The content editor

The edit page is where one item is written, reviewed, signed off, published and withdrawn. Open it by selecting a title in All content (opens the admin console), or from a link in a notification, a queue or the calendar. It is the same page for every type; what changes is the editor in the middle and which cards appear around it.

This page describes every control. For the steps of a particular job, see Publish a guide, Schedule a publish and Import a Word or PDF document. For the rules behind the buttons, see how publishing works and how two-person sign-off works.

Who can do what

The page hides most of what you cannot use, but the database makes the decision. A refusal appears in red, at the top of the page or in the card concerned.

There is no delete button on this page. To delete an item, tick it in All content and use Delete, which needs Delete content; see All content.

Optional features

Four parts of this page belong to features your agency can switch off under Settings → Features (opens the admin console). All four are on unless someone has turned them off.

Top of the page

• Print binder opens the item, and for a guide everything inside it, as a printable binder. See Print binder.
• Analytics opens this item's engagement figures: views, favourites, completions and, for quizzes, results.
• A red banner appears if you save after someone else has saved the item since you opened it. See changed in another session.

Cards above the editor

Each card appears only when it applies. In order:

Notify operators

Shown on published items to people who hold Publish. Send notification pushes a notification about the item to operators' phones and reports what the push service accepted: "Sent to 17 devices (14 operators) — delivery confirmations arrive within ~15 minutes."

The notification is titled with your agency's name, with "New:" or "Updated:" and the item's title underneath — "Metro Fire" over "New: Swiftwater entry". A critical item is titled "Metro Fire — critical" and also sends a silent background sync, so the procedure is on phones before anyone taps the notification.

It goes to operators who have notifications on for the top-level guide the item sits in; anyone who has never opened their notification settings counts as opted in. An operator with no registered device gets no notification ("… matched, but none has a phone registered for notifications").

Delivery record. Below the button, the item's last five pushes — from this card or from a scheduled publish — each with when it was sent, how many operators and devices it targeted, and then how many messages Apple and Google confirmed delivered, how many failed, and how many are still awaiting confirmation. Confirmations are collected every 15 minutes, so a fresh send shows them all awaiting; use the refresh button to update the list. Failures are named — App removed is a phone that uninstalled the app or switched notifications off (ROK stops trying it), Unconfirmed means no confirmation arrived within two hours. For a Critical push each phone is sent two messages, so its counts can be twice the devices.

Publishing from this page does not notify anyone by itself. A scheduled publish does, when it goes live.

Also editing

With Live updates on, an amber bar names anyone else who has this item open: "Sam Taylor is also editing this item — save early to avoid losing work to a version conflict." It is a warning, not a lock. Whoever saves second hits the conflict banner.

Changes since last publish

Compares the item as saved with the copy operators were last given — the last publish or release ("Compared against v7, published …").

Counts of added, removed and changed blocks appear as chips, with Title, Summary, Description, Hero image, Cover image and Accent colour chips when those changed. Review changes shows the differences word by word, including formatting, images, tables and callouts; Hide changes collapses them.

Release to operators appears beside Review changes on a published item with held changes, for people who hold Publish. It makes the last saved version the one operators receive at their next sync, so save your edits first. If the item needs sign-off, the release is refused until enough people other than the author and you have approved the current version: "These changes need N approval(s) on the current version, from people other than the author and the publisher — they have M". Approvals are given as usual, on the Two-person sign-off card.

Two-person sign-off

Shown to people who hold Publish or Second approval. When sign-off is not required, only Publish holders see it, so they can switch it on.

• Required (Publish holders) turns sign-off on or off for this one item. Turning it off does not remove a requirement that comes from a policy.
• Required by policy lists each approval policy that matches the item, with its match and how many approvals it needs. Manage approval policies opens Settings → Approval policies (opens the admin console).
• The badge reads Approved — current version, with who approved and when, or "1 of 2 approvals on this version".
• Approve current version records your approval. It is offered to Second approval holders who did not write the item and have not already approved this version. Withdraw my approval takes yours back.

