Editorial Workflow

Workflow Statuses

Pages use four workflow statuses:

  • draft
  • in_review
  • published
  • archived

New pages start as draft.

What The Statuses Mean

`draft`

  • working content
  • not public
  • editors can edit content in this state

`in_review`

  • ready for review
  • not public
  • editors cannot keep editing page content until the page is moved back to draft

`published`

  • public
  • routable on the public site
  • page visibility still works together with block-level visibility rules inside the page

`archived`

  • retired from live use
  • not public
  • can be moved back to draft or published again by an allowed role

Who Can Move Between Statuses

`editor`

Allowed actions:

  • draft -> in_review
  • in_review -> draft

Not allowed:

  • publishing
  • archiving

`site_admin`

Allowed actions for assigned sites:

  • draft -> in_review
  • draft -> published
  • in_review -> draft
  • in_review -> published
  • in_review -> archived
  • published -> draft
  • published -> archived
  • archived -> draft
  • archived -> published

`super_admin`

super_admin follows the same workflow abilities as site_admin, but across the whole install.

Public Visibility Rules

Only pages with status published are public.

  • draft pages return 404
  • in_review pages return 404
  • archived pages return 404

This applies across normal public routes, multisite routing, and localized routes.

Page workflow status and block status are separate. The normal Edit Page -> Overview Publish action publishes the page record only. It does not silently publish draft or in-review blocks inside the page. If a page has unpublished page-owned blocks, the publish action opens a modal with an unchecked Also publish all unpublished page-owned blocks option. Leaving it unchecked preserves the page-only behavior; checking it publishes eligible page-owned blocks in the same workflow action.

The Overview tab also shows an Unpublished page content helper when page-owned blocks are still draft or in review. Publish page-owned blocks publishes only those page-owned blocks and does not change the page workflow status.

Shared Slot content is excluded from these page-owned block publishing workflows. Shared Slot-backed header, footer, or other slots must be reviewed and published separately; WebBlocks CMS does not cascade page publishing into Shared Slot block trees.

Workflow And Page Editing

Workflow state also affects who can keep editing page content.

  • editors can edit page content only while the page is in draft
  • once a page leaves draft, content editing requires a site_admin or super_admin, or a workflow move back to draft
  • site_admin and super_admin users can continue working across workflow states they are allowed to manage

Practical Flow

  1. editor creates a page in draft
  2. editor finishes content and submits it for review
  3. site admin or super admin reviews the page
  4. site admin or super admin publishes the page
  5. later updates can move the page back to draft, then through review again