Published Article
A published article is a Salesforce Knowledge article version whose publish status is Online, meaning it is live and visible to the audiences chosen for it.
Definition
A published article is a Salesforce Knowledge article version whose publish status is Online, meaning it is live and visible to the audiences chosen for it. Those audiences are the article channels: the internal app for agents, plus the Customer, Partner, and Public Knowledge Base channels for external readers.
Publishing is the moment a draft becomes a real answer that people can find. Until an author or knowledge manager clicks Publish, the content stays in Draft and only authorized users can see it. Each article keeps a version number, and only one version can be Online at a time.
How an article reaches Online status and stays useful
Online is the publish status that makes content live
In the data model, every Knowledge article version carries a PublishStatus field, and the value that matters to readers is Online. A version that is Online is the published one. It is the copy that agents pull into a case, that customers read in the help center, and that search returns. Draft versions are work in progress, and only people with the right permission can open them. Archived versions are retired copies kept for history. When you query KnowledgeArticleVersion through SOQL or the API, filtering on PublishStatus equal to Online is how you fetch what is actually live. That single field is the difference between content sitting in a backstage queue and content doing its job in front of users. Because the published state is explicit, you can report on it, automate around it, and trust that nothing reaches an audience by accident. An article does not drift into being live. Someone publishes it, the status flips to Online, and from that point the version is the public face of that answer until it is replaced or archived.
Channels decide who actually sees the published version
Publishing alone is not enough. An article also has to be assigned to channels, and the channels control which audiences can reach it. The Internal App channel exposes the article to your own agents and internal users. The Customer channel surfaces it in a customer site or community. The Partner channel does the same for partner users. The Public Knowledge Base channel makes the article available to anyone, including people who never log in. A version can be Online yet still invisible to customers if the Customer channel was never selected. This is one of the most common sources of confusion in a Knowledge program, because the author sees the article as published while a customer still cannot find it. When you publish, treat channel selection as part of the decision, not an afterthought. Match each channel to the sensitivity of the content. Internal troubleshooting notes belong in the Internal App channel only, while a how-to that helps any visitor can safely go to the Public Knowledge Base. The published status answers whether the article is live, and the channels answer to whom.
Version control protects the live copy while you edit
Lightning Knowledge gives every article version control, and that changes how editing works. You do not edit the live article in place. Instead you click Edit as Draft on the published version, which creates a fresh draft and assigns it a new version number while the existing Online version keeps serving readers. Your edits happen on the draft, fully separated from what users currently see. When the new draft is ready, you publish it, and that act replaces the previous Online version. The older copy moves to Archived, preserving a record of what was live before. This pattern means corrections and rewrites never expose half-finished content to an audience. It also gives you a safety net, because the archived version documents earlier wording if you need to compare or revert. Only one version is Online at any moment, so there is never ambiguity about which copy is authoritative. For teams that update content often, this draft-then-publish loop is the backbone of safe Knowledge maintenance. The live answer stays stable, the work happens off to the side, and the swap is deliberate.
Approval and publishing are two separate steps
Many Knowledge programs route articles through an approval process before they go live, and it is worth being precise about what approval does. Finishing an approval process does not publish the article on its own. The version still sits in Draft, and someone with the Manage Articles permission has to click Publish to push it to its channels. Approval governs whether the content is allowed to be published, while publishing is the explicit action that makes it Online. Keeping these steps distinct is a feature, not a gap. It lets a reviewer sign off on quality and a publisher choose the right moment to release, which can matter when content is tied to a product launch or a policy change. The permission boundary also reinforces accountability, because publishing is restricted to trusted roles rather than open to everyone who can write a draft. If your team expects articles to appear automatically after approval, they will be surprised to find approved drafts waiting. Build the final Publish click into your process and make clear who owns it.
Scheduling lets you choose the publish moment
You do not always want an article to go live the instant it is ready. Salesforce lets authors and knowledge managers schedule publication for a future date and time, down to fifteen-minute intervals. The article stays in Draft until the scheduled moment, then it publishes on its own and its status becomes Online. This is useful when content has to be timed, such as release-day documentation, a pricing change, or a seasonal policy that should not appear early. Scheduling turns publishing from a manual race against the clock into a planned event. You prepare the draft, set the time, and trust the platform to make it live exactly when intended. The same discipline applies in reverse for retirement. You can plan to unpublish or archive outdated content so stale answers stop reaching customers. Treating both the start and the end of an article's live period as scheduled decisions keeps the knowledge base current without anyone watching the clock. A well-run program uses these controls so the right answers appear and disappear on purpose, not by chance.
Published articles are where Knowledge proves its value
Once a version is Online and reaching the right channels, it starts generating the signals that justify a Knowledge program. Agents attach published articles to cases, which speeds up resolutions and keeps answers consistent across a team. Customers find published content in self-service, which deflects cases that never need to reach an agent. Each published article can collect views, ratings, and feedback, and those numbers tell you which answers are pulling their weight and which are being ignored. This is why publishing discipline pays off. Content that is reviewed before it goes Online builds reader trust, while content that is published carelessly erodes it. Mature teams watch the performance of their published set, retire articles that no longer hold up, and rewrite the ones that get traffic but low ratings. The published state is not the finish line. It is the start of a feedback loop where real usage tells you what to improve. An article only earns its keep after it is live, in front of an audience, and measured against how well it actually answers the question.
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Makes the article visible to your own agents and internal users inside Salesforce.
Surfaces the article to logged-in customers in a site, community, or help center.
Exposes the article to partner users who have access to your partner experience.
Publishes the article to a public site so anyone can read it without logging in.
- 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.
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Trust & references
Cross-checked against the following references.
- Publish Articles and TranslationsSalesforce
- KnowledgeArticleVersion Object ReferenceSalesforce
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Published Article.
Hands-on resources to go deeper on Published Article.
About the Author
Dipojjal Chakrabarti is a B2C Solution Architect with 29 Salesforce certifications and over 13 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He runs salesforcedictionary.com to help admins, developers, architects, and cert/interview candidates sharpen their fundamentals. More about Dipojjal.
Test your knowledge
Q1. What defines a Published Article in Salesforce Knowledge?
Q2. Why is publishing called the key state transition in a Knowledge workflow?
Q3. How does an author update content that is already a Published Article?
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