Approvals count only from people other than the author, and at the moment of publishing or releasing, other than the person doing it. For a scheduled publish, that is the person who set the schedule. They also count only for the version they were given on.

Field operations

Shown to people who hold Publish; the database refuses these changes from anyone else. Changes reach operators at their next sync.

• Critical — pin to the emergency section puts the item in the red Critical section at the top of the operator app's library and on the home screen as a quick action.
• Require operator acknowledgment makes every operator acknowledge each published version. The Compliance roster then lists every member as Up to date, vN (stale) (they acknowledged an older version) or Never, with a count of how many are current. Export CSV downloads the roster.

The roster measures against the version operators have — the last one published or released. A change held for release does not make anyone's acknowledgment stale; releasing it does, and everyone must acknowledge again. An acknowledgment can only be recorded for a version that has been released.

Badge on pass and Badge on completion

Shown on quizzes (Badge on pass) and guides (Badge on completion). It lists the badges that passing the quiz or finishing the guide counts towards, with a link to each.

People who hold Manage badges can Attach an existing badge, unlink one, or Create a badge for this, which opens the badge designer with this item already filled in. Only your agency's own badges can be attached; to use a ROK catalogue badge, duplicate it into your own badges first. The database awards the badge when the operator's result reaches the server, so someone who finishes offline earns it when their device syncs.

Engagement

Shown on checklists: how many Operators have started it, Avg. steps done, Avg. completion and how many have Fully completed it. Before anyone starts, it says "No operators have started this checklist yet."

Guide contents

Shown on guides: the ordered items and sub-guides inside this guide. Changes here save the moment you make them. There is no Save button, and they are not part of the guide's own version.

• Drag a row by its handle, or use the arrows, to reorder.
• The bin icon removes an item from this guide. It does not delete the item.
• Add existing content or a sub-guide… then Add appends an item at the end.
• Import documents into this guide turns a set of Word .docx and PDF files, or a folder of them, into draft articles added at the end, in the order you set; sub-folders become sub-guides when this guide is a top-level one. It needs Create content as well as Edit content. See Import a folder of documents.
• Items that are not published carry a Draft or In review badge. Operators see only the published ones.

Guides go two levels deep at most: a sub-guide cannot contain guides, and a guide that has sub-guides cannot go inside another guide. The picker leaves those out, and the database refuses them. Reordering, adding and removing need Edit content. To rearrange several guides at once, use Organize (opens the admin console).

The editor

Articles and guides

The heading reads "Edit article" or "Edit guide". Beside it, a status shows Unsaved changes, Saving…, Saved, or in red Not saved (see Autosave), and Edit / Preview / Phone switch between the editor, a rendered view, and a phone-sized approximation of what operators see in the ROK app (links don't open from it).

Title takes up to 200 characters. Below the body editor is a word count and reading time.

The toolbar, left to right:

Text pasted from Word or Google Docs is cleaned up as it goes in, keeping lists and basic formatting. Uploaded images count towards your plan's storage.

Nested numbered lists go 1. → a. → i., and a list can start at any number. Lists, merged table cells and image proportions look the same in the editor, the preview, the phone and the printed binder.

Under the body, the editor lists problems it found:

Checklists, quizzes, video and audio

The heading reads "Edit checklist", "Edit quiz" and so on. These editors have no preview and no schedule control.

