Salesforce Dictionary - Free Salesforce GlossarySalesforce Dictionary
Full Published Article entry
How-to guide

How to publish a Knowledge article

Publishing moves a draft Knowledge article to Online status so it appears in its assigned channels. In Lightning Knowledge, you publish from the article record after the content is reviewed.

By Dipojjal Chakrabarti · Founder & Editor, Salesforce DictionaryLast updated Jun 16, 2026

Publishing moves a draft Knowledge article to Online status so it appears in its assigned channels. In Lightning Knowledge, you publish from the article record after the content is reviewed.

  1. Open the draft and confirm channels

    Open the draft article version and check the Channels field. Select Internal App, Customer, Partner, or Public Knowledge Base so the article reaches the audiences you intend once it is live.

  2. Click Publish

    With the draft open, click the Publish action. You need the Manage Articles permission. The version's publish status changes from Draft to Online and the content becomes visible in its channels.

  3. Publish now or schedule a time

    Choose to publish immediately or schedule publication for a future date and time in fifteen-minute intervals. A scheduled article stays in Draft until that moment, then goes Online on its own.

  4. Update later with Edit as Draft

    To revise a live article, click Edit as Draft to spin up a new version while the current copy stays Online. Publish the new draft to replace it, and the old version moves to Archived.

Key options
Internal App channelremember

Makes the article visible to your own agents and internal users inside Salesforce.

Customer channelremember

Surfaces the article to logged-in customers in a site, community, or help center.

Partner channelremember

Exposes the article to partner users who have access to your partner experience.

Public Knowledge Base channelremember

Publishes the article to a public site so anyone can read it without logging in.

Gotchas
  • Finishing an approval process does not publish the article. Someone still has to click Publish to set it Online.
  • An article can be Online but invisible to customers if the Customer or Public Knowledge Base channel was never selected.
  • Only one version is Online at a time. Publishing a new draft replaces the prior live version, which moves to Archived.
  • Publishing is gated by the Manage Articles permission, so writers without it can draft but cannot push content live.

See the full Published Article entry

Published Article includes the definition, worked example, deep dive, related terms, and a quiz.