Aurora: Overview of Content Workflow and Approval feature for Knowledge Base articles and Blog posts
To enable people to create high-quality and engaging content quickly, you need a simple process for authors, editors, and publishers to follow. Different people have different responsibilities in the content creation workflow, and it’s important for teams to be able to collaborate on new and existing articles at scale and not get in each other’s way. Granular control over author, editor, and publisher permissions, enables you to clearly define who can perform each task in the publishing workflow. Each blog post or KB article moves through different states, and members can view the latest state of articles and blog posts via Manage Content Dashboard. This flowchart shows how an article moves through the publishing workflow and the tasks members with specific roles can perform. Feature Enablement Admins can enable content workflow in your community. To enable it, goto Account menu > Settings > Features > General and enable Content Workflow. Learn more on how to enable Content workflow in the community. Key features The default roles for content workflow include: BlogAuthor: Can start and edit blog articles BlogEditor: Can edit on articles that are in the Awaiting Review state. BlogEditors can send articles back to the BlogAuthor if there are changes required or can forward the article to the BlogPublisher for publication BlogPublisher: Can approve and publish articles that are in the Awaiting Publication state or send the article back to the BlogEditor if additional changes are needed. KBAuthor: Can start and edit KB articles KBEditor: Can edit articles that are in the Awaiting Review state. KBEditors can send articles back to the KBAuthor if there are changes required or can forward the article to the KBPublisher for publication KBPublisher: Can approve and publish articles that are in the Awaiting Publication state or send the article back to the KBEditor if additional changes are needed. You can find these roles when you go to Settings > Users > Community Permission Defaults. Learn more about enabling this feature and assigning roles to members 3-step workflow: Once you assign the above roles members, every draft will go through the process of publishing articles with a 3-step workflow that provides for authoring, editing and publishing. Below is an example of a blog post’s draft page that was written by a member with a BlogAuthor role and submitted for review. You can see the status of the draft, version number, and perform further actions depending on your role in the workflow process. When the drafts are in the 3-step workflow and yet to be published, you can Manage Content: Track an article’s or blog post's journey in the publishing workflow and make it easier to take relevant actions using the content management dashboard. Compare two revisions of a draft: Compare any two versions when the article or blog post is in the workflow process. The differences between the two versions are highlighted View Draft History: Track every action each member performs on an article or blog post until it is published. Note: As of today, email notifications are not sent to members with these roles. This feature will be available in a future release. Knowledge Base article and blog post states In this publishing workflow, knowledge base articles and blog posts can be in one of four states: Draft: Articles or blog post has been created or edited but isn't ready to be reviewed or published Awaiting Review: Article or blog post draft is ready for review Awaiting Publication: Article or blog post has been reviewed and is ready for approval and publication Published: Article or blog post has been published. If this article or blog post was a revision for an already-published article or blog post, respectively, this new version replaces the previous version in the community Related topics: 3-step workflow for Knowledge base articles and blog posts Return a Knowledge base article or blog post back to draft state Send a Knowledge Base article or blog post back for reviewAurora: 3-step workflow for Knowledge base articles and blog posts
Let’s walk through an example of how a blog post moves through the three-step workflow until it is published. The same applies to Knowledge Base articles. Before you continue, you may find it helpful to first read the articles on assigning authoring and publishing roles to members and what these roles help with. The BlogAuthor clicks Create a blog post to start a new blog post. The BlogAuthor writes the blog post. They can either click Save Draft to update the blog post later or Submit for Review to send the blog post for review to the BlogEditor. Assume that they click Submit for Review. The draft is saved. The version number of this draft is 0.1. The status appears on the top-right corner. In this example, the draft status is Awaiting Review. The Version History displays this version as v0.1. The Version History also lists all the actions taken on this blog post until it is published in the community blog. The blog post is now in the Awaiting Review state and waiting on the BlogEditor to take action. Note: BlogAuthors and KBAuthors can still recall blog posts and articles at this point in the workflow. The BlogEditor opens the Manage Content dashboard and sees that there are articles in the Awaiting Review state. The BlogEditor can open the draft to review or edit by either: clicking Edit Draft on the draft page: OR clicking Edit from the Manage Content dashboard The BlogEditor can: Edit to make changes. Return to Author if the blog requires changes from the BlogAuthor. Submit for Publication to send the article to the BlogPublisher. In this example, the BlogEditor clicks Submit for Publication. The draft moves to the Awaiting Publication state and is forwarded to the BlogPublisher. The BlogPublisher opens the Manage Content dashboard and sees that there are articles in the Awaiting Publication state. The BlogPublisher can either click the name of the blog post to review the draft or take actions from the Manage Content dashboard. The BlogPublisher can: Return for Review to send the blog post back to the BlogEditor. Publish to publish the blog post