Scheduled Publishing allows content creators to schedule articles for publication, which can be especially useful for coordinating with product launches or updates.
PHPKB offers scheduled publishing of knowledge base articles. Scheduling documents is an easy way to control when your knowledge base content is published. You can set a publishing date for an article and the knowledge base software will automatically publish it to users on the specified date.
What is scheduled publishing?
PHPKB has an in-built feature which allows you to schedule your knowledge articles on a certain date and time. You don’t need to manually publish each knowledge base article. Rather, you set a publish time and your knowledge articles would automatically be live. It makes publishing a lot convenient.
Why you should schedule your knowledge base articles?
Before you learn how to schedule knowledge base articles, here are some reasons to help you understand how auto-publishing and scheduling could be useful.
- Publishing consistency: If you follow a strict publishing timeline on your knowledge base, say weekly or monthly, then scheduling can help you set a time for all the articles at once. Your audience will receive all your scheduled articles at the perfect time. That’s it.
- Time-zone and audience priority: If your audience is from a region that’s different than yours, then it might not receive your knowledge base updates at the ideal time, so you might miss out some of their attention. Scheduling can help you encounter this problem by publishing your articles right when your audience is online.
- Batching for future: If you won’t be able to manage your knowledge base for a certain period due to a vacation, internet problems or any other interruption, then your knowledge base might lose consistency. However, keeping a few articles scheduled in advance can save the day for you.
How to schedule knowledge base articles in PHPKB?
This scheduled publishing feature is found in the "Article Options" box on the "Add Article" page.
To schedule a knowledge base document for publication, click the "Set Publish Date" checkbox. You’ll now see a date field with a calender icon to select the month, date and year to publish the content. Click on the calender icon to specify the publishing date of your choice.
For example, the screenshot below shows that author has selected "June 8, 2022" as the scheduled publishing date for the article.
If you change your mind and want to publish this article immediately, simply uncheck the "Set Publish Date" option. This will change the scheduled publish time to now for immediately publishing the document.
Benefits of Scheduled Publishing
- Allow your support team to draft FAQs for new products or features ahead of time and schedule the articles to go live in your Knowledge Base on a specific day and time.
- The flexibility to proactively set up articles for releases without the concern of needing to double back to set it live.
