Write and publish content

This is the path for authors — the people who write and maintain your agency's guidance. Follow it in order the first time; after that, each step links to the page you will come back to.

You need Create content, Edit content and Submit for review, which the built-in Author group carries. If New article is missing from All content (opens the admin console), your groups don't include Create content — ask an administrator. The screens hide what you cannot use; the database decides what you can do.

1. Learn the shape of the library

Operators browse guides: a guide has an introduction and an ordered list of items — articles, checklists, quizzes, video and audio — and can hold sub-guides one level deep. An item can sit in more than one guide. Read the content model and how guides organise content once; the rest of this path assumes them.

2. Start an item

Select New article on All content (opens the admin console) and choose the type. For an article you can start from a template — Procedure / SOP gives you the usual headings. See New content.

Two shortcuts:

• Bring in a document you already have. Start an article and use the import button on the editor toolbar for a Word or PDF file. See Import a document.
• Start from ROK's library. Curated guides can be copied into your agency as drafts, then adapted. See Library.

The item saves itself as a Draft a couple of seconds after you give it a title.

3. Write it

Everything about the editor — formatting, callouts, tables, images and their alt text, links to other items, attachments — is on The content editor. Two habits save rework later:

• Describe every image (alt text). Missing descriptions are flagged on the page.
• Link to other items with Link to article, not by pasting addresses, so Link check can tell you when a target disappears.

4. Put it in a guide

Tick the guides it belongs to under In guides in the editor. To arrange a guide's order, open the guide and use Guide contents, or rearrange many at once on Organize (opens the admin console). By default an item must belong to a guide before it can be published.

5. Fill in what your agency requires

The Publish card lists your agency's publish requirements — usually a summary, sometimes a cover image or a tag. They do not stop you submitting, but a reviewer cannot publish until they pass, so fill them in now. See how publish checks work.

6. Submit it for review

Select Submit for review in the Publish card. The item moves to In review, and the people who can publish are notified. A reviewer either publishes it, or selects Request changes — the item comes back to you as a draft, with their note as a comment on it. Reply in the comments, make the changes and submit again.

If your agency requires two-person sign-off for some content, it needs approvals from people other than you before it can be published; see how two-person sign-off works.

7. After it is published

• Operators receive it at their next sync and can read it offline — see how offline reading works.
• Later changes are held. If you edit it after it is live, operators keep the released version until someone who holds Publish releases your changes — they appear in the review queue under Changes awaiting release. See how publishing works.
• It starts ageing against your agency's re-validation interval; when it falls due, it appears on Review due (opens the admin console). See how re-validation works.
• Operators can flag a problem from the app; flags land on Field reports (opens the admin console). Fix the item, then resolve the report.

That is the whole loop. From here, The content editor and All content are the two pages you will use every day.