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Overview

With same-space publishing, each piece of content (page or blog post) can have concurrent draft and approved versions.

The same-space publishing capability is aimed at organisations using Confluence internally.

Activating same-space publishing

To use same-space publishing, just add the final=true parameter to one of the {state} macros in your workflow – this marks it as the published state.

The addition of the final=true parameter changes the behavior of Confluence to show a user different page versions depending on the Confluence permissions of the user.

The workflow published version of the content is the version created when a transition to the final state takes place.

Editing of content in the final state will create a new version but the published version will remain as the version created on transition into this state.

This is why it is good practice to transition out of the final state if the content is changed, for example by adding an updated transition to the final state.

Code Block

language	text
theme	RDark

{workflow:name=In-space Publishing}
   {state:Editing|submit=Review}
   {state}
   {state:Review|approved=Published|rejected=Editing}
      {approval:Review|assignable=true}
   {state}
   {state:Published|final=true|updated=Editing}
   {state}
{workflow}

Subsequent drafts

The updated parameter can be applied to published states to ensure that any subsequent edits are pushed to a draft state.

In the example markup above, editing the published state content will result in the new version being in the editing state.

Info

icon	false

As the published version is created on a transition into the final state, if the final state content is edited and no transition occurs (for example, there is no updated transition present in the state) the version created will NOT BE the published version even though the content remains in the final state.

State colours

By default, draft (unpublished) states will have an orange circle and published (final=true) state will have a green circle.

For more information, see Status Indicator Circles.

Note: Since v5.0.8, colours can be customized on state-by-state basis using workflow builder or via the editing the markup color parameter on the {state} macro.

Permissions

If a workflow has a published (final=true) state, then all other states in that workflow will be considered draft (unpublished) states.

Editing – draft

Review – draft

Published – published

By default, users who only have View content permission can only see the most recently published version of each page or blog post. If they try to view draft (unpublished) versions, they will see an error like this

Users with Edit and Admin permissions can see all versions of content, and can switch between the latest draft and published versions via the Workflow Status Bar.

Note that the URL for the published content in a final state will be different to the URL for the content in the draft state.

Note

title	Not for secure publishing

Same-space publishing is for when you want to direct users to a version of the content that is not currently in draft.

the user will not be directed in all cases to the content version that is not currently in draft - for example, if viewing on a mobile device

it is not a secure publishing option to hide draft content

While view only users might default to seeing the approved content the most up to date content is still visible through the page history or search index.

In addition, some mobile-based browsers can only display the latest version.

If there is a formal requirement (compliance; organizational policy) that draft updates are not visible to some users we recommend using Different-space publishing where Confluence permissions can hide the draft space content entirely.

Notifications

The {set-message} macro can differentiate between draft and published versions of content.

PDF and Word export

When exporting content as PDF or Word using native Confluence features, either as individual pages or an entire space, the distinction between the published content vs. the draft content will be respected.

If the final state content is edited but there is no transition

the content version in the final state will change
the workflow published content will remain as the version created when the last transition to the final state occurred

To ensure that the current content in the final state is the workflow published version you should include an updated transition in the final state.

For more information, see: Confluence PDF and Word Export.

App configuration

Setting	Where	Notes
Workflow Activity and Drafts Visibility	Configuration - Space Tools Configuration - Global	Determines which users can access the workflow information and tools on a page. If using same space publishing the users not in this group will see the approved version of the content by default.
Default View	Configuration - Space Tools	Determines whether Published content is seen by default.
Published View Macro Transform	Configuration - Space Tools Configuration - Global	Determines whether `{include}` and `{excerpt-include}` macros display most recently Published version or, regardless of workflow state, the latest version of content.*
* When using other macros including third party apps such as ServiceRocket Scaffolding app the data will be always be rendered from the latest version of the source content with the applied workflow irrespective of the Published View Macro Transform configuration. The only macros that display their `final` version content are the Gliffy For Confluence macro and the Confluence `excerpt-include` and `excerpt` macros.

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