People rely on you to provide accurate product documentation. But managing documents at various stages of development is not easy. When an entire team of people is drafting and collaborating on product documentation, it can be difficult to determine whether a document is in progress, needs approval, or is ready to publish. Document workflows provide a clear process for content creation and approval and make it easy to see which documents are ready and which need attention. Create a custom document workflow to help prevent incomplete or unapproved articles from being published.
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Overview
Document workflows are included in the Aha! Knowledge Advanced plan.
A document workflow is a sequence of statuses a document moves through from drafting to publication. Each status reflects where a document is in its lifecycle.
Administrations with customization permissions create document workflows from example workflows that are included in your Aha! account. These example workflows include default statuses, but you can customize them to match your team's process. You can configure whether or not users can edit or publish documents in certain statuses. You can also set up approval requirements for certain statuses, such as requiring certain teammates to approve a draft before it can advance to the next status.
There are two example document workflows in your account. You will create a new workflow from an example and customize it to match how your team works:
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Example documents workflow: This workflow applies to every workspace in your account by default. It is catered to an internal documentation workflow that generally does not include publishing, but you can customize it to do so. It includes the following statuses:
In progress
In review
Ready
Archived
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Knowledge base example: This workflow is catered specifically to teams that publish work to knowledge bases. It includes the following statuses:
Not started
Research
Edits in progress
In review
Revision
Approved
Both example workflows allow editing and publishing for each status by default.
Add a document workflow
To add a document workflow, navigate to User menu -> Settings → Account → Statuses and workflows. You will need to be an administrator with customization permissions to do this.
Click the Add workflow button to create a new workflow.
Select Document.
Select an example workflow to start from. Choose between Knowledge base example or Example documents workflow.
You can customize your workflow once you have created it. Update the Name of the workflow and add an optional Description.
Next, select whether your workflow will be flexible or fixed.
Flexible workflows allow users to skip steps in the workflow and do not support approval gates. They are best suited for workflows that do not follow the same steps in the same order every time (for example, drafting a knowledge base article with a variable number of reviews depending on the article's content).
Fixed workflows do not allow users to skip workflow steps and support approval gates. They are best suited for workflows that need to be consistent (like drafting and publishing support or legal content that needs approval before it can be published to a public knowledge base).
If you choose to create a fixed workflow, you will also see the option to Restrict approval changes. When selected, only administrators with customization permissions will be allowed to edit or delete approval to-dos created by the workflow.
Configure statuses
There are two ways to add custom statuses. You can edit the workflow's example statuses to reflect your processes or delete the example statuses and create new ones by clicking Add status.
To configure statuses:
Click Add status or click Edit next to the status you want to update.
Edit the status Name field and assign a Color.
Add a Description to the status.
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Configure optional controls for the status:
Allow editing: Check this box to allow the document to be edited while it is in the status. If the box is not checked, users will not be able to edit the document until it enters a status that allows editing.
Allow publishing: Check this box to allow the document to be published while it is in the status. If the box is not checked, users will not be able to publish the document to a knowledge base until it enters a status that allows publishing. This is a great option for preventing documents that are not ready from being published.
If you are on the Aha! Roadmaps Enterprise+ plan, select a Page layout. This uses advanced custom layouts and will automatically change the fields shown on the document when it transitions to this status. This option will not appear if you do not use Aha! Roadmaps.
Click Save.
If you do not want knowledge base documents to be published until they reach a specific status, configure Allow publishing only for that status.
Set transition buttons
Transition buttons help users follow a pre-defined workflow. To add transitions between two statuses, click the + icon in the Transition buttons column beneath the first status. Then, choose how the statuses should flow and add a name for the transition button.
If you want to add approval gates to your transitions (so a document will need a formal approval before it can move to the next status), read more about workflow approvals for instructions on how to set them up.
The name of the transition appears on the button for moving between states, so choose an action phrase (such as "Start drafting"). It is also helpful to acknowledge the completion of a step in your flow (such as "Edits completed").
Apply a document workflow to your workspace
The last step in setting up a workflow is to apply it to a workspace. You will need to be a workspace owner to do this.
Click the User menu and navigate to User menu -> Settings → Workspace → Configure -> Workflows.
You will see the name of the document workflow configured for your workspace next to Documents. Click Change workflow to select a different workflow.
Select the workflow you want to apply in the New workflow menu.
Map the current statuses to the new statuses to update the existing documents to the new workflow's statuses.
Click Update document statuses to apply the new workflow.
When you change your workspace to a new workflow, changes apply immediately and affect existing documents. This will change the statuses for all documents in that workspace, which cannot be undone.
Set a default document workflow for new workspaces
To change your account's default workflows assigned to new workspaces, navigate to navigate to User menu -> Settings → Account → Configure statuses and workflows. Then, click the Set defaults button at the top of the page.
The default workflows you set are automatically applied when new hierarchy elements are created. Note that the updated default workflows are only applied to newly added workspaces — they are not applied to existing ones, which you must update individually.
Report on document status
Visibility into the status of all documents in your workspace helps your team manage your knowledge base more efficiently. You can report on document status from your Knowledge base management page or by building list or pivot reports in Aha! Roadmaps.
Knowledge base management page
The knowledge base management page provides an overview of all documents, including their current status, so you will always be able to see each document's status from here.
If you have workflow approvals configured for your document workflow, your Knowledge base management page will have a Document approvals section. This is a dedicated approvals page for bulk actions and quick review of what is ready to publish. Configuration settings are always respected — documents cannot be published until they reach the appropriate status.
List or pivot reports (Aha! Roadmaps)
Add the Status field to any list or pivot report of documents to quickly see the status of all documents in your report.
Documents in workspaces that do not have a document workflow enabled will not have a status.