCopy files out of the system then used a custom XSLT to format the content, including endnotes, for import into WordPress.
Our team provided both vjoon K4 system administration and end-user training and guided The Florida Bar staff in the best practices for creation and usage of InDesign and InCopy templates for standard page layouts to rapidly produce content.
To help ensure a smooth rollout, we provided on-site and remote support to end users and The Florida Bar system administrators as they produced the first issues of the News using vjoon K4. Thereafter, we helped The Florida Bar refine configurations for the Journal, which included modifications to the XML Exporter and the XSLT to export endnotes which are a major component of the Journal both in print and online.
vjoon K4 provides The Florida Bar staff with a standard platform to create and curate content for both the News and the Journal in print and Web along with a quicker, cleaner export of content for publishing to the WordPress websites, without having to go through the IBM Notes intermediary platform.