Drafts

The Drafts module lets users create new articles, or modify existing published articles, without interfering with live publications. Users can create and modify drafts in a separate area until each draft is finished and ready to go live.

The Drafts module lets you require specific contributors to create drafts that must be approved before publication, rather than publishing their material directly.

To learn about creating and managing your drafts, see Manage drafts.

Essential facts about drafts

• Users with admin privileges can create, approve, reject, or delete any draft at any stage in the approval process. 
• If a draft has been sent for approval, the author cannot update it until the review is complete. 
• Your knowledgebase records approval decisions in a log for future reference.

Drafts and Workflows

When a draft is ready to publish, an approval workflow can route the document or item to the assignees, one or more people assigned to review such material before publication.

Assignees can approve the article for publication or send it back to the author for more work. They can also provide feedback on an article. The feedback is compiled and sent to the person who initiated the workflow.

Possible scenarios when a user adds a draft

1. There is a matching workflow
   The author of a draft can save the draft repeatedly while working on it until the material is ready to submit. When the user submits the draft for approval, the workflow assigns it to appropriate assignees. The user has no further access to the draft until it is approved for publication or returned for further edits.
    
2. There is no matching workflow and the user's privileges do not permit adding articles
   The author of a draft can save the draft repeatedly while working on it. However, the user cannot publish the draft, and there is no way to send the draft for approval. 
    
3. There is no matching workflow, and the user's privileges permit adding articles
   The author of a draft can save the draft repeatedly while working on it. When the draft is ready to publish, the user can publish it. 
   Once the draft is published it no longer appears on the list of drafts, and does appear on the list of articles.