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Article Lifecycle & Workflows

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In this lesson, you will learn:

  • The states a knowledge article moves through
  • How publish and retire workflows work
  • Why articles need to be reviewed over time

1 Articles have a life too

An article isn’t finished when it’s written. It needs to be checked, published, kept up to date, and one day, retired. That’s the article lifecycle. 🔄

The knowledge article states in order. Draft: being written; only authors and managers see it. Review: waiting for approval, if the knowledge base uses an approval workflow. Published: live, and readers can find it. Pending retirement: waiting for approval to retire. Retired: no longer shown to readers, but kept for history. A note shows that with instant publish, an article goes straight from Draft to Published.
Figure 1. Draft → Review → Published → Retired.
State What it means
Draft Being written. Readers can’t see it
Review Waiting for approval to publish
Published Live. Readers can search and read it
Pending retirement Waiting for approval to retire
Retired No longer shown to readers, but kept for history

2 Publish and retire workflows

Each knowledge base picks how articles are published and retired:

Workflow What happens
Instant Publish Click Publish, and it’s live right away
Approval Publish Click Publish, and it goes to Review. A manager must approve it
Instant Retire Click Retire, and it’s retired right away
Approval Retire Click Retire, and a manager must approve it

💡 Good to know: Use Approval Publish for knowledge bases that customers or all employees read. A second pair of eyes catches mistakes before everyone sees them.

3 Keeping articles fresh

  • The Valid to date reminds owners to check the article.
  • To change a published article, you check it out as a new version, edit it, and publish again. Readers keep seeing the old version until then.
  • Retire articles about systems SNWR no longer uses.

⚠️ Heads up: Old, wrong articles are worse than no articles. People follow them and get stuck. Review your knowledge base regularly.

⭐ Remember: Draft → Review → Published → Retired. The knowledge base decides if approval is needed.

4 Let’s try it: publish your article

  1. Open your SNWR IT knowledge base. Check which publish workflow it uses.
  2. Open your draft article from Lesson 25.2 and click Publish. Which state is it in now?
  3. If it’s in Review, approve it from My Approvals.
  4. Search for it in the portal (/sp). Can you find it?

5 Quick recap

  • Article states: Draft, Review, Published, Pending retirement, Retired
  • Knowledge bases choose Instant or Approval workflows for publishing and retiring
  • Change published articles by checking out a new version
  • Review and retire old articles

6 Check yourself

Think of your answer first. Then tap to check.

1 You click Publish, but the article goes to Review. Why? Show answer

The knowledge base uses an Approval Publish workflow. A manager must approve it.

2 Can readers see a Retired article? Show answer

No. It’s kept for history, but not shown to readers.

3 Which field reminds owners to review an article? Show answer

Valid to.

Nice work! You finished this lesson. 🎉

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