Document drafts & publishing

Every document has a status — draft, published, or archived — and a review schedule. Publishing is a deliberate act, which is what makes Docs safe as the source of truth for both internal and public content.

The status lifecycle

flowchart LR
  D[Draft] -- publish --> P[Published]
  P -- unpublish --> D
  D -- archive --> A[Archived]
  P -. edits after publishing .-> U[Has unpublished changes]

• Draft — the default. Visible to workspace readers (in listings and search), but clearly marked as not-yet-published.

• Published — marked with a publish timestamp. For external-capable spaces, publishing internally is separate from publishing to the public help center.

• Archived — removed from normal listings but recoverable.

Publishing

1. Open the document and click Publish. Members and above can publish internally; publishing to the public help center is for admins and above (see Permissions & Access).

2. The document is stamped with a publish date and appears as published in listings.

3. Continued edits keep the doc in sync; the header tracks unpublished changes and the last live published time when the doc is also public.

Review cadence

Spaces can define default review days. Documents in the space inherit a review schedule: Helpin tracks last reviewed and next review dates, so stale guides resurface instead of rotting silently. Mark a doc reviewed from the overview rail or when publishing.

Drafts vs published in practice

• Internal spec → stay in draft until review, then publish internally.

• Public article → publish internally, then choose Publish to help center and set a slug (see Help Center).

• Deprecated content → archive rather than delete, so links keep resolving to something sensible.