How to Get Email Notifications for Posts Pending Review in WordPress

Do you want to get email notifications for posts that are pending review in WordPress?

If you have a multi-author blog, then you might want to get notified when a writer submits a post for review. This can improve the editorial workflow and help you publish new posts faster.

In this article, we will show you how to get email notifications when posts are marked ‘pending review’ in WordPress.

Why Get Email Notifications for Posts Pending Review in WordPress?

Accepting guest blogs and working with more authors can help you publish more content. However, managing a multi-author WordPress blog can be a challenge.

With that being said, it can help to get an email notification every time a writer submits a post for review. Then, you can start editing the blog straight away and get it published as quickly as possible.

Email notifications also mean you won’t miss any incoming posts or chase writers for work they have already submitted. This can improve the editorial workflow and save you a ton of time.

That said, let’s see how you can set up email notifications when posts get marked ‘pending review’ in WordPress.

How to Get Emails for Posts Pending Review in WordPress

The best way to create email notifications for a multi-author WordPress blog is by using PublishPress Planner. This plugin comes with a content calendar that makes it easy to schedule posts and allows editors to post private comments and feedback on author posts.

It also allows you to send an email notification every time a post gets marked ‘pending review’.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the PublishPress Planner plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to head over to the Planner » Notifications page.

By default, PublishPress Planner emails the site administrator when new content is published and editorial comments are added to a post.

To create a new custom notification, go ahead and click on ‘Add New.’

You can start by typing in a title for the notification.

This is just for your reference, so you can use anything you want.

You can now create the notification using the ‘Workflow Settings’.

Under ‘When to notify?’, click to select the following checkbox: ‘When the content is moved to a new status’.

After that, you must open the ‘New status’ dropdown and select ‘Pending review’.

Next, you need to specify the content types that will trigger the email notification on your WordPress website.

You can select send notifications for all posts, all pages, all pages and posts, or for specific categories and tags.

For example, if all guest bloggers use the ‘Guest Post’ tag, then you can select the ‘Taxonomy’ box and then select ‘Guest Post’ from the dropdown menu.

The easiest option is to enable notifications for all posts or pages by checking the box next to ‘Post type’.

With that done, you can open the dropdown menu and check the box next to ‘Post’, ‘Page’, or ‘Select All’.

Next, you need to tell PublishPress who to notify using the settings under ‘Who to notify?’

If you are the only person who needs to be notified, then you can simply check the box next to ‘Site Administrator’.

If there are several editors, then we recommend creating an Editor role if you haven’t already. You can learn about assigning roles in our beginner’s guide on user roles and permissions.

After that, you can simply check the ‘Roles’ box and select ‘Editor’ from the dropdown menu.

If you need to notify specific people, then another option is to select ‘Users’.

You can then choose individual users from the dropdown menu.

When you are happy with how the notification is set up, you can scroll to the ‘What to say?’ section and type in the message that users will get.

Here, you can use a mix of static text and any of the shortcodes in the right-hand column.

Every time it creates an email, PublishPress will replace these shortcodes with real values. In this way, you can create more helpful and useful emails by including relevant information, such as the author’s name and a link to the WordPress blog post that needs review.

For example, you might add the following static text and shortcode to the email’s subject:

“[psppno_post title]” is ready for review

You can use a similar mix of shortcodes and plain text in the email body.

When you are happy with how the email is set up, go ahead and click on ‘Publish’.

Now, PublishPress Planner will send an email notification every time a post is ready for review.

How to Make Sure Your Emails Get Delivered

Now that you have set up email notifications, you will want to make sure they arrive safely in the editing team’s inbox and not in the spam folder. Unfortunately, many people have an issue with WordPress not sending emails.

That might be because your WordPress hosting server isn’t properly configured to use the PHP mail() function. Many email providers also incorrectly label WordPress emails as spam.

That’s where WP Mail SMTP comes in. It is the best WordPress SMTP plugin that allows you to easily send WordPress emails using any SMTP service provider and ensure they arrive safely in the receiver’s inbox.

For step-by-step instructions, see our guide on how to set up WP Mail SMTP with any host.

We hope this article helped you learn how to set up email notifications for posts pending review in WordPress. You might also want to learn how to create a free business email address or see our comparison of the best payroll software for small business.

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