How It Works

If you are creating a new document, or if you are drafting updates to an existing document, it is possible to set the document to become active at a future date and time. This is particularly useful in cases where you may be creating or updating a large number of documents in preparation for a scheduled change, for example, a new service going live, or an existing tool undergoing a major upgrade.

When using Future Activation on existing documents, the currently published version of the document will remain unchanged until the scheduled activation date. When the selected date and time arrives, the "future" version of the document will be automatically published.

Though this function is similar to the concept of having both a draft and active version of the same document, Future Activation relies on the "future" version being submitted as Active.

Submitting a Document for Future Activation

1. Follow your KB Group's document workflow in updating the content of a document. When you are ready to Publish, scroll down to the Activation field and set the date in the future.

2. If you have Publish rights, set the status to Active. If you do not have Publish rights, a Future Activation date can be set, however, the Request Activation flag should be set, and your group admin(s) will need to activate it on your behalf prior to the activation date in order for Future Activation to work as expected.

The final document should look similar to the below example, where the Activation date and time is in the future (in the example, January 17th, 2024 at 5pm) and the status is set to Active.

Viewing a Document with Future Activation in the KB Admin Tools

In the KB Admin Tools, navigate to the document you would like to review. If the document was saved with Future Activation, you will see a Future vs. Current button appear in the row of action buttons above and below the document. Clicking this button will open a pop-up that allows you to compare the future and current active versions of the document side-by-side.

By default, the document review screen will show you the current active version of the document. However, if you edit the document, the edit screen will display the contents of the "future" active version.

If you need to make additional changes, be sure to re-submit your document as Active (with the "Activation" timestamp still set to the appropriate future date and time) to ensure that your changes go live as intended.