Content Moderation and Workflows in Drupal

The Workflows and Content Moderation modules allow an editorial team to put any type of content administered in Drupal through a customized editorial workflow and moderation process. Workflow states, such as draft, ready for review, or approved are defined using the Workflows module. The ability to attach moderation states to entity bundles -- a common example being content types -- is configurable by the Content Moderation module.

Both modules have stable releases and are perfectly safe to use in production.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Learn about the use case for Workflows and Content Moderation modules
• Define the role that each module performs
• Define some common terms you'll need to understand when working with these two modules

By the end of this tutorial you will have a good understanding of what the Workflows and Content Moderation modules are, what different functionality they provide, and the permissions made available by the modules.

Drupal has had revisions for a long, long time. However, they have often been under-utilized. Understanding how revisions work and how the Content Moderation module works with them is important to for being able to take full advantage of the systems features.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Explain what the different types of revisions are
• Understand when, and how, revisions are created

By the end of this tutorial you should have an understanding of what each type of revision is, how they're created, and how to work with them.

Many sites are built around their content, especially Drupal sites. To manage this content, a strict editorial workflow is often highly desirable to make sure the content is drafted, reviewed, published, updated, and archived when ready.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Discuss the various components you'll need to define before you can start building a custom editorial workflow
• Provide an example editorial workflow plan

By the end of this tutorial you will better understand the use case for content moderation, and be able to create an editorial workflow plan for your use-case.

The real power of the Workflows module is the fact that you can define your own custom workflows. Creating a new custom workflow requires adding a new workflow, and configuring the states and transitions that workflow will use.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Create and configure a new workflow
• Define and configure a set of states and transitions for the workflow
• Understand some best practices to keep in mind when defining workflows

By the end of this tutorial you'll be able to define your own custom workflows for any use-case.

In order to enforce that an editorial workflow is applied to a specific content type you need to update the workflow's configuration. Then, depending on your needs, you may also need to configure new user roles, giving them permission to transition a content item from one state to another.

This process works for any Content Moderation type workflow -- including the Editorial workflow that Drupal provides and any custom workflows you've created.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Update a workflow so that its rules are applied to a content type
• Review the list of permissions provided by a workflow and see how we can set things up to restrict certain users to only perform specific transitions

By the end of this tutorial you will be able to configure a workflow so that it applies to one or more content types, and configure permissions so only users in a specific role can transition content items from one state to another.

The Content Moderation module allows you to apply an editorial workflow to your content. Doing so changes some of the ways that content managers will mark an item as published, archive an item, or create new revisions.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Look at the changes to the content editing form that happen when you apply an editorial workflow
• Learn how to edit a piece of content to change its state, and transition it through the editorial workflow

By the end of this tutorial you'll know how to create, and manage, content in an editorial workflow.

When building views of moderated content there are some important things to be aware of. One is the difference between choosing Content or Content revisions as the base for your view. You should also know about some fields and filters added by the Content Moderation module.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Understand when, and why, to choose Content revisions as the base for your view instead of Content
• Learn about the fields, and filters, added by the Content Moderation module
• Learn how to update the view at admin/content/moderate that comes with the Content Moderation module to make it work with any workflow.

By the end of this tutorial you should understand the important concepts necessary to create views of moderated content.

The Content Moderation module exposes data about a content item's moderation state to Views. That allows us to use that information when building custom views. The data includes a moderation state field, filter, and a relationship to the moderation state entity.

In this tutorial we'll:

• Build a new view that uses the moderation state field and lists all revisions for a content item
• Display that view as a block which can be shown on any content page

By the end of this tutorial you'll know how to use the moderation state field in a view.