What is a Workflow in Sitecore?
In Sitecore, a workflow defines the series of steps content must go through before it can be published. It ensures that all content is reviewed and approved before becoming visible to website visitors. A typical workflow includes stages like Draft, In Review, and Approved to keep track of progress and prevent accidental publishing of unfinished content.
Most workflows in Sitecore are applied to pages and components. However, a datasource workflow is a little different. It applies to content stored separately in folders, not full pages. A datasource workflow ensures that this reusable content is properly reviewed and approved before being displayed in multiple places on the website.
Why Use a Datasource Workflow?
Using workflows for datasource items provides several advantages:
- Control: Ensures that datasource items follow the same review process as full pages.
- Reusability: Since datasource items are often reused across multiple pages, workflows prevent unapproved changes from affecting multiple locations.
- Collaboration: Allows multiple content editors to contribute while maintaining oversight.
- Versioning and Rollback: Keeps track of changes and allows reverting to previous versions if needed.
How to Implement a Datasource Workflow in Sitecore
Let’s look at a scenario where you have both a Page Workflow and a Datasource Workflow. In this setup, approving a page also automatically approves all datasource items associated with that page.
1. Create your Page Workflow. Setup the workflow and the states. Draft, Awaiting approval, Approved for instance. Add the necessary commands, such as Submit under the Draft state.
2. Create your Datasource workflow.
In your datasource workflow, create a command in the Draft state called Submit and Approve, and set the Next state to Approved.
This setup allows datasource items to be automatically approved when the page they’re linked to is approved.
3. Add Datasource Workflow Actions
Add a Datasource Workflow Action and point it to the command you created in Step 2 (Submit and Approve).
Here’s how the flow works:
- The page (in Draft) is submitted.
- The Datasource Workflow Action triggers the Submit and Approve command on all linked datasource items.
- Because this command moves datasource items to Approved, they are automatically published along with the page.
If you prefer manual approval for datasources, you can instead move them to an Awaiting Approval state rather than approving automatically.
Now you can test and verify your workflows in Pages.
Workflows are very flexible, you can change these actions to match your specific needs. Try it out and get familiar with it.
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