Drafting and Approval process
A draft is an unpublished version of a Knowledge Base article or document. Both new and edited articles and documents can be saved as drafts. The following rules apply:
- Each article or document may only have one draft at a time.
- Drafts can be created by any user with the object permissions to add or edit articles and documents.
- Drafts are shared across users. If the first user saves a draft for an article, and the a second user edits that article, the second user will see the draft created by the first user. A message bar will appear:
- Only users with permission to approve a draft can publish articles and documents.
- Changes to related items and accessory tabs cannot be saved as a draft. They are published immediately.
- If you click Save as Draft but did not make any changes to the article or document, no draft is created.
Your Autotask administrator can optionally implement a drafting and approval process for Knowledge Base articles and documents.
- Assign a security level where the Approve object permission is set to No to all users whose articles and documents you want to review before they get published.
- Assign a security level where the Approve object permission is set to Yes to all users who can publish articles and documents without a review process, or who can approve the drafts or other users
When you create or edit an article or document, you will see the following buttons on the button bar. Note that not all buttons will appear in all contexts.
Non-approver:
Approver:
To locate and manage articles and documents by approval status, the Approval Status filter was added to the Knowledge Base Search page and the Documentation Manager.
- On the Knowledge Base Search page, you may have to add the Approval Status filter.
- On the Documentation Manager page, the Approval Status filter appears on the filter row.
This makes it easy for users to find their own drafts, and for approvers to find items that require approval. To locate an item, select one of the following approval statuses:
Approval Status | Description |
---|---|
New Draft |
A new article or document (never published or submitted for approval) that has been saved as a draft |
Draft In Progress |
A new draft for a previously published article or document that has not been submitted for approval |
Draft Pending Approval |
A draft that has been submitted for approval and publishing |
Published |
An article or document that is published, and for which no draft exists |
You can also locate articles and documents by approval status on the following pages:
- > Admin > Automation > Knowledge Base & Documentation > Knowledge Base
- > Admin > Automation > Knowledge Base & Documentation >Documentation