Everything about saving and publishing is in the Publish box, at the top of the right-hand column when you add or edit any content.
Save a draft
Select Save Draft. A draft is not visible on the intranet. You can come back to a draft at any time from the list of pages, tasks or news, where it is marked “Draft”.
WordPress also saves your work automatically every minute or so while you type. If your browser closes, open the content again and WordPress offers to restore the autosave.
Preview content before publishing
Select Preview. The page opens in a new tab as staff will see it, with a “Draft preview” label. Check it at phone width as well by narrowing the browser window.
Do not send a preview address to colleagues to check. A preview address only works for people who are signed in and allowed to edit that content. Everyone else sees an error. If your intranet has the Public Post Preview plugin, you can make a link that does work for them: see “Send a draft to a manager for review before publishing” below.
Publish content now
Select Publish. The content is live straight away, and the button changes to Update. Use Update to save any later changes.
If you see Submit for Review instead of Publish, your role is Contributor. Contributors can write content, but an editor has to publish it. Submitting sets the status to Pending Review.
Schedule content to publish later
- In the Publish box, next to Publish immediately, select Edit.
- Set the date and time you want the content to go live, then select OK.
- The Publish button changes to Schedule. Select it.
The content is marked “Scheduled” and publishes by itself at that time. To change the time, edit the date in the same way and select Update. To cancel, change the status back to Draft.
Times use the intranet’s own clock, set in Settings, General, Timezone. If scheduled content goes live an hour early or late, ask an administrator to set the timezone to a city, such as London, so that the clock follows British Summer Time.
To give content an earlier date, for example to keep old news in order, set a date in the past. The content publishes immediately with that date.
Take published content off the intranet
- In the Publish box, next to Status: Published, select Edit.
- Choose Draft, then select OK.
- Select Update.
The content is hidden from staff but kept, so you can publish it again later. Links to it from other pages will show an error until you do.
Make news and other content expire automatically
News stories, news updates, blog posts, team news, vacancies and events have an expiry box in the right-hand column. On news stories it is called News expiry.
- Switch on Auto-expiry.
- Set the Expiry date, which must be in the future, and an Expiry time such as 09:00.
- Choose the Expiry action: Revert to draft, Change to regular news, Move to trash or Change news type.
- Select Update or Publish.
The intranet checks for expired content every five minutes, so content can stay visible for a few minutes after its expiry time. See also Add or edit a news story.
Choose who can see content: visibility
In the Publish box, next to Visibility, select Edit.
- Public means everyone who can use the intranet. It does not mean the general public.
- Password protected means anyone can open the page, but they must type a password that you set before they can read it. In listings the title starts with “Protected:”.
- Private means the content is published, but only people whose role allows them to read private content can see it. That is normally Editors and Administrators. Other staff see a “not found” page. The title starts with “Private:”.
Keep content hidden before a launch
Keep the content as a Draft until launch day, or schedule it. Staff cannot see drafts or scheduled content at all, which makes this safer than a password.
To share a draft for sign-off with someone who cannot edit content, copy the text into a document or show it to them on your screen. A preview address will not work for them, unless your intranet has the Public Post Preview plugin: see “Send a draft to a manager for review before publishing” below.
Three things to know if you are preparing something sensitive:
- Other editors can always see it. Drafts, private pages and password protected pages all appear in the dashboard lists for anyone who can edit that type of content. They can see the title, open the content and read the password. There is no way to hide content from other editors and administrators. If the title itself is sensitive, use a working title until launch.
- Several pages can share one password. Give each page the same password. Someone who types the password on one page can then read the others in the same browser without typing it again, for about ten days.
- A password does not hide the title. The title of a password protected page can still appear in menus, listings and search results. Only the content is hidden.
Text in square brackets in a title is never shown on the intranet. A title such as “[DRAFT] Office move” appears to staff as “Office move”, so you can label work in progress in the dashboard.
