Use the request to publish page feature

At Finalsite, there is a great feature that allows admin users with edit but not publish access to be able to send a Request to Publish to a specified admin. This article will show you how this feature works. 

In this Article

• What is Request to Publish? 
• Step 1: Configure settings for the approver
• Step 2: Configure settings for the requester
• Step 3: Confirm the display of the requester
  • Troubleshoot: Approver is not displayed in dropdown
• Step 4: Understand each role's workflow
  • As the requester
  • As the approver

What is Request to Publish? 

It's helpful to allow admin users to edit pages, but sometimes you want to be able to approve and manage the edits before publishing. The Request to Publish feature is a great one for you to try out! 

That admin user with more limited permission, will see this Request to Publish button in the bottom right corner. When this button is clicked, admin users with higher levels are notified of this request. 

Ready to get started? Here's how it works! 

Step 1: Configure settings for the approver

First you'll configure the settings for those main site admins who will be publishing on behalf of other admin users. The result is that their names will end up in a dropdown to be selected by those who are requesting a page to be published.

Here's how: 

• Configure Composer Global permissions: Configure Composer Global permissions to one of the following levels: View, Edit & Publish or higher.  
• Want to limit permissions further? Configure Composer Global permissions to View level and then Composer Page permissions to View, Edit, Publish or higher.

Once you have set the Composer permissions, you will then confirm settings in the Locations module. The article, "Use Locations to set domain permissions" is helpful if you don't know how Locations works. This is usually done during implementation so wouldn't likely need to be done from scratch. 

• Confirm Locations module configurations:
  • Are you a District or school with multiple domains? In order for the approver to appear as a selection in the request to publish dropdown, they must be confirmed in Locations. Here's how:
    • Set up locations in the Locations module
    • confirm in Domain Settings that locations have been assigned to a domain
    • connect admin groups with locations
  • Are you a School or only have one domain and not using Locations module? Those with only one domain can skip this step.

Step 2: Configure settings for the requester

Now you will configure the settings so that your admin users will be able to edit pages but not publish them on their own. They will submit a Request to publish form that you as the main site admin will receive. 

• Configure Composer Global permissions: Setting Global Composer permission levels means that any admin user in that group will have View & Edit permission on any pages. 
• Want to limit permissions further? Set Composer Page level permission. After you configure Composer Global permissions to View level, go to Page Level permissions and increase the level of the admin user group or constituent.

Step 3: Confirm the display of requesters

It's important to confirm that the correct main site admins are populated in the Request to Publish dropdown before you go much further. 

• Log in as an admin user who has been configured above to be able to Request to Publish pages. 
• Open a Composer page, make an edit, and then click on the Request to Publish button in the bottom right corner. 
  

  Important Note

  Don't see the Request to Publish button? You may not be logged in as a user with the right permissions. Go back to Step 2 before logging in again as that admin user with limited rights. 

• Click to expand out the Select Publisher dropdown.
• The person requesting to have their page published will see each person in the dropdown. 

Step 4: Understand each role's workflow

As the requester

• After making changes to the page, click the Request to Publish button in the bottom-right corner.
• Complete the dialog box by selecting an admin from the list and adding a comment, if needed.
  
• Click Send Request. This generates an email notification to the admin.
• The page status will now change to yellow with the label Status Publish Requested.
  

As the approver

• When a request to publish has been made, the selected admin receives an email notification, as shown below.

• When a page is in Requested Publish status, in Composer the admin can either approve or deny the request.

• Approved: If the request is approved, the page is published and an approval email is sent to the requester.

• Denied: If the request is denied, the page is returned to Draft status (retaining any changes) and a denial email is sent to the requester with any provided comments.

The publish request statuses will also be reflected in the page history view to indicate:

• Publish Requested
• Publish Request Cancelled
• Publish Request Denied
• Published