Journal · Editing

From draft to published: the review flow

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  • ET
    Editorial teamv-page
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4 min

Every page passes one review before it goes live. The rules sit in one guard in the CMS, and it asks what a person may do, never which role they hold.

Four states, one review

A page is a draft, in review, approved or rejected. The state is one value for all languages, so one review covers the English and the German page.

Moves are listed, not inferred. An author sends a draft or a rejected page to review, or takes it back. A reviewer approves or rejects it, with a note. A move that is not on the list is refused for everyone, the admin included.

What publishing needs

  • An approved page. Publishing needs the publish capability and an approved page. By default only the admin may publish without review.
  • An approval that still holds. Changing the title, slug, sections, parent or SEO fields of an approved page sets it back to draft, unless the editor may keep approval on edit.
  • The same rule later. A scheduled publish runs as the person who scheduled it. If the page is no longer approved by then, it stays unpublished.

Who hears about it

Each move notifies the next people in line: reviewers when a page enters review, approvers when it is approved, authors when it is rejected. The notice is written in the same transaction as the save, so a save that fails sends nothing.

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Draft, in review, approved, published (illustration).

The guard asks what you may do, never who you are.

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