The Status Workflow
The reference lifecycle from draft to public — stages, roles, the editor stepper, rejection comments, the status history, and the kanban board.
Every reference travels a defined path from first draft to public visibility. The status workflow turns the raw per-language statuses into one clear, ordered lifecycle: the editor shows where a reference stands, who it currently lies with, and which steps you — in your role — may take next. Every change is recorded in a per-reference status history, and the kanban board shows the whole portfolio by stage.
The lifecycle
| Stage | Who acts | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Created (optional) | Manager / system | Pre-state for references created automatically, e.g. by an import. |
| In progress | Manager | Draft, content work ongoing. |
| Suggested | Manager | Proposed for content approval — the responsible reviewers are notified. |
| Content rejected | Reviewer | Sent back with a mandatory comment; the manager reworks and proposes again. |
| Content approved ✅ | Reviewer | The first safe spot: content quality is confirmed. |
| Proposed for publication (two-stage only) | Reviewer | Handed to the publishers — they are notified. |
| Public release rejected (two-stage only) | Publisher | Publication declined with a mandatory comment. The reference stays content-approved — it falls back to the safe spot, never to draft. |
| Public 🌐 ✅ | Publisher | The second safe spot: published on the selected channels. |
| Withdrawn | Publisher | Taken off the public platform; the content is preserved. |
The two green safe spots — Content approved and Public — are stable resting states. Rejections at the publication stage never undo the content approval: a publisher's "not yet" drops the reference back to Content approved, not to the drawing board.
One-stage or two-stage approval
How much process a reference needs depends on the size of your organization, so the workflow comes in two modes:
Content approval is the release decision. Once a reference is Content approved, anyone with review or publishing permission can set it public directly. The publication-proposal stages don't appear anywhere — smaller teams keep a short, simple flow.
Content approval and public release are separate decisions by separate roles: reviewers approve the content, then propose the reference for publication; publishers make the go-live decision — or reject it with a comment, back to the content-approved safe spot. Built for organizations with a dedicated controlling and publishing chain.
The mode is a per-company setting. Company admins switch it themselves under Company settings → Settings → Two-stage approval workflow. A confirmation dialog explains the effect and, when switching off, shows how many references are currently in the intermediate stages. See Company Settings.
Roles
The workflow uses the same permissions as the rest of the platform:
| Role | Permission | May… |
|---|---|---|
| Manager (writer) | Edit references | edit content, propose it for content approval, rework rejected references |
| Reviewer (Controller) | Reference review | approve or reject content, propose publication (two-stage) |
| Publisher | Publish reference profile | publish, reject a publication, withdraw a public reference |
Only the steps allowed for your role in the current stage are offered — in the editor, and as drop targets on the kanban board. The server re-checks every transition, so the UI is a convenience, not the security boundary.
The stepper in the editor
The Status & publication tab of the reference form opens with a horizontal stepper:
- All stages in order, with the current state highlighted; the two safe spots are marked green, a rejection state amber.
- Currently with names the person(s) the reference is waiting for — resolved from the reviewer assignment of the reference's groups and its responsible location. If no specific reviewer is assigned, the stage shows the responsible role (e.g. Role: Controller) instead of listing everyone who holds the permission.
- Below it, action buttons for exactly the steps your role may take next.
A few behaviors worth knowing:
- Proposing opens the notification block. Propose for content approval (and Propose for publication) preselects the target status and opens the familiar notification section with the responsible reviewers or publishers suggested — you choose the recipients and an optional message, and everything is sent when you save.
- Rejections require a comment. Reject content and Reject publication open a comment field; the comment is mandatory, is delivered with the notification to the people who need to act, and is stored in the status history. The latest rejection comment is shown as a banner right in the stepper.
- Statuses are per language. The stepper works on the language version you are editing; a language switch above it changes the view. Publication itself is one decision for the whole reference — see Publishing References for how per-language approval and the public flag combine.
The per-language status dropdowns below the stepper remain available as a direct control for experienced users — the stepper and the dropdowns always stay in sync.
The status history
Every status change writes an entry to the reference's status history, shown as a timeline at the bottom of the status tab: date and time, who made the change, from which stage to which — and the comment, if one was given. The history is append-only; it cannot be edited or deleted, which makes it a reliable audit trail for questions like "who published this, and when?" or "why was this rejected in March?".
Publication changes (public / withdrawn) are recorded reference-wide; content-status changes are recorded per language version.
The kanban board
The reference manager has a kanban view next to list and tiles: one column per lifecycle stage, every reference as a card in the column of its current stage. Safe-spot columns are marked green, rejection columns amber.
- Drag & drop performs the transition. While dragging a card, only the columns that are legal next steps for your role light up as drop targets — everything else is dimmed. Dropping into a rejection column asks for the mandatory comment first. An illegal move simply snaps back.
- Two person filters narrow the board: Responsible person filters by the reference's responsible contact, Currently with filters by whom a card is waiting for (the same resolution as the stepper).
- The board operates on one content language at a time — switch between languages above the columns.
- The board loads the first 100 references matching your current filters; use the regular filters to narrow a larger portfolio.
- The columns share the full width of the screen. When there are more columns than fit, grab the board background with the mouse and drag sideways to scroll. There's no need to hunt for the scrollbar at the bottom of a long board.
The board is a faster way to do what the stepper buttons do — not a bypass. Every drop is validated on the server against your role and the current stage, and logged in the status history like any other transition.
Notifications along the way
Hand-overs notify the people who need to act, by inbox message and — depending on each recipient's settings — by e-mail:
| Transition | Who is notified |
|---|---|
| Propose for content approval | The responsible reviewers (per group and location assignment) |
| Reject content | Whoever proposed the content for approval, with the comment. If that can't be determined: the reference's responsible contact, otherwise its creator |
| Propose for publication (two-stage) | The publishers |
| Reject publication (two-stage) | Whoever proposed the publication, with the comment. If that can't be determined: the reviewers assigned to the reference's groups |
Rejections go back to exactly the person who has to act on them. They are never broadcast to everyone holding a permission: if no suitable recipient is found (each recipient must still hold the matching permission, and you never notify yourself), no message is sent.
Notifications come from the colleague who made the change, not from an anonymous system account. Recipients can reply right in the conversation (the notification e-mail has a Reply to this message button that opens it), so a question about a rejection reaches the reviewer who wrote it. See Messages & Inquiries.