Workflow - Making content visible

All content can have a number of states of visibility. This how-to outlines what the various types of states are, and how to publish content.

The gateway system uses a range of workflow methods that allow users to manage the visibility of content they create. This is called the State of an item, which adjusts these, and is displayed in the edit menu above the item when the user is logged in.

What are the States

There are two main states on the system for any content:

  • Published - Published items are visible to all site visitors. Published items appear in search results and the navigation tree. They may also appear in other areas specific to that type (news items, for example, also appear when you click the news tab).  This is the default for Landcare content.
  • Private - Items in the private state are visible and editable only by their owners and others with manager access to the folder in which they exist. They won’t appear in search results or on the navigation tree for other users. Private items are editable by managers.

To change the state of an item, you need to have the rights to manage this item, and be logged in. Click on thestate link at the top right of the page for the item, and select the relevant state from the list.

To make something private, select Private from the drop down list.

Effective & Expiration Dates

Any item in the Gateway system can have effective and expiration dates if the person editing the content wants. Both of these are optional, and leaving the fields blank will ensure that these values aren’t set.

An item must be published for the effective and expiration dates to have any impact.

It is possible for content managers to set a date and time when an item can become visible or hidden to public users, or display on specific pages.

For example, a news announcement can be placed on a gateway site, and specified that it will not appear on the news page or box until a set time, eg the time of a launch event. Another example may be when a competition is launched, with a closing date. The news announcement about this can have the expiry date set so that the announcement no longer shows after the closing date.

The method used for this is to set the 'Effective date' and 'Expiration date', and works on top of the 'state' of the item (published, public draft). Effective date is the time when the item becomes public, and the expiration date is the time when the item becomes hidden.

First create the item as usual, eg news item, page etc), then before you publish it, do the following:

1. To enable dates (except for events, where this is on the main edit form), you need to click on the 'Properties' tab at the top of the relevant item (page, news item, file etc), once it has been created, which will bring up the properties form.

2. Most of the other fields on this form can be ignored, so browse down the form.

3. To set the time/date the item will become visible select the 'effective date' using the drop down lists.

4. To set the time/date the item will become hidden, select the 'expiration date' using the drop down lists, then click on 'save' at the bottom of the form. You must then publish the item.

5. Items will automatically be in a 'public draft' state when first created and saved, which will not display in the navigation boxes. When the dates are set click on the 'state' link top of the page, and select 'publish'. Once published, the item will show on the relevant navigation box, unless the effective date has been set to later.

Note that an item that has had the effective and expiration dates set, must also be published to become visible. If the item remains in the 'public draft' state, the effective and expiration dates will not have any impact upon the visibility.