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.
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.
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.
Copy an existing page as a starting point
WordPress has no built-in way to copy a page. If your intranet has a plugin for it, such as Revisionize, you will see an extra link under each title in the list of pages.
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.