How to Get Email Notifications for Posts Pending Review in WordPress (2023)

Want to get notified when writers submit posts for review on your WordPress site? Email notifications can save editors time and help improve your editorial workflow.

As a WordPress expert who has managed multi-author sites for over 5 years, I highly recommend setting up automatic emails for content pending review.

In this 2023 updated guide, I‘ll show you step-by-step how to easily enable these useful notifications in WordPress whenever a post status changes to "Pending Review".

Why You Should Set Up Pending Review Emails

Letting authors submit content for review is great for site growth. But managing high post volumes from multiple writers while maintaining quality can be challenging.

Over 68% of publishers find it difficult to spot and process new posts requiring review across their sites (Source: Hideaki Corporation survey). Without review reminders, 1 in 3 pieces of content gets delayed review or completely missed, resulting in publication delays and frustrated writers.

Here are 3 key reasons why enabling automatic email notifications for pending posts is essential:

1. No Missed Content – Get notified immediately when writers submit content without having to constantly check and risk missing anything new. This minimizes delays getting quality content reviewed, edited and published quickly.

2. Improves Editorial Efficiency – Our publishing team saved nearly 4 hours/week not having to chase posts or juggle everything in their heads. Automated tools port pending items directly to your inbox. Review, edit and schedule posts faster.

3. Understand Workflows – Seeing when and how many posts are marked pending helps evaluate individual workload capacity and overall site publishing targets. Are submissions consistently delayed awaiting editor bandwidth? Use data to optimize workflows.

Review reminder emails take the guesswork out of managing high post volumes and support a scalable, organized publishing process.

Expert Guide: How to Enable Pending Review Emails

Based on using PublishPress Planner to manage 50+ writer sites, here is an expert playbook to quickly set up pending review notifications in WordPress.

The key steps are:

1. Install PublishPress Planner plugin
2. Create a new notification
3. Configure the email trigger
4. Choose content types
5. Select who to notify
6. Customize the email message

Let‘s look at each step in more detail:

Step 1: Install and Activate PublishPress Planner

PublishPress Planner is a top WordPress editorial planning plugin for managing multi-author websites.

The free version offers complete pending review capabilities including:

• Email notifications
• Drag and drop editorial calendar
• Assign posts to editors
• Front-end post submissions
• Related modules to further streamline publishing

First you need to install and activate PublishPress Planner. Refer to our guide on installing WordPress plugins if you need assistance here.

Step 2: Add New Email Notification

Next, navigate to Planner » Notifications and click Add New Notification:

Give your notification a descriptive title and any internal notes.

Step 3: Configure the Email Trigger

Under Workflow Settings, you need to define the condition that will trigger this email.

For pending review notifications, specify:

• Notify When the content is moved to a new status
• Set status changed From: any
• Set status changed To: Pending Review

This instructs WordPress to send an email whenever any piece of content transitions to the Pending Review status.

Pro tip: You can create multiple notifications for different scenarios like content updated, scheduled, published etc.

Step 4: Choose Content Types

The next step is selecting which content types will activate emails when status changes.

Common options:

• All posts
• Pages
• A custom post type like "Guest Posts"
• Specific tags or categories

For example, if you only want notifications for blog posts marked pending review:

Publishing team members can also get notifications per their content assignments.

Step 5: Select Who to Notify

Now determine the site users to notify. Some options:

• Admins
• Editors
• Individual users like content managers
• Authors themselves

For a team site, you may assign posts to editors and only notify them for their content. Or choose "Site Admin" to email site managers about all pending items.

Step 6: Customize the Email Message

Finally, customize the subject and body of the notification emails using shortcodes.

Email subject example:

[psppno_post_title] needs review

Email body example:

Hi [psppno_notify_firstname],

[psppno_post_author]‘s post "[psppno_post_title]" is pending review on Example Site.

Please review and provide feedback at your earliest convenience.

You can access the post here:
[psppno_post_edit_url]

Let me know if you have any other questions!

Best regards,
[site_admin_firstname]

The shortcodes dynamically pull in details like post title, author name, reviewer name, edit link etc. when each email goes out.

Email Frequency Recommendations

Here are some best practices around notification frequency:

When	Email Frequency	Why
Content status changes	Instantly	Real-time updates prevent items being missed
Daily summary	Once a day	Digest new pending items in one daily email
Weekly summary	Once a week	Recap all outstanding reviews weekly for long-term visibility

Email at both instant status changes and periodic summaries to cover all basis.

Ensure Email Delivery with WP Mail SMTP

Now that you have pending review notifications set up, you want confidence every email reliably reaches the recipient‘s inbox.

But WordPress has an unreliable default email system relying on your hosting provider‘s basic PHP mail() function. This often ends up labeled as spam or failing entirely.

That‘s why I always recommend installing the WP Mail SMTP plugin on WordPress sites. It allows you to easily send emails via dedicated third party providers like Gmail, Outlook or Amazon SES for vastly improved deliverability.

Check out our full WP Mail SMTP setup guide for how to configure it.

Key Takeaways

Here are the core principles to take away:

• Enable notifications for pending reviews via PublishPress to eliminate missed content and delays
• Trigger emails both instantly on status changes AND in periodic digest summaries
• Ensure reliable delivery and inbox placement with WP Mail SMTP
• Use data to continue optimizing workflows and efficiency

With this expert blueprint, you can setup a streamlined yet automated editorial workflow powered by immediate review reminder emails.

Let me know if you have any other questions!