Definition
An Article Draft in Salesforce Knowledge is an article that is in the draft state of the publishing lifecycle. Draft articles are being created or edited and have not yet been published. They are visible only to Knowledge authors and editors with appropriate permissions, and they must go through the approval or publishing process before becoming available to agents or customers.
Real-World Example
At their company, a service operations lead at ShieldGuard Security leverages Article Draft to deliver consistent, high-quality support across all customer channels. Article Draft ensures that every inquiry follows the same process, agents have access to relevant customer history, and managers can track performance metrics in real time.
Why Article Draft Matters
Draft is the first state in the Knowledge article lifecycle. When an author creates a new article or makes changes to an existing one, the work lives as a draft until it's explicitly published. Drafts are visible only to users with Knowledge author or editor permissions, which keeps in-progress content hidden from agents and customers who rely on the published knowledge base for accurate answers.
The draft state also supports collaboration and review workflows: authors can save progress over multiple sessions, assign drafts to reviewers or approval queues, request feedback from subject matter experts, and iterate on content before publishing. Some orgs use a formal review process where every draft must be approved by a Knowledge manager or subject matter expert before it can be published, which is especially important for content with legal, compliance, or accuracy requirements.
How Organizations Use Article Draft
- •ShieldGuard Security — Requires every Article Draft to be reviewed by a subject matter expert before publication. The author creates the draft, assigns it to the SME, and only after SME approval does the article move to published status. This catches accuracy errors before customers see them.
- •Oceanic Corp — Uses Article Drafts as a staging area for bulk content updates. When a product change requires updating dozens of articles, authors make all the changes in draft state, coordinate a publishing window, and publish them together so the knowledge base stays consistent.
- •Cyberdyne Co — Stores Article Drafts for emerging issues that aren't yet ready for public publication but need to be documented internally. The drafts serve as working notes while the support team figures out the right guidance to publish.