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Content governance, also referred to as auto-governance or validation, is a feature that helps keep your intranet platform from becoming a content dumping ground by sending notifications to content authors and managers informing them that content is due for review. When a new piece of content is created and marked as Knowledge, it will fall into the auto-governance cycle.
The content governance feature is enabled by Application managers in the Manage > Application > Governance menu. By checking Yes in Require knowledge content review and validation, the App manager enables automatic management/validation of existing and new content after the initial publication date. The App manager can change make this time:
- 6 months
- 12 months (recommended)
- 18 months
- 24 months
Once saved, altering the validation period should trigger a popup, allowing the user to confirm the change or cancel. This change is only truly reflected once the page is saved.
Validation notifications are generated on the following schedule:
- Four weeks before the end date, the author of the content is notified.
- Two weeks before end date, users with edit access (this may or may not include the author depending on whether they're a Content manager) and App managers are notified.
- On the end date, if content has not yet been validated, it will move to unpublished status. This does not mean the content is deleted. It is still viewable by those who have edit access. It will just be removed from visibility to your End users. You can view all unpublished content in the Manage > Content menu and sorting by "unpublished" Status. Here you can edit, validate and republish the content, resetting its validation period, or you can delete it permanently.
- One week after end date, those with edit access are notified content has been unpublished.
- We send in-app notifications to validate pages on days 28 and 14 prior to page expiration and email notifications on the first day of those weeks.
Note:
If a page is unpublished for any reason, then republished, this resets the page's validation period. Simply editing a page does not reset the validation period.Depending on the validation period set, the App manager, Site manager and Content manager will be notified via email and in-app notification that the content needs validating.
FAQ and Best Practices
What happens if my org initially has Content Governance disabled, but then decides to turn it on after a lot of content has already been published? Will all that content have the same validation date?
Not necessarily. Validation dates are based on the content's initial publication date (for the first time they're validated) or last validation date. So if you publish or validate 100 pieces of content on the same day, then all that content will have the same validation date. We highly recommend leaving content governance enabled throughout your intranet's life cycle to avoid this.
Is there a place I can go to see all content that needs validation across the intranet?
Yes, App managers can view all content that will require validation in the Analytics menu. Head to the Content tab and scroll down to Knowledge pages. Here you can see how many pages require validation. Download a CSV file to see which pages specifically will need validation.
Comments
Should fellow content authors receive the validation notifications? I was thinking it was just site admins.
Hey Anna. Anyone who's a Content manager or higher on the site in question will be notified that content needs validation. So even if I didn't write and publish the content, but I'm a Content manager, I'll get a notification about it come validation time.
Let's assume we have a 12 month governance cycle. If content is published on 13 April 2022 and then updated on 13 March 2023, will the published date be updated and the governance cycle start from then? Or does it just say "edited on" and then one month later you have to validate the content again?
Following on from that, if we get the validation notification and choose "yes, all good", will it update the published date or does that only happen if the content was unpublished and republished?
Hi Natasha. The new validation date will be based on the date you just validated the content. So no, you won't get another reminder a month from now. The publish date will change to March 13, and the governance cycle will start from then.
And yes, if you just say it's good and make no changes, the publish date will still change to the date you validated it.
Once you validate content, does it restart the cycle? So something comes up for validation on January 1, 2022. I validate it on January 1, 2023.... on January 1, 2024, will I get a prompt to validate again?
I ask because I don't think I am getting more that second request a year after the first validation, but maybe I am just forgetting...
Hi Lori. Yes, validation occurs every year (or whenever you set the validation timeframe to be). So if you validate on Jan 1, then the following year, you'll need to validate by Jan 1. You can always validate before or after this, but the NEW validation date will be a year from the date you validate the content. So if you validate on Dec 29, then the following year, the validation date will be Dec 29.
Hello,
To reset a page's validation date, you'd need to unpublish it and republish it, correct? And the new validation date would be the date it was republisted?
Michelle
Hi Michelle. Yes, you'd need to unpublish the content, then republish it. This would reset the validation date to 6, 12, 18 or 24 months (whatever settings you have enabled) past the date you republished.
When one of the content managers clicks "dismiss warning" on a validation, does that dismiss all future validation notifications (for that one piece of content) for all mangers and owner for that site for that time period? Thank you!
Hi Andrea. Yes, if someone dismisses the validation notice, that is going to stop all notifications for any managing user of the content.
Question: I'm going through and validating content on our site and while I've got site content manager access to all, some pages don't show an option to validate even though they were published nearly a year ago. I'm wondering why this might be?![]()
Hi Brooke. It's hard to tell without seeing the content, but it could be because the validation period for that content is set to 18 months, or longer than 12 months. In that case, you won't see validation options until that time.
They might have been set to "news" instead of "knowledge." "News" posts don't trigger validation - or didn't used to.
Is there a way to edit who receives the notifications? If someone's a content manager on a site for only a few specific pieces of content, they might not want to get notifications for other pieces just because they're a content manager.
Hi Rosie. While there isn't a way to control in-app notifications, you can control email, browser and mobile notifications in your user profile.
Hi, regarding the email notifications question above — if the email notifications for site membership requests is ticked on the app-level, should users (especially site managers) customized their notifications in their profile as well to get email notifications for membership requests?
Hi Margarette. By default, if the option is ticked at the app level, it will be ticked for the user at the profile level. If the site manager wants to receive these notifications, then they should leave the option ticked. But they can always disable it.
I see. We have a use case where this option is ticked on the app-level and profile level, but the site manager didn't receive any email notifications regarding membership requests. Is this something we should configure elsewhere?
Hi Margarette. If the site manager has Automatic approve membership requests enabled in Manage site > Setup, then they won't receive any notifications. Users who request membership will be automatically approved. If you see that the other option, Manually approve membership requests is ticked, but still no notifications are coming in, go ahead and submit a ticket to our Support team because this could be a bug.
Got it. Another question - are validation notifications only available in app or is there an option to have them sent through email as well?
Hi Margarette. Yes, validation notifications can be sent via mobile, email or browser.
Hello!
One of my site owners has numerous pages with technical documentation, many of which come up for validation simultaneously. Is there any way he can go to the list of his to-be-validated content, select them all, and then auto-validate them? The content on the page never (well, rarely) changes.
Thanks,
Michelle
Hi Michelle. Unfortunately you can't bulk validate content. It defeats the purpose, given the idea is that you review the content to ensure it's still accurate. In this case, I would just make sure the validation time is set to every 24 months, so then it's only a problem every 2 years.
Thanks, Matthew. But isn't content governance established globally vs. for specific sites?
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