Installing and configuring publication scheduling

October 8, 2024

Scheduled publication workflows allow site contributors to plan the publication date of content. Contributors can specify the date and time they want to publish in the Publication dashboard. Scheduled publication also separates validation from publication. Editors can trigger the publication of their content once it has been validated by a reviewer.

Note: For information on scheduling publishing of content as an author, see Scheduling a publication.

Installing the Scheduled Publication Workflow module

The Scheduled Publication Workflow module requires Jahia 8.0.2 or higher. Before using publication scheduling, you must add the following module to Jahia and enable them.

For more information on enabling a module, see Installing a module tutorial.

Enabling publication scheduling on a site

After adding the Workflow OSGi Extender and Scheduled Publication Workflow modules, you enable publication scheduling on your sites to make it available to your editors and reviewers.

To enable publication scheduling on a site:

  1. In Page Composer, right-click on your site and choose Edit.
    sched-pub-edit-site.png
  2. Select Advanced options>Workflow. The Workflow Settings dialog opens.
    sched-pub-workflow-settings-01.png
  3. Clear the Same workflow as parent checkbox.
  4. Under Choose a workflow for publish, click the drop-down at the right and select Scheduled publication workflow.
    sched-pub-workflow-settings-02.png
  5. Click Save.

Publication workflow paths

The publication scheduling workflow differs from the one-step and two-step publication workflows. With scheduled publications, the permissions of the person who starts the workflow determine the next steps in the workflow.

The following schemas show the workflows and possible paths when starting the workflow. Each path depends on the permission of the user who starts the workflow and whether they set a publication date.

The user who starts the workflow does not have the review permission
Validation is required when the user who starts the publication does not have the review permission. The following diagram shows the potential paths in the workflow.

scheduled-publishing-01.png

After the publication starts, a user who has the review permission receives a notification and has several options. They can:

  • Reject the publication.
  • Click Publish now to publish the content immediately, if they have the publish permission. Note that this functionality will be introduced with Jahia 8.0.3. In Jahia 8.0.2, all reviewers can click Publish now.
  • Validate the content. If the user who started the workflow:
    • specified a publication date, the workflow moves to the Schedule publication state. This means that Jahia waits for the publication date to be reached before automatically publishing the content. Users with the publication-reschedule permission and the initiator of the workflow (if they have the author-publication-if-validated permission) can also abort the workflow, reschedule it, or decide to publish it now.
    • did not specify a publication date, the workflow moves to the Publication now or later state. Users with the publication-reschedule permission and the initiator of the workflow (if they have the author-publication-if-validated permission) can specify a publication date, publish now, or abort the publication.

The user who starts the workflow has the review permission and specifies a publication date
As the user who starts the workflow has the review permission, the review step is unnecessary, and the workflow goes directly to the Schedule publication state. This means that it is waiting for the publication date to be reached before automatically publishing the content.

In the Schedule publication state, users with the publication-reschedule permission can publish now or change the publication date.

scheduled-publishing-02.png

The user who starts the workflow has the review permission and does not specify a publication date (or specify a publication date in the past)
In this case, the content is directly published.

scheduled-publishing-03.png

Configuring roles and permissions

This section describes the individual permissions that control publication scheduling and shows examples of the permissions that you would add to certain roles.

Publishing permissions

The following permissions are used with the scheduling workflow.

  • Publication start
    Allows a user to start a publication workflow. Without this permission, a user cannot start or schedule a publication.
  • Publication review
    Allows a user to validate a publication request. If the user who started the workflow also has the publication review permission, then the publication workflow skips the review step. In other words, a user who can validate a publication request cannot request a validation by someone else.
    If the user with the Publication review permission also has the Publish permission, then they can directly publish the content in the validation step using the Publish now button.
  • Publication reschedule
    This permission is new and has been introduced for the publication scheduling workflow. This is a powerful permission. With this permission, a user can publish any validated publication request and reschedule any pending publication, without necessarily being the one who started or validated the publication workflow.
    This permission is granted by default to the editor-in-chief role.
  • Author publication if validated
    This permission is new and has been introduced for the publication scheduling workflow.
    With this permission, the user who starts the publication workflow can publish the content once it has been validated, and can also update the scheduled date at any time for a scheduled publication.
Note: In Jahia, the Publish permission allows a user to directly publish content without having to use workflows. With this permission only, it is not possible to schedule a publication, as the scheduling mechanism is performed in a workflow. You can alternatively remove the Publish permission from the corresponding role, and grant the following permissions: Publication start, Publication review and Publication reschedule. In this case, the user can directly publish content (without additional interventions), by not setting a scheduled date and clicking on Request publication. The label is not the most accurate as the content will be directly published, but the user will receive an email notification that the content has been published.

Publishing permissions examples

This section shows what permissions to set for a role, depending on what you want users to be allowed to do. The first table shows permissions to set for the user who starts a publication flow.

The following permissions allow a user to request a publication and also set a scheduled date. Then, the publication must be validated by another user.

Publication start Publication review Publication reschedule Author publication if validated Publish Description
Yes No No No No If no scheduled date is specified, a user with the Publication reschedule permission manually publishes or schedules the publication. The initiator of the workflow cannot update the schedule date.
Yes No No Yes No Once validated, the user can trigger the actual publication or set a scheduled date (if not already set) and can update the scheduled date.
Yes No Yes NA No Once validated, the initiator can trigger the actual publication or set a scheduled date (if not already set) and can update the scheduled date. As the user has the Publication reschedule permission, they can publish and reschedule any validated publication.

 

The following permissions allow a user to directly publish and schedule publications without validation.

Publication start Publication review Publication reschedule Author publication if validated Publish Description
Yes Yes No Yes No They can update their own scheduled publication date and can validate (without publishing) publication requests from other users.
Yes Yes Yes NA NA They can update their own scheduled publication date, validate other user publication request, and publish and reschedule any validated publication.

 

The following permissions allow a user to validate another user’s publication requests.

Publication start Publication review Publication reschedule Author publication if validated Publish Description
No Yes No NA No After validating, they cannot publish another user’s publication request.
No Yes No NA Yes After validating, they can publish another user’s publication request using Publish now, skipping the potential scheduled date. With the Publish permission, they can also directly publish content, without scheduling and without validation.
No Yes Yes NA No They can also publish and reschedule any validated request.
No Yes Yes NA Yes They can also publish and reschedule any validated request. With the Publish permission, they can also directly publish content without scheduling or validation.

 

The following permissions allow a user to publish and reschedule validated publication requests.

Publication start Publication review Publication reschedule Author publication if validated Publish Description
No No Yes NA Yes With the Publish permission, they can also directly publish content, without scheduling or validation.

 

The following permission scenarios are not recommended.

Publication start Publication review Publication reschedule Author publication if validated Publish Description
No No Yes NA No The user can publish and reschedule validated publication requests, but they can’t publish content themselves directly.
Yes Yes No No No The user can directly publish content without validation (as they have the publication review permission). However, they can’t reschedule their own publication. This user can validate (without publishing) publication requests from other users.