We have a number of writers and some editors who need to proofread their work before it's published. The workflow capability looks perfect for this, and it's a pretty common scenario, so I figured I would ask if anyone had designed this for their sites before trying to create it from scratch.

If there are any recommendations out there, please let me know!

You may need to let us know what it is exactly you are trying to do. I say this as you could simply switch on "Moderate new records" within the database, which would add things to the built in approval queue. So wondering if you are trying to do something in addition?

Simply create a system where staff writers (a custom group) can draft an article, submit it to a team of editors, who then can edit, approve, and/or return it to the writer as needing additional work.

Normal members and subscribers cannot have access to this, only staff writers and editors.

Still working on this. Since the Articles database doesn't have a single "approve" step that makes an article "live" to the public, I'm considering building it around categories. A "Draft" category for writers that's hidden from the public, which editors can move to the "Published" category and then everyone can view.

Another option is to build a workflow that starts with an article "hidden" and then unhides it when approved, but there's no way to default a new article to "hidden" that I can see.

15 hours ago, Barry McBride said:

Still working on this. Since the Articles database doesn't have a single "approve" step that makes an article "live" to the public, I'm considering building it around categories. A "Draft" category for writers that's hidden from the public, which editors can move to the "Published" category and then everyone can view.

Another option is to build a workflow that starts with an article "hidden" and then unhides it when approved, but there's no way to default a new article to "hidden" that I can see.

I was going to suggest the category approach, but I'll look into the workflow/hidden request as that may be an option.

You have the choice of setting an article as "Hidden" when creating:

A simple fix for now would be to add some JS to the theme to detect the database and check that by default.

Thanks, Matt. Maybe our solution here will be reusable for other news-oriented sites that need this workflow.

51 minutes ago, Barry McBride said:

Thanks, Matt. Maybe our solution here will be reusable for other news-oriented sites that need this workflow.

If you wanted to go down the route of a "Staging" category, we are exploring a "move" action for workflows in the next release.

Right. We can move categories in the AdminCP, but I really want to keep editors away from that. Having that be part of the workflow would really clean things up.

Depending on timing, I may have to go with the "hidden" solution until then.