• Checklist: sections, each with an optional title and numbered steps. Add step, Add section, and the bin icons remove them; the last step and the last section cannot be removed. The speech-bubble button on a step (Add a note) opens a note field: a detail, a caution or a reference that the app shows under the step. Spaces at either end are trimmed when it saves, and an empty note is not saved at all; the cross removes it. Reorder steps within their section, and sections among themselves, by dragging the handle at the left or with the up and down arrows (the keyboard way to do it). Steps cannot be dragged into another section: remove the step and add it there. Reordering is safe once operators have started the checklist, because their progress follows each step, not its position.
• Quiz: Pass mark (%) (80 for a new quiz), then questions. Each has a prompt, a type (Single answer, Multiple answers or True / False), answer options with a tick box marking the correct ones, and an optional Explanation (shown after answering). Add option, Add question. Operators answer on their device, offline if need be; the pass or fail recorded is worked out by the database from the score and the pass mark saved here.
• Video and Audio: Hosted URL, Duration (seconds), an upload area, and Choose from library to use a file already in the media library. Replacing the current file with one from the library returns the old one to the library rather than deleting it. On a published item, only people who hold Publish can replace the file (see Attachments).

Publish stays disabled until the body is complete: every checklist step has text; every quiz question has a prompt, at least two options, text in every option and a correct answer; a video or audio item has a link or a file.

Details

• Summary: up to 500 characters. Unless your agency has changed its publish checks, an item needs one before it can be published.
• In guides: tick every guide the item belongs to. Sub-guides are indented, and unpublished guides are marked. Saving adds the item to the end of each newly ticked guide.
• Tags: type a tag and press Enter or a comma. A name your agency has not used before becomes a new tag when the item saves.
• Cover image (articles and guides): Upload cover, or choose one from the media library. The cross removes it. For a guide, the cover is the card thumbnail.

Guide appearance

Guides only. Short description (up to 160 characters) is the one-line tagline on the guide's card. Hero image is the wide banner on the guide's landing screen. Guide colour offers a set of swatches, a field for any #RRGGBB value, and Clear; the colour is used on the guide's cards, headers, badges and charts.

Attachments (PDF)

Articles only. Each attached PDF is listed and opens in a new tab. Attach a PDF uploads one; Attach from library uses one already in the media library. Per file, Return to library detaches it but keeps the file, and Remove attachment deletes the file. Operators can open attachments from the app.

Attachments have no versions, so a change to one cannot be held for release. On a published item, only people who hold Publish can remove, replace or move an attachment, or attach a file that is not an image (a PDF, video or audio file). Anyone else is refused: "Only someone with the content.publish permission can change the attachments of a published item". People with Edit content can still add images to the body.

Author

The author's name, credentials and organisation, read live from their profile; they change them in Account settings (opens the admin console), not here. If the profile is empty, the card warns that the item carries no attribution.

Reviewer notes (legacy) appears only on older items that have them. It is read-only; use comments instead.

The Publish card

The badge beside Publish is the item's status when you opened it.

Every button except Cancel saves first, then returns you to All content. A title is always required.

Until an item is published, the card also lists your agency's publish checks: Summary is filled in, Cover image is set (articles and guides), Belongs to at least one guide (not for guides), and Has at least one tag. A required check that fails is marked in red and blocks Publish and Schedule; the rest say (optional). Your agency chooses which are required under Settings → Publish requirements (opens the admin console). These checks, like the problems listed under the body, run in the editor; they are not database rules.

Schedule publish (articles and guides not yet published, for Publish holders) takes a date and time in your own time zone, which it names: the zone in your Account settings profile, or your browser's. Schedule saves the time and leaves the status as it is; the item goes live when the time arrives. Reschedule or cancel from Scheduled (opens the admin console). The database refuses a schedule from anyone without Publish, and records you as the person who set it: the item goes live only if you still hold Publish when the time comes.

Editing a published item

A published item has two copies: the working copy you edit here, and the released copy operators receive, which is the item as it was last published or released. A save to a published item reaches operators at their next sync only when the person saving holds Publish and the item needs no sign-off. Any other change is held: it is saved and visible here, but operators keep the released copy. That covers:

• every change by someone who holds Edit content but not Publish. After Save changes they stay on the page with "Saved. Operators keep the published version until someone with the Publish permission releases these changes";
• every change, by anyone, to an item that needs two-person sign-off, from a policy or its own Required box. You can prepare the next revision of a live procedure while operators keep the current one.

