1.7.2 Workflow

Disclaimer

Default Workflow

The default workflow is a simple web publishing policy. Content items start out as private, and can either be submitted for review, or published directly. Configured in the site Contents Settings

After the document was submitted for publication and a user with the reviewer role logs in, all the documents that are pending appears on his review list. The reviewer can then either send them back to the document author for future re-writing (in case it require more fine tuning etc.), which moves it back to the private state, or publish the document, which leaves it in the published state.

From the Quinta group Plone Workflow documentation and Plone manual, Basic Publication States and Workflow

The default workflow has just 3 states and 2 roles.

A documents starts out as private. Private is the initial state when you create a content item – a page, a news item – and the content item will not be available to anonymous visitors to the site

 The toolbar will show the current publication state for the content item

The owner of the document submits the document for publication, changing its state to pending review. In case he then decides to perform additional edits to this document, he can change its state by pressing retract, and he document will again be in private state

The Publish menu choice will make the content item available on the web site to anonymous visitors. The Submit for publication menu choice is used on web sites where there are content editors who must approve items for publication

After the document was submitted for publication and a user with the reviewer role logs in, all the documents that are pending appears on his review list. The reviewer can then either send them back to the document author for future re-writing (in case it require more fine tuning etc.), which moves it back to the private state, or publish the document, which leaves it in the published state

States and Transitions

State - is a set of permissions for each member's role for a given piece of content. Content is always in one of the states in the workflow

In each stage, different groups of users might have the right to view, edit, and delete an object. For example, page in a private state can only be viewed by its owner. The same page in published state can already be viewed by anyone

Transition - is a way to change state of an object, e.g. submitting an object means to change its state from private to pending.

The Publication state can be changed only by users whose accounts have the necessary permissions

The menu choices in the state menu will reflect existing permissions settings.

E.g. in a lab site, a technical writer could add pages to SOP documents, and the state menu will not show a Publish choice to him/her, only a Submit for publication menu choice. This is because a writer must submit articles up the line to the lab management for approval before publication

The Publish menu choice will appear to users who have admin permissions however, and they can publish in one step

For a manager, a content item submitted may be published or rejected, say the content item needs revision

After a content item has been published, it may be retracted to private, if desired. The menu choices in the state menu will change accordingly

More Workflows

More workflows are available in the site setup for the adventurous

Advanced

Since different sites require different types of workflow and access, Plone allows workflow modification it has several workflows added in default Plone Types configuration (Site Setup -> Dexterity Types)

Apart from number of available workflows, you will find their settings, such as: visibility and versioning settings for content types.

Plone training Dexterity documentation