in the community blog. Schedule for Publication to publish the blog post at a later time. In this example, the BlogPublisher clicks Publish. The article is published in the Community with version number 1.0. You can view the history of the blog post even after it is published Learn more about restoring older versions of a published blog post or knowledge base article. Learn more about editing published blog posts or knowledge base articles. Workflow process for members with multiple roles and permissions You can assign more than one of the default roles to a member. The drafts have to go through the review state to be published.The below screenshot shows the workflow page where the member has all the three default roles. The Submit for Publication button will not be visible until the draft passes the review state. But if the member has all 3 default roles, and the draft has passed the review state, then the member can take all the workflow actions. Related topics: Overview of Content Workflow for Knowledge Base articles and Blog posts Return a Knowledge base article or blog post back to draft state Send a Knowledge Base article or blog post back for reviewPreview published URL
Members who have access to the workflow page of an article, can preview the published URL (the final URL when published) on the workflow page of the draft. They can share this URL with others, who might need to link to this article when it’s published. To view the URL when the artilce or blog post is the in draft state: Open the draft of the article or blog post. Open the Options menu. Select Copy Published URL. The URL will be copied to your clipboard.Aurora: Enable Content Workflow for Knowledge Bases and Blogs (admin)
The content workflow process enables you to create high-quality and engaging content quickly and seamlessly. Granular control over author, editor, and publisher permissions enables you to prescribe who can perform each task in the publishing workflow. Each KB article or blog post moves through different publishing states and is assigned to members with specific roles. This way, members know what state an article is in, when it’s their turn to work on it, and what they must do to move the article to the next step in the publishing workflow. Enable Content Workflow Login to the community as Admin. Click your profile name and on the dropdown menu click Settings The Settings page opens. Click Content Features The Features page opens. Enable the Content Workflow option Your community's KB articles and blog posts are now set to follow the Content Workflow process. Roles and permissions After you enable the feature as mentioned in the above section, you can see that the default roles to facilitate content workflow are added. BlogAuthor and KB Author: Can start and edit blog posts and KB articles respectively. BlogEditor or KBEditor: Can edit on blog posts and KB articles that are in the Awaiting Review state, respectively. They can send articles back to the BlogAuthor or KBAuthor if there are changes required or can forward the article to the BlogPublisher or KBPublisher for publication. BlogPublisher or KBPublisher: Can approve and publish articles that are in the Awaiting Publication state or send the article back to the BlogEditor or KBEditor, respectively if additional changes are needed. Related Topics: Overview of Content Workflow for Knowledge Base articles and Blog posts 3-step workflow for Knowledge base articles and blog posts Return a Knowledge base article or blog post back to draft state Send a Knowledge Base article or blog post back for reviewAurora: Return a Knowledge base article or blog post back to draft state
There can be scenarios where the draft has to be assigned back to the BlogAuthor for various reasons irrespective of what state the draft is in. For example, there might be a late decision to rename a product or change the market messaging about a specific feature. Often, it’s the author who will be informed about these changes, and the author needs to be able to pull the article back and work on it some more before it gets published. There are two ways in which a draft can be returned to the BlogAuthor from different states of the workflow. Return to Author The BlogEditor can return the draft to the BlogAuthor, if there are changes to be made on the draft. The draft then goes to the Draft state. Same is the case with knowledge base articles with KBAuthor and KBEditor roles. Click Return to Author to return to Author on the draft page You can opt to add notes on why you want to return the draft to the Author and click Return to Author. The draft returns to the Author and is in Draft state. Recall draft The BlogAuthor can click the Recall button to pull the blog post back from any state in the publishing workflow (Awaiting Review, Awaiting Publication) before it is published in the community. Same is the case with recalling knowledge base articles, with KBAuthor roles. Note: Authors can recall only the articles they created. Recall from Awaiting Review state: Recall from Awaiting Publication state: Related Topics: The Manage Content dashboard Overview of Content Workflow for Knowledge Base articles and Blog posts 3-step workflow for Knowledge base articles and blog posts Send a Knowledge Base article or blog post back for reviewAurora: Send a Knowledge Base article or blog post back for review
If the draft of the blog post is in the Awaiting Publication state, the BlogPublisher can click the Return for Review button to assign the draft back to the BlogEditor for additional work. Same is the case with any draft of a knowledge Base article. Login to the community as BlogPublisher. Go to your Manage Content dashboard. Click the three dots next to the draft you want to work on. Click Return for Review to return the draft to the BlogEditor. 6. You can opt to add notes on why you are returning the draft to the BlogEditor. The draft goes to Awaiting Review state. The same can be done from the draft page of the blog posts. Related Topics: The Manage Content dashboard Overview of Content Workflow for Knowledge Base articles and Blog posts 3-step workflow for Knowledge base articles and blog posts Return a Knowledge base article or blog post back to draft state
