An approval process can be set up in Knowledge Base categories to ensure that some users can create draft articles that will be made live only after others approve them.
This is done by differentiating the available permissions so that some users can only create drafts, while others can publish or approve.
This is an optional feature, as it's fine to just split out permissions between those who can view news vs those who can add and edit all articles.
Setting up an approval process in a category
1. Head to Applications > Admin > Knowledge Base > Categories
2. Click the title of the category you wish to set up the approval process up in
3. Scroll to the permissions area on the next screen.
Enter your chosen users/roles/groups and apply permissions across them to configure an approval process. Information on how to split out the permissions is below.
- Ensure some users can only create draft articles for others to publish in the channel
Give these users/roles/groups the 'View' and 'Create an article' permissions only.
In this case, those in the Marketing group can only create drafts for approval in this category.
- Ensure some users can approve the drafts that others create as drafts
Give any users/roles/groups all permissions, crucially the 'Edit all articles' permission.
In this example, users in the 'Manager' or 'Administrator' roles can access drafts created by other users.
- Ensure some users can freely publish their own articles in the category
Generally, there will be users/roles/groups that are not part of the approval process, and we want to publish their articles outright as they are trusted.
In these cases, give users/roles/groups the first 3 permissions of 'View', 'Create an Article' and 'Publish an article'.
Also give them 'Edit all articles' if appropriate, but this is separate from their own articles, which they are allowed to make live through the 'public' permission.
In this example, users in the 'Franchisee' group can publish their own articles and are not part of finalising others' drafts.
Creating draft articles
1. A user with only 'View' and 'Create an article' permissions will see the below notices when creating a new article in the category:
2. Once they create it with the 'Add article' button, it will appear listed for those with 'Edit all articles' rights.
(They will also appear to administrators on the admin side of the application)
3. The article can be reviewed/updated and eventually published by a user with 'Publish an article' permission.
