The Lifecycle of an Article in Dynamics CRM 2011

Paul Nieuwelaar, 25 February 2011

In my blog post last week about Articles in Dynamics CRM 2011, I explained how ‘The Knowledge Base’ from Dynamics CRM 4.0 is now just referred to as ‘Articles’ in Dynamics CRM 2011. Though they are fairly similar in both Dynamics CRM 4.0 and Dynamics CRM 2011, I thought I would still show the lifecycle of an Article in Dynamics CRM 2011, just so you can see the different states that an Article goes through in its lifecycle.

You can access Articles from either the Workplace, or Services areas of Dynamics CRM 2011. Once you click on Articles, by default the view is set to Published Articles, but if you click the drop down you can see the different states that an article can be in: Draft, Published, Unapproved, or Unpublished. You will also notice that you can set the view to show All Articles, so you can see all your articles in one place.

When you first create an Article, it will be in a Draft state. After saving the Article, it will be displayed in the Draft Articles view. You can then submit the Article for approval by either clicking ‘Submit’ from the Draft Articles view, or from the Opened Article itself.

Once an Article has been submitted, it will be displayed in the Unapproved Articles view. At this point you can still edit the Article. You will also notice the Approve and Reject buttons are now active, and the Submit button is disabled. Clicking ‘Approve’ will publish the Article, alternatively if you click ‘Reject’, you will be prompted to give a reason, and then the Article will be set to Draft again. The rejection reason will then be displayed under the ‘Comments’ of the article.

Finally, once the Article has been published you will no longer be able to edit the Article, and the ‘Unpublish’ button will now become active, which if clicked will set the Article to Unapproved again.

One more interesting thing to note is the ‘Unpublished Articles’ view, which displays any articles that are not published, whether they are in a Draft or Unapproved state.

In my next blog post I will be showing the steps to create an Article, stay tuned till then!