Drupal uses a moderation workflow to allow Drupal users to transition content from one state to another, such as a new webpage or changes to existing content from private (Draft) to public (Published).
When working on new or existing content, you’ll see a dropdown menu with these options at the bottom of the screen. Select the appropriate option for your task and click the Save As button.
See below what each workflow option does:
Draft
New or updated content revisions, saved in the Draft state, are not visible to the public. You will only see them when logged into Drupal. This allows you to add and refine webpages until they’re ready to be made visible to the public.
You can make edits to your content and save as a Draft as many times as necessary. For instance, if you make edits today and save as Draft, you can go back tomorrow and edit the content again with additional changes and save as Draft again.
In Review
When content is moved to the In Review state, it denotes that all the previous changes saved as Drafts are ready for review and publishing. Once it’s saved as In Review, it will be submitted to the moderation queue. The content moderators will review the content and publish, at which point your content will be visible to the public.
Important: Draft edits in Drupal compound, meaning every edit made to that webpage and saved is counted as a revision and is done on top of the previously saved edit, whether or not they are published and whether or not you specifically made them. So if multiple revisions are in Draft by one user or multiple users, and the content is saved as In Review, ALL revisions will be reviewed and published, not just the latest edits you made when you changed the workflow state to In Review. This is especially important if you have multiple people working on one webpage. If someone made edits before you and saved them as Draft, those will also be published when the page eventually makes it to ‘In Review’. This Help Desk document will explain how to review and compare revisions.
A page cannot move directly from Published to In Review. It must first be saved as Draft so it can be previewed and then updated to In Review if it’s ready for publishing.
Approved / Pending
This state indicates that the content has been reviewed and approved for publishing but has not yet been published. It is primarily used for scheduled content, but reviewers can also use it if content needs to be kept private for the time being before publishing.
It is important to note that approved/pending content is "locked" and ready to publish in this state. If any additional changes are required, this content must be saved as a new draft and be resubmitted for review.
Published
A Published state means that the content and all changes made up to that point are now public.
Documents are Immediately Published
If your document has strict publishing requirements, keep in mind that: uploading a document such as PDF, Word, etc., will make it publicly accessible. While it may not be easily findable, anyone with the URL can access it.
Editing Content After Publishing
Once content has been published, revisions can be saved as a new draft in a private state that will not be publicly visible. Instead, the last published version will remain publicly visible until the changes are reviewed and the content published again.
Archived
If content needs to be unpublished (no longer publicly accessible), use the Archived state. The content will still be available internally and can be updated and republished anytime.
Deleting Content
While Delete is not a workflow state, it is important to call attention to it. Next to the Preview button you may see Delete. Delete should only be used if content no longer needs to be publicly visible and you won’t need the content in the future. Deleting will remove the page from Drupal and cannot be restored. Please be extra careful when deleting that you are sure of what you are deleting.
The deletion of content is not available to all users so you may not have access to this feature. If needed, submit a ticket to the Help Desk for a member of the Web Team to delete a webpage.