Use workflows

 

+

Search Tips   |   Advanced Search

 

Overview

With workflows you can edit, approve and decline items.

When a new draft of a published item is created, a tick is displayed against the published item. This means that no other user can create a draft until the current draft progresses through a workflow and its state changes to published.

 

Access Items during a workflow

When viewing an item by workflow, the items appearing as "draft" in the index are required to be reviewed. When you double-click on one of the items it will open in the item preview and edit window.

Do not open the item in edit mode, as the Next Stage button will not be available. Only double-click an item to review and approve an item.

If an item is participating in a workflow, the creator is given delete access to the item only in the first workflow stage. As the item progresses through a workflow, the item access is determined by the combined workflow and system defined access levels.

Access level 1st workflow stage Additional workflow stages
Read
Edit

Delete

  • User who created item
  • System defined
  • Workflow defined

Approve

 

Approving and declining

Users with approval access have two options prior to a published stage, approving or declining. They may also be able to edit an item before sending it to the next stage.

Next Stage Used to approve an item and send it to the next stage in a workflow.
Process Stage Now Manually processes an item if its status is pending. All actions in the stage are processed.
Approve Workflow Used to approve an item when joint approval is set.
Decline Used when an item is rejected during a workflow. It is available in all stages prior to the published stage. Executes any actions defined in the reject stage, and then sends the item back to the first stage of a workflow.
Cancel Draft This removes a draft item from a workflow altogether. This displays only after an item has been published and a new draft has been created.

 

Edit published items

Once an item is published, there are various options available when deciding to edit that item.

Create Draft Creates a draft copy of a published item. The published item is locked on the rendered site, while a copy of the item is sent through a workflow. Once the draft item has been approved for publishing, it replaces the published item.
Restart Workflow Sends an item back to the first stage of a Workflow without activating the reject stage. The item no longer appears as published and is removed from the rendered site.

You are prevented from restarting a workflow on content that is set as default content for a site area, otherwise the site area would fail to render which could have a significant effect on a production page. Please use the "Create draft" option instead. This will leave the published version in production while you make changes on the draft. You can then update the content and promote the draft through the workflow to published status so the new content is visible in production.

When you restart a workflow, any actions set to run on entering the first stage will not be executed.

When you restart a workflow with multiple stages, a
draft item is created in the first stage. In addition to this, the item will also appear in the deleted items view so that the last published version of the item can be restored. Once the draft is republished, the version in the deleted items view is removed.

These buttons display if you have approve access, the item is published and no draft exists.

 

Troubleshooting

If you add content links to an item with a draft status in a workflow, both the original draft content item and the linked content will appear in your list of draft items. The linked
content items are only visible in your list of draft items, but once published will no longer be visible in your list of published items.

 

Parent topic

Manage items in a workflow