Changing the status of a knowledge article

In Progress

Initial status that is automatically assigned to all articles at the time of creation. Articles are visible only to the author until they are promoted to Draft status. The author can update and save the article an unlimited number of times before highlighting it.

Draft

The first status in the workflow. The author promotes articles to this status after creating the article. Draft articles contain content that has not undergone a formal review or has not been approved. Articles with this status are designated for internal use by Support only, and are not accessible to external users, also known as Self Help users.

SME Review

Typically the next step after Draft. The SME Reviewer reviews and optionally edits the article, and can promote it to one of the following statuses:

• Another review status for additional review
• Publish Approval status (only if the reviewer is a member of the support group)

Optional Review 1

Additional, optional review status that is subsequent to the SME Review status. A reviewer reviews and edits the article, and promotes it to either an additional review of a different type or to Publish Approval status. By default, Optional Review 1 is intended for technical content review.

Note: The name of this status is configurable.

Optional Review 2

Additional, optional review status that is subsequent to the SME Review or Optional Review 1 status. A reviewer reviews and edits the article, and promotes it to Publish Approval. By default, Optional Review 2 is intended for proofreading.

Note: The name of this status is configurable.

Publish Approval

Mandatory status before being Published. The article is sent for approval pending publication.

Best practice: Change the initial settings of automatic approvals to manual approvals and set up approvers for the approval process, otherwise it will result in continued automatic approvals. Changing the settings and not setting up approvers will result in the failure of the approval level processes. For more details on configuring approval processes and approvers, see Configuring-approvals.

Published

The article is published and becomes available to all users.

Note: Self help users can view only Published articles, if the articles are not marked for internal use only.

Retire Approval

Mandatory status before being Retired. The article is sent for approval pending its retirement.

Note: We recommend that you change the initial settings of automatic approvals to manual approval and set up approvers for the approval process. Not changing the initial settings will result in continued automatic approvals. Changing the settings and not setting up approvers will result in the failure of the approval level processes. For more details on configuring approval processes and approvers, see Configuring-approvals.

Retired

The article is no longer relevant for use but remains searchable.

Closed Version

An earlier version of an article that is not searchable. This status is automatically assigned when a new article version is created and becomes Published.

Cancelled

The article is no longer usable or searchable, however, it is not deleted from the database. Cancelled status is displayed as an item on the Status drop-down list to Knowledge Admin users only. Administrators can also filter for cancelled articles in the KM Console. For more information, see How-knowledge-articles-are-found. This status can be set from any other status (for example, Draft). The exception to this rule is that Published articles can never be promoted directly to Cancelled status, and Knowledge Users must first send a Cancellation Request for approval.

For more information, see Cancelling-a-knowledge-article.

In Progress

x

Draft

x

x

x

x

x

SME Review

x

x

x

x

Optional Review 1

x

x

x

x

Optional Review 2

x

x

x

x

Publish Approval

By approval

Published

x

Retire Approval

By approval

Retired

Cancelled

Closed Version