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How Joomla 5 and 6 Workflows Work: Draft, Review, Publish

If several people write for your site, Joomla's workflows let you set up steps, like draft, review, and publish, so nothing goes live before it's checked. Workflows are built into Joomla 5 and 6 but are turned off by default.

Before you start: workflows change how publishing works for everyone on the site. Try it on a staging copy first, and take a backup.

How workflows work

  • A workflow is your publishing process.
  • Stages are the steps an article can be in, like Draft, In Review, or Published.
  • Transitions move an article from one stage to another, like "Send for review" or "Publish." A transition can also change the article's status (published or unpublished), send email notifications, and be limited to certain user groups.

Joomla comes with a Basic Workflow you can use as-is or copy and change.

Turn on workflows

  1. Go to Content > Articles.
  2. Click Options in the toolbar.
  3. Open the Integration tab.
  4. Set Enable Workflow to Yes.
  5. Click Save & Close.

Set up your workflow

  1. Go to Content > Workflows.
  2. Open the Basic Workflow, or click New to make your own.
  3. Click the number in the Stages column to add or rename stages.
  4. Click the number in the Transitions column to add transitions. For each one, set:
    • Current Stage (where it starts) and Target Stage (where it ends up)
    • The article's status after the transition, on the Transition Actions tab (Publishing State)
    • Who gets an email, on the Notification tab (Send Notification, plus the users or user groups)
    • Who can use it, on the Permissions tab
  5. Set your workflow as the Default if you want all new articles to use it.

In Joomla 6.1 and later, a Graph button on a workflow opens a visual editor where you can drag stages and connect transitions.

You can also assign a workflow to a category, so different sections of your site follow different processes. Open the category (Content > Categories), go to its Workflow tab, and choose a workflow in the Workflows field, or leave it on the default.

Using workflows day to day

  • Writers create articles as usual. New articles start in the workflow's first stage.
  • In Content > Articles, the Stage column shows where each article is.
  • To move an article, click its stage in the article list and choose a transition, or tick articles and use Run Transition in the Actions menu. When editing an article, pick one in the Transition field.

Example: draft, review, publish

  1. Draft: the writer works on the article (unpublished).
  2. Send for review: moves it to In Review and emails the editors.
  3. Publish: an editor approves it, and the article goes live.
  4. Send back: an editor returns it to Draft with notes.

Turning workflows off

Set Enable Workflow back to No in the article options. Articles keep their current published or unpublished status.

Related

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