All content has a life cycle. This concept describes the stages leading from document creation to its final destination (publication, archive, destruction, etc.).
Common life cycle
The default lifecycle for most content is as follows:
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The default life cycle |
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All content is created in draft form. After editing, the contributor can make a proposal for this content, which will then appear in the proposed state. Those with validation rights for this content will then be notified by mail of the proposal and will be able to validate it.
Once validated, the content will be visible on the site in the pages referencing it. This content is also said to be published.
Validated content undergoing modifications will be placed in draft status. However, only the latest validated version of the content will be visible on the site. For newly modified content to be put online (published), it must be proposed again, then validated.
The lifecycle can be modified during the specification and implementation of the application. In general, it is composed of the "Draft, Proposed, Validated" states, but this is not obligatory.
The set of rights held by each user may offer more options than those presented here. In the demo application, an administrator can, for example, refuse proposed content, directly validate content in draft status, archive or unpublish content, etc...
Modify the content lifecycle
The first step is to find the content for which you wish to change the status.
A simple way of doing this is to find the page referencing the content. To do this, please refer to Find, locating a page.
Select content to view its current status. The current status is displayed on the Content tab in the Lifecycle section.
To modify the lifecycle, simply click on the arrow below the active icon and select the action you wish to modify, e.g. "Proposal".
To put content online, you must have reached the Validated state.
In general, a mail is sent to contributors who have the right to a content item and the next right in the lifecycle. In our case (proposal action), those with the right to reject or validate in the current section are alerted by mail of the proposal.
You can change the status of content directly after selecting a page, or from the back-office search engine, or from the dashboard.
When there is a difference between the "live" version (equivalent to the site version) and the version you are viewing in the back office, this means that the content is not validated and that there is a previous version of this content that has been validated.
The "live" version displays the latest version of the validated content (see the History section below).
It is possible to modify the status of several content items at the same time.
For example, in the content search engine in the back office (tab Hometab), select several items of content using CTRL + mouse click or SHIFT + click, then modify their status using the buttons.
History
Content has a tool called History, which allows you to represent the succession of states in the content life cycle (this succession of stages is commonly referred to as a workflow).
The illustration above shows a content history. The most recent status is shown at the top. This means that the content is currently unpublished.
The history also displays the different versions of the content. This information is visible in the greyed-out horizontal strip on the left of the tool. At any time, you can restore a previous version of the content by clicking on it in the grey band and then clicking on the Restore content.
Content archiving
A content archiving function is available throughout the content lifecycle.
Archived content is no longer visible throughout the application (the only way to find archived content is via the content search tool). Pages with this content will no longer be linked to it.
For example, content of type Article visible from page A will no longer be visible if it is archived. A visitor to page A will no longer find it. This change occurs automatically when the content is archived.
The content archive is useful when you have a large amount of content, some of which is no longer in use. You can archive them without having to delete them, and it will then be possible to restore them in the future.
A university very often has content such as Rentrée universitaire, which is only published from September to November. In this case, content archiving is an interesting solution: for most of the year, content is archived, then restored and re-published before the start of each academic year.
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Archive button |
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Confirmation pop-up window |
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The process of restoring archived content is documented on the content search page.
Programmed archiving
It is possible to set up programmed archiving of your content.
Once you have selected the content of your choice, choose the Programmed archiving action from the content archiving menu.
Simply enter the date on which you want archiving to take place.
Content will be automatically archived on this date, at a time defined by the application administrator (usually during the night).
The archive menu has an icon to highlight the fact that archiving is scheduled for this content.
The menu tooltip provides a quick reference to the date when archiving is scheduled.
Once archiving has been programmed, it is no longer possible to archive content directly. You must first delete the content's scheduled archiving.
To remove scheduled archiving from a content item, simply reopen the archiving date dialog, and delete the date in question.
To do this, click on the highlighted archiving menu, and remove the date from the Scheduled archiving date field.
The icon no longer appears on the menu, indicating that content archiving is no longer programmed.
More detailed life cycle
The detailed lifecycle of default content is as follows:
Note that the action of unpublishing can be performed even if the content is not in the Validated state. In fact, unpublishing consists in removing a flag set on a content version, indicating that this version is the last one to be published.
For example: I create content A, which is in Draft state. I modify it, then validate it: it's in the Validated state and a flag is set on this version, to specify that it's the last one to have been published. I then modify this content: it's in Draft state, but one version is displayed online (the one with the famous flag). If I unpublish content A, then no version is online.
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