Content statuses
Topics move through a 3-stage status workflow.
Status | Meaning | Badge color | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
Draft | Work in progress, not finalized | Gray | Author is actively writing or editing |
In review | Ready for feedback, awaiting review | Blue | Content is complete enough for peer review |
Published | Finalized, approved, and current | Green | Content has been reviewed and approved |
Allowed transitions
From | To | Who can change |
|---|---|---|
Draft | In review | Author, Admin |
Draft | Published | Author, Admin |
In review | Published | Author, Admin |
In review | Draft | Author, Admin |
Published | Draft | Author, Admin |
Status transitions are not gated. Any Author or Admin can move a topic forward or backward in the workflow. The workflow is a team convention, not an enforced approval chain. Draft can go directly to Published, and Published can return to Draft.
Changing status
Use the status dropdown in the Properties panel of the topic editor. The typical path is:
Draft → In review → Published
You can also skip In review (Draft → Published directly) or move backward (Published → Draft).
Status and publishing
Topic status is independent of publishing. All topics in a map are included when you publish, regardless of their status. Status is a workflow signal for your authoring team, not a publishing gate.
Status does not control publishing. A topic marked "Draft" will still appear on your published site if it is included in the map. If you need to exclude work-in-progress content from output, use conditions rather than relying on status.
Status on the topics list
Status badges appear on the Topics listing page. Filter by status to find all drafts, all topics in review, and so on.
Approval workflows
On Team and Business plans, Admins can define approval workflows that replace the built-in statuses with custom stages, required roles, and enforced transition rules. When a workflow is assigned to a topic, the topic's badge shows the workflow stage name and color instead of Draft / In review / Published.
With an approval workflow assigned to a topic:
Custom stages: add stages beyond Draft/Review/Published (for example, "Legal Review" or "SME Approval").
Required roles: restrict who can advance a topic to the next stage (for example, only Admins can move from "Legal Review" to "Published").
Enforced transitions: transitions are gated by the workflow definition, unlike the default ungated workflow.
Approval workflows are configured in the Team section of Settings. Each project can have multiple workflow definitions. One is marked as the default and automatically applies to new topics. Specific topics can be assigned a different workflow.
Start with the built-in 3-stage workflow. Only create custom approval workflows when your team needs enforced gates, for example regulatory content that requires legal sign-off before publishing.
The workflow history panel shows a log of all status transitions for a topic, including who made the change and when.
See also
Content health and governance: use statuses alongside health indicators for comprehensive content governance
Content health indicators: automated checks for staleness, broken references, and structural issues
Create a review session: move topics to Review status and gather feedback from reviewers
Classify content with tags: combine status filtering with tags for targeted content audits