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WORKFLOW AND PUBLISHING

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Status and Actions

• Workflow is a collection of steps to move content to different states based on available actions– Status: refers to the state of a document

– Action: refers to a movement of a document in the workflow

– Each step in the workflow is related to a state

– Steps are associated with delivery of content via publishing, via scripts, via social networks

Status = state Action = movementor change

Noun Verb

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Workflow

• The Workflow menu shows all the current state and the available actions to move it to the next

• All new documents begin in the Draft state

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Workflow: Content Lifecycle

These are the steps in the Basic Workflow, configured in all CMS instances. Workflows can be customized to include as many or as few steps as needed.

•“Basic Workflow”– Draft

– Rejected

– Pending

– Stage

– Live

– Retired

– Archived

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Workflow: Content Lifecycle

• Draft– 99.9999% of the time – the initial state of a document in

the CMS

– “Everyone” has access

• Pending– A review step: access is usually restricted to admin or

higher level users

– Content is “Approved” – and published to Stage or Rejected.

• Rejected– A temporary step – identifies the content as having been

Rejected

– Content returns to the Draft step after being edited to restart the process

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Workflow: Content Lifecycle

• Stage– Content is published to the Staging server -

can be viewed outside the CMS and in the full context of the site

– Content can be republished if changes are needed, published directly to Live, or scheduled for later publishing

• Live– The ultimate goal of all content: it’s now on the

Live site

– Content can be republished to Live – usually by admins only, retired, or scheduled for retirement.

– Branching would start – and complete – at this step.

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Workflow: Content Lifecycle

• Retired– Content is removed from all published locations:

typically Live and Stage

– Content is still visible in the general file/folder view of the CMS.

– A user (usually admin) can Archive the content, and usually a timeout transition is set up to automatically Archive the content as well.

• Archive– The “CMS Housekeeping” step – content is still in the

CMS, but out of the main file/folder view.

– Content can be seen via the “Hidden Folder”, and revived to Draft or branched by admins if needed.

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Publishing

• In our standard configuration, moving a page to the STAGE state will publish it to the staging server, for internal review

• Also, moving a page to the LIVE state will publish it on the LIVE server

• The publishing icon in the bottom right corner will indicate publishing status

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Exercises

• Create an asset and send it for approval• Rejected the asset

– Show task system when content is rejected

– Show how when the rejected asset is edited it goes back to draft

• Publish to Stage– View published page on stage server and compare with asset in preview.

– Make an edit and republish to Stage

– Verify that change is published

• Publish Live and view on live site• Retire Asset, confirm that it is no longer published on stage or Live• Note what permissions users have based on their group ACLs, if

they are unable to publish to stage or live it may be because of ACLs.