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Content lifecycle and workflow

Content lifecycle

Content lifecycle governs whether an item is visible in the frontend, and whether it is being edited. There are four lifecycle states of an item – master, temp, live and deleted. When persisting items in the database, Sitefinity CMS creates one row for each state. You can think of lifecycle states as separate versions of an item. 
For more information, see For developers: Content lifecycle.

Workflows

You use workflows to manage the quality of the published content items and pages. You do this by creating first, second, and third level of approval for content items and pages. This way a content item can go through several different workflow statuses.

You can create a workflow for managing the lifecycle of content items and pages. You do that by creating first and second level of approval for content items and pages, or by uploading your custom workflow.

Types of workflow

The following types of workflow exist:

Type of workflow

 Lifecycle steps
 Rights

No approval workflow
Standard lifecycle management

 Create and Publish All users with proper permissions.
One level of approval Create and Send for Approval » Publish
  • Create and send for approval
    All users with proper permissions.
  • Publish
    Users set as approvers when you defined the workflow.
Two levels of approval Create and Send for Approval » Send for Publishing » Publish
  • Create and send for approval
    All users with proper permissions.
  • Send for publishing
    Users set as first level of approvers when you defined the workflow.
  • Publish
    Users set as second level of approvers when you defined the workflow.
Three levels of approval Create and Send for Review » Send for Approval » Send for Publishing » Publish
  • Create and send for review
    All users with proper permissions.
  • Send for approval
    Users set as first level of approvers when you defined the workflow.
  • Send for publishing
    Users set as second level of approvers when you defined the workflow.
  • Publish
    Users set as third level of approvers when you defined the workflow.

By default, you use the no approval workflow.

You can create one, two, or three level of approval for managing the lifecycle of content items and pages.

To define and manage workflows, in the main menu, click Administration » Workflow.
The Workflow page appears, displaying a list of all created workflow definitions together with actions you can perform on them.
Use this page to create, edit, and manage workflow definitions.

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