Send a draft to a manager for review before publishing
A head of department or manager often needs to sign off content before it goes live, but usually has a basic account that cannot edit or preview drafts. If your intranet has the Public Post Preview plugin, an editor or administrator can give a draft its own link that the manager can open. An administrator can tell you whether the plugin is installed. Without it, copy the text into a document or show the draft on your screen.
The plugin’s name is misleading. “Public” here means anyone who has the link and can reach your intranet. It does not mean people outside your organisation, and it does not publish anything.
- Save the content as a draft first. The option does not appear until the content has been saved once.
- In the Publish box, tick Enable public preview. “Enabled!” appears, and a link appears underneath with the note Copy and share this preview URL. You do not need to save again.
- Copy the link and send it to the manager, for example by email. Tell them it is a draft for review.
- If your intranet requires staff to sign in, the manager signs in as usual and then opens the link. They do not need any editing rights.
The option is offered for drafts, content that is pending review and scheduled content. It is not offered for published or private content.
Things to know about a public preview link:
- Share the link only with the intended reviewer. The plugin does not check who opens the link. Anyone who has it and can reach the intranet can read the draft until the link expires or you withdraw it. Govintra itself does not make visitors sign in to open the link, so if your intranet can be reached without signing in, a signed-out person who has the link can read the draft too. Ask an administrator if you are not sure how your intranet is protected, and do not send a link outside your organisation without checking.
- The link expires. A link lasts up to 48 hours by default, and at least 24. After that the reader sees “This link has expired!”. To send a fresh link, open the content again and copy the link from the Publish box. An administrator can change how long links last at Settings, Reading, under Public Post Preview, Expiration Time.
- The link stops working once the content is published. Publishing switches the preview off and the old link opens the live page instead. Moving the content to the Bin also switches it off.
- To withdraw the link before then, untick Enable public preview. The reader then sees “No public preview available!”.
- The reviewer sees the page as if it were live, with no “Draft preview” label, so tell them it is a draft. Links from it to other unpublished content will not work for them.
- In the list of pages, tasks or news, content with a public preview is marked “Public Preview” next to its title, with a link icon that opens the preview.
Copy an existing page as a starting point
WordPress has no built-in way to copy a page. Some intranets have the Post Duplicator plugin, which copies a page in one step. An administrator can tell you whether it is installed.
Copy a page with Post Duplicator
If your intranet has the Post Duplicator plugin, you’ll see an extra link under each title in the list of pages, tasks, news and other content. Anyone who can see the list can use it.
- Open the list, point at the title and select Duplicate Page (on other content types it says Duplicate Task, Duplicate News and so on). When you edit published content, the same button is also in the Publish box.
- The list reloads with the message “Successfully Duplicated! You can edit your new Page here”. Select here to open the copy, or find it in the list: its title ends in “Copy”.
- Check the copy’s status before you leave it. Depending on how the plugin is set up, the copy is either a draft or has the same status as the original, so a copy of a published page can be live straight away. If it is live, change it to Draft (see “Take published content off the intranet”).
- Rename the copy and edit it as normal. Its address ends in “-copy” until you change it.
The copy includes the text, title, excerpt, page template, parent page, featured image, categories, tags and everything in the extra boxes under the editor. You become its author and it gets today’s date, so a copied news story appears as new. Comments are not copied.
An administrator can change how copies are made at Tools, Post Duplicator: the copy’s status (draft, published, pending or the same as the original), the word added to its title and address, and whether it keeps the original’s date.
Copy a page without a plugin
Without a plugin, open the page you want to copy, select the Text tab and copy everything in the editor. Add a new page, select the Text tab there and paste. The text, headings, links and images are copied. The page template, featured image, categories and any extra boxes under the editor have to be set again by hand.
Delete content and get it back
Select Move to Bin in the Publish box. Content stays in the Bin for 30 days and is then deleted for good. To get it back, open the list of pages, tasks or news, select Bin above the list, point at the title and select Restore.
Unpublishing is often a better choice than deleting. Both break links from other pages, so check what links to the content first.
If someone else is editing the same content
WordPress locks content while someone is editing it and tells you who. Wait, or contact them. Only select Take over if you are sure they have finished, because their unsaved changes will be lost.