Item status
There are three major status levels that an item can be in at any one time; Draft, Published or Expired. The current state of an item indicates where the item exists within a change management process, and where that item can be viewed and accessed.
Status types
- Draft
- This indicates that the item is currently being updated.
- Pending published
- An item that uses a workflow can appear in a state of pending published. This indicates that the item has entered a workflow stage that includes a publish action but the action has yet to be processed.
- Published
- A published status indicates that an item is ready to be rendered in the live site.
- Pending expired
- An item that uses a workflow can appear in a state of pending expired. This indicates that the item has entered a workflow stage that includes an expire action but the action has yet to be processed.
- Expired
- An expired status indicates that an item is ready to be expired from the live site.
Change status
The status of an item can only change in a linear fashion:
- Draft to Published.
- Published to Expired.
- Expired to Published.
- Published to Draft.
We cannot change an item's status from Expired to Draft.
The process of publishing and expiring items
When the status of an item changes to published or expired, this does not mean that the item will have been added or removed from the rendered site. A status of published or expired means that the process of publishing or expiring an item has begun.
The actual time a published item will appear on a website, or the time an expired item is removed from a website, also depends on:
- how long it takes to syndicate updates to the delivery server
- how long it takes for the current cache to expire
- Draft items
Creating a draft of an item allows us to work on changes to that item without changing the published version of the item. Draft items can either be stand-alone items, or form part of a workflow. Once the changes are completed, we can choose to either publish the item, or discard the changes by cancelling the draft. We can create multiple drafts of a single item.
- Published items
Items are not visible on a website until they are published. Once published, an item can be expired, or returned to a draft state.
- Expired items
Expired items are items that were once published but have since been removed from the live website. Only items that use a workflow can be expired.
Parent: Workflow and change managementRelated:
Related: