Advanced content submission and approval

Overview

We’re introducing Advanced content approval, a powerful enhancement to content governance that gives organizations more control over who can submit content, who can approve it, and how approvals progress while maintaining strict version integrity.

This release supports sequential approval chains, and clear role-based permissions, enabling teams to confidently scale content creation without compromising quality or compliance.

Granular submission & approval controls

Admins can now precisely define:

• Who can submit content (users and/or audiences)

• Who must approve content using sequential approval chains

• Who is exempt from approvals and can publish directly

These controls are configurable per site, supporting both public and private site models.

Sequential approval workflow

Content can now move through multiple approval steps, one approver (or group) at a time

• Approvers are notified only when it’s their turn

• Approval resumes from the point of rejection after resubmission

• Final approvers can approve and publish in one action 

This ensures clarity, accountability, and smoother editorial handoffs

Clear roles & permissions

The workflow distinguishes responsibilities across roles:

• Contributors (Approval Required): Create, edit, and submit their own content

• Contributors (Approval Exempt): Publish their own content directly

• Approvers: Review and approve content in assigned steps

• Site Managers ( Site owner, Site manager, Content manager, Manage site ACG managers and admins) : Manage, approve, publish, override, or discard any content in the site

• App Managers: Full access across sites, including escalation handling

Site and App Managers always retain visibility and control, regardless of audience settings

Robust draft & version management

To maintain content integrity:

• Each content item supports only one active draft and one published version at a time

• Older versions are preserved in version history

• Manager overrides archive contributor drafts automatically

This prevents conflicts while preserving editorial traceability

Smart rejection, resubmission & retraction

• Contributors can revise and resubmit rejected content

• Resubmissions resume from the last rejected approval step

• Contributors can retract submissions, canceling the approval process and returning the content to draft

Notifications are automatically managed at each stage.

Built-in escalation & inaction handling

To avoid stalled content:

• Inaction at an approval step triggers escalation to the next approver

• If final approval is inactive for the defined days, App Managers, site owner/managers 

•  are notified

This ensures content never gets stuck indefinitely

How It Works

This section explains the end-to-end behavior of the Advanced Content Approval workflow, from setup through publishing, including how different roles interact with content at each stage.

1. Setup & configuration

We still have the content submission control at the global level and if that is enabled, then only we can set up the content submission and approval flows at the site level

Manage application > Set up > Governance

The default state of any site is as follows which will keep the earlier set up as it is. That is 

Advanced Content Approval and submission  is configured per site under Manage Site → Setup → Content Submissions.

Admins can choose between:

• Basic setup: 

  • Simple submission and approval with site owners , site managers and content managers as approvers

• Advanced setup: 

  • Fine-grained control using users and audiences for both submission and approval

Default setting is basic set up always

Configuration includes:

• Who can submit content (contributors)

• Approval process (sequential approvers)

• Approval exemptions (users or audiences who can publish directly)

These settings respect site type:

• Public sites: Users must belong to at least one target audience

• Private sites: Users must be site members

In the Basic  approval set up we have introduced a new feature that, when content is in approval queue for a certain time period, app managers will get a notification around it. Default period for this notification is 30 days and this can be configured as  7/14/30/60 days

2. Content creation & drafting

A valid contributor can:

• Create new content and save it as a draft

• Edit drafts they authored

• Edit previously published content they authored, creating a new draft version

System constraints:

• Only one active draft is allowed per content item

• A content item can exist in a maximum of two states at a time: one published version and one draft

This ensures version consistency and prevents editing conflicts.

3. Submitting content for approval

When a contributor is ready:

• They submit the draft for approval

• The content status changes to Pending

• The first step approvers are notified

For updates to already published content:

• The existing published version remains live

• The updated draft goes through approval independently

Contributors cannot edit a draft while it is in a pending approval state unless they retract it.

4. Sequential approval flow

Approvals follow a step-by-step sequence defined at the site level:

• Only the approvers in the current step can take action

• Next-step approvers are notified only after the previous step is approved

Approvers may:

• Approve and move to the next step

• Approve and publish

• Reject with feedback

• Reject and discard

Site Managers (Site manager, content manager, site owner), Managers/Admins of Manage Site ACG  and App Managers can approve and publish at any step.

5. Rejection, revision & resubmission

If content is rejected:

• The content status changes to Rejected

• The contributor is notified with the rejection reason

• The contributor may revise the content

On resubmission:

• Approval resumes from the step where it was rejected

• The approval expiration timer resets

• Relevant approvers are notified again

This avoids unnecessary re-approvals while maintaining accountability.

If content is rejected and discarded

• The content status changes to Rejected

• The contributor is notified with the rejection reason

• The contributor may revise the content

• Content gets out of the approval flow

• Contributor needs to start a new submission of content again

6. Retraction during approval

Contributors may retract content while it is pending approval:

• The approval process is cancelled

• Pending notifications are cleared

• The content returns to Draft (or Published Draft for updates)

Retraction cannot be resumed; contributors must submit again to restart approval.

7. Approval exempt publishing

Contributors included in the Approval Exemptions list can:

• Publish new content directly

• Publish updates to their own content without approval

• Schedule content for future publication

Approval chains are completely bypassed for these users

8. Scheduling & publishing behavior

Depending on permissions, content may be:

• Published immediately

• Approved and scheduled for a future date

• Saved as unpublished until the scheduled publish time

When future-dated content is approved:

• The current published version (if any) is unpublished

• The new version goes live at the scheduled time

9. Manager overrides & draft displacement

Site and App Managers can:

• Create their own draft over any content

• Discard drafts

• Override contributor drafts

When a manager creates a draft while a contributor draft exists:

• The contributor draft is moved to version history

• No additional drafts can be created until the active draft is published or discarded

This behavior preserves the two-version system constraint.

10. Escalation & inaction handling

To prevent stalled approvals:

• Inaction at an approval step escalates to the next approver

• If the final step remains inactive for selected dates(7, 14, 30, 60) App Managers and site managers/owners are notified

This ensures content continues to move forward.

11. Visibility & access during approval

• Contributors and approvers can view content during approval only if they have appropriate audience or membership access

• Published content visibility follows content-level audience settings

• Site and App Managers can view and manage all content at all times

12. Version history & restoration

• All prior versions are retained in version history

• Restored versions behave like new drafts

This provides full auditability and editorial traceability.

Approval-exempt contributors can publish directly without entering the workflow.

Visibility & access

• Contributors and approvers can view content during approval only if they have audience or membership access

• Once published, visibility is governed by content-level audience settings

• Site and App Managers can always view and manage all content

Notifications around advanced approval:

We are sending the following type of notifications in advanced approval process:

• In App

• Email

• Mobile push

• Browser push

App level and user level settings for Email, Mobile and browser push notification settings are considered for all these notifications. Please note that we have not introduced any new settings, rather used the existing content submission and approval settings both at app level and user level