Held changes show as Not yet released on Changes since last publish, and the item is listed under Changes awaiting release in the Review queue (opens the admin console). Someone who holds Publish sends them with Release to operators, after any approvals the item needs.

What is held is the title, summary, body, short description, hero image, cover image and guide colour. Tags, guide placement, the Field operations flags and the byline apply at once, as before, and attachments follow the rule under Attachments.

The one exception is a body left empty. If you clear a published item's text (or a checklist's steps, a quiz's questions, a video's file) to start again, that save is held: operators keep the published copy until the item has content again, and Release refuses it until then.

Autosave

Once the item has a title, it saves itself two seconds after you stop typing. Save changes and the other buttons save immediately; an autosave still under way finishes first, so the two never overwrite each other. Cancel, and leaving the page in the console, save any change still waiting. If you close the tab with changes not yet saved, the browser asks you to confirm.

Saved only appears once the save has been stored. If a save is refused — the connection drops, or the database turns it down — the status turns red and reads Not saved, the error shows above the editor, and your changes stay on the screen; your next edit tries again. Not saved — changed in another session means the save hit someone else's newer version, and the editor stops saving.

Changed in another session

Every save is checked against the version you opened. If someone else saved the item in the meantime, nothing is written and a red banner appears: "This item was changed in another session — your last edit was not saved." From then on, the editor saves nothing until you select Load latest, which reloads the item and discards the unsaved changes on your screen. Copy out anything you need to keep first.

Agency changed in another tab

The tabs of one browser share one sign-in, so they share its agency. If you switch agency in another tab — or open the platform Library there — this tab shows "The agency changed in another tab" and saves nothing more, so an item open here can never be saved into the other agency. Choose Switch back to the agency this tab was in to keep editing, or Go to the new one. Your phone and other devices keep the agency they are in; a switch here never moves them.

Comments

With Review comments on, the Comments card sits below the editor, with a count of open threads. Anyone whose groups carry a permission can take part.

• Type in Add a review comment… and select Post, or press Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Enter on a Mac). Plain Enter starts a new line.
• Type @ to pick a colleague from your agency. They get a mention notification.
• Reply answers a comment; replies go one level deep.
• The tick on a comment resolves its thread; on a resolved thread the same button reopens it. The open count only counts unresolved threads.
• The bin deletes a comment. You can delete your own; people who hold Delete content can delete anyone's.
• A comment started with Comment on the selected passage shows the quoted text above it. The quote is kept as text, so it still reads correctly after the passage is rewritten.

Each comment notifies, in the notification bell, the item's author, everyone who has already commented on the item, and the author of the comment being replied to; people mentioned get the mention notification instead. With Live updates on, new comments appear without a reload.

History

History sits at the bottom, collapsed, with a count. It appears once the item has a history or has been published. Each row is the item as it was before a change replaced it: its title, version, status, when, and the person whose save replaced it. A row is added for every change to the title, summary, body or status. A run of autosaves by one person counts as one change: it adds a row when it starts, and another every ten minutes it keeps going. Save changes, a restore, a status change, or someone else's edit always adds its own row. The newest 30 rows show first; Show older loads more.

• Compare shows that version against the item now. The compare icon beside it picks a version as one side; then the Compare with button on another row compares the two. In the comparison, highlighted text is in the newer version and struck-through text was removed.
• Restore (Edit content holders) writes that version's title, summary and body back. The confirmation says the current text is saved to history first, so a restore can itself be undone.
• Last published version, at the top of the list for Edit content holders, offers Restore published: put the text as it was last published back as the working copy. It is unavailable while the item is still at its published version.

A restore never changes the status. On a published item, though, the restored text is an edit like any other: it reaches operators at their next sync or is held for release, by the rule in Editing a published item. If someone saved the item after you opened its history, nothing is restored and a message asks you to review their change first.