**Source URL:** https://medical.veevavault.help/en/lr/1177011/

# Using Publications

Veeva Publications is an application within the Veeva Medical suite designed to streamline the planning, authoring, review, approval, and submission of scientific literature to medical journals and congresses. 

With Veeva Publications, publication managers can create and manage _Publication Plans_ at the project level, with _Project_ records for managers to control and monitor associated _Work Items_ and _Work Item Tasks_ assigned to individual project contributors. Publication managers also send _Publication_ documents to project contributors for review and approval via Collaborative Authoring.

## Creating a Plan in Publications

You can define and manage _Publication Plans_ for attributes like a _Therapeutic Area_, an _Indication_, or a _Product_, or you can establish an annual _Publication Plan_ for something that needs to be monitored on a yearly basis, such as annual budget planning.

To create a _Publication Plan_:

  1. Select **+Create** in the _All Plans_ view.
  2. In the _Create Publication Plan_ dialog, enter a **Name** for the plan, and select an attribute such as a _Therapeutic Area_ from the picklist.
  3. Enter a **Plan Description**.
  4. Select a **Start Date** and **End Date**.
  5. Click **Save**.

## Managing Plans in Publications

You can review a visualization of your _Publication Plan_ via the _Summary_ application section on the record detail page. This dashboard allows you to manage key activities and address plans in a timely manner. You can filter plans by type (_Congress_, _Journal_, or _General Publication_), stage (_Planning_, _Planned_, _In Progress_, _Complete_, or _Submitted_), or a date range. You can also group plans by target or stage. 

## Creating a Project in Publications

From the _Publication Plan_ record detail page, you can view the associated publications that are planned or have been completed or published, along with the products being featured in the publications and the studies used to substantiate the data. You can also create a _Project_ record for a single publication to manage the publication process from planning to submission.

To create a _Project_ record for a publication:

  1. Select **+Create** under the _Projects_ application section.
  2. In the _Create Project_ dialog, select a project type and then select **Continue**. Select **Congress Submission** to submit the publication to a congress, **Journal Submission** to submit the publication to a journal, or **General Publication**.
  3. Fill in the publication project details. Enter a **Publication Short Name**, **Project Owner**, and **Publication Type** for the project.
  4. Select the related _Reference_ record for the **Target** or **Target Event**, such as a _Journal_ for a _Journal Submission_.
  5. Click **Save**.

## Managing Projects in Publications

Once a _Project_ record is created, you can assign one or more _Work Items_ under the project that represent its individual parts and associated tasks. You can control, monitor, and assign these _Work Items_ and _Work Item Tasks_ to project contributors at the project level. When configured by an Admin, you can also manage the _Work Item_ workflows by type (_Milestone_ or _Workstream_) and initiate the workflow from the _Work Items_ application section on the _Project_ record detail page.

You can review the status of assigned _Work Items_ and any nested _Work Item Tasks_ as rows of the _Project Summary_ application section. The _Project Summary_ application section displays the _Milestones_ and _Workstreams_ related to the project along with a status bar indicating the percentage of completeness of _Work Item Tasks_ under that _Work Item_. If an item or task is overdue, the status bar is displayed in red with an _Overdue_ indicator.

You can zoom the chart by three months (3m), six months (6m), one year (1y), or All, and the date range start date is today's date. You can also hover your cursor over a _Workstream_ or _Milestone_ to display a _Work Item_ hovercard that includes project status details, a link to the _Work Item_ record detail page, the current lifecycle state, and _Due Soon_ or _Overdue_ indicator for items that need to be addressed quickly.

## Collaborating in Publications

To start the Collaborative Authoring process for your publication, start an authoring workflow or initiate a collaborative authoring session on the desired document. Collaborative authoring connects Vault to Microsoft 365 to allow multiple users to edit a document at the same time using the Microsoft 365 desktop software or browser apps.

When the _Project_ record moves to _Authoring_, publication managers can kick off the **Send to Author(s)** workflow, which automatically checks out the document to Microsoft 365 and enables internal and external collaborators to access and contribute to the _Publication_ document. Any contributions from external collaborators who do not use collaborative authoring are uploaded to Vault as _Attachments_ for historical reference and audit tracking.

Once all of the input from the collaborators is collated and uploaded in Vault, you can move the _Publication_ document to _Review_ and _Approval_ states where publication managers can initiate **Send for Review** and **Send for Approval** workflows to send the document to the appropriate resources for review and approval.

## Limitations

  * Users cannot change the parent or the populated plan once a _Project_ is created.
  * Users cannot create a _Milestone_ as a child item of a _Workstream_.
  * Users cannot create a child _Work Item_ for a _Milestone_.
  * Users cannot change the object type for a _Work Item_.