When you're working with a team of reviewers, you have a few different options for receiving their feedback.
You can have reviewers look at your ScreenSteps content:
- In a PDF document
- As an Editor
- As an End-user
What you do depends on your ScreenSteps plan level and what kind of access you want to give to your reviewers.
In a PDF document
You can choose to export your content as a PDF document and send it to your reviewers. This is the simplest way if you don't want to give your team of reviewers access to ScreenSteps. Reviewers will leave notes on the PDF and you will need to incorporate the suggestions in ScreenSteps.
As an Editor
If you decide to give your reviewers Editor access, your reviewers can take advantage of the revision notes features, article assignments, and article status; however, if you are concerned about reviewers making edits to the actual content, then there are options for you to restrict Editor permissions (e.g. Editors can edit but not publish nor delete).
As an End-user
You can create Reader accounts for your reviewers so they can look at your content in a published ScreenSteps site. The benefit of this is that your reviewers cannot modify content, but they can leave comments at the bottom of the article (if that feature is turned on for that site). The easiest way to accomplish this is to 1) create a "Staging" site 2) share specific manuals to that site 3) add your reviewers as Readers to that site.
Instructions for doing any of those options can be found below.
How would you like your reviewers to look at your content?
Download the PDF of the manual
Click Download PDF
To the right of each manual title is a chevron.
- Click the chevron
- Click Download PDF
You can also download a PDF of a Chapter or an Article.
Pick your PDF template and Generate PDF
Do you care if your Reviewers can edit all of the manuals and articles in your production site?
Sometimes, you don't want your reviewers to see all of your manuals and articles in the site. If you want to keep editors from being able to see all of the content in a site, you will need to create a staging site for those particular Reviewers.
Do you want to restrict your editors from being able to publish changes to articles?
All changes made to ScreenSteps articles are tracked, and you can always roll back the previous version of the article.
Add Authors
Click Authors > Add Author
Add Authors
If you already have those users created as authors, you can click Add next to their name.
If the author has not yet been invited, you can click Invite new author.
Restrict Author Permissions
- Click Authors
- Uncheck all boxes to remove publishing / deleting privileges. This allows editors to make changes and save the article as a Draft.
Send Editors the URL to the Admin area
- Copy this URL and send it to your reviewers
- They can click on the title of an article to see a preview (and they can leave notes)
Send Reviewers directly to the article preview
Alternatively, you can click on the article title and open the preview.
- Send this URL to Reviewers
- They can leave notes by clicking the revision notes icon
- They can leave overall revision notes here
Add an Existing Manual
In the new site, you can reference the existing manual(s) so that any notes or changes made on an article will appear in the production site
Select the option to Add Existing Manual
- Click the chevron to the right of Manuals
- Click Add Existing Manual
Select the manual
The manual is added
Note the icon to the left of the manual's title. That blue dot indicates that it is a referenced manual and changes made to any content in this manual will also be reflected wherever else this manual appears. If you hover over the icon a tool-tip will display showing which sites that manual appears in.
Add Authors
Click Authors > Add Author
Add Authors
If you already have those users created as authors, you can click Add next to their name.
If the author has not yet been invited, you can click Invite new author.
Send Editors the URL to the Admin area
- Copy this URL and send it to your reviewers
- They can click on the title of an article to see a preview (and they can leave notes)
Send Reviewers directly to the article preview
Alternatively, you can click on the article title and open the preview.
- Send this URL to Reviewers
- They can leave notes by clicking the revision notes icon
- They can leave overall revision notes here
Create a new site
Click All Content
- Click the dropdown
- Click All Content
Create a new site
- Click All Sites
- Click Create a new site
Name your site > Create and go Site
In the example, the site is titled "Staging" and the subdomain is "company-staging." The subdomain will be a new site and a unique URL.
Do you want to restrict your editors from being able to publish changes to articles?
All changes made to ScreenSteps articles are tracked, and you can always roll back the previous version of the article.
Do you want to prevent your Reviewers from making changes to any article that is in production?
Duplicate the manual to your staging site
One approach to sharing your manual with Reviewers is to duplicate the manual to the staging site. That way, they can make changes and those changes don't impact the manual in your production site.
Duplicate the manual
Navigate to the manual you'd like Reviewers to see (the manual will probably be in your production site).
- Click the chevron to the right of the manual's title
- Click Duplicate
You will create a duplicate of this manual and it will go to your staging site that your Reviewers will have access to. Any changes made to the duplicate manual will not impact the manual in your production site.
Choose the site you want to send the duplicate to
Choose the site that you set up for your Reviewers.
Add Authors
You will add the Reviewers as Authors to the staging site.
Click Authors > Add Author
Add Authors
If you already have those users created as authors, you can click Add next to their name.
If the author has not yet been invited, you can click Invite new author.
Restrict Author Permissions
- Click Authors
- Uncheck all boxes to remove publishing / deleting privileges. This allows editors to make changes and save the article as a Draft.
Send Editors the URL to the Admin area
- Copy this URL and send it to your reviewers
- They can click on the title of an article to see a preview (and they can leave notes)
Send Reviewers directly to the article preview
Alternatively, you can click on the article title and open the preview.
- Send this URL to Reviewers
- They can leave notes by clicking the revision notes icon
- They can leave overall revision notes here
Add an Existing Manual
In the new site, you can reference the existing manual(s) so that any notes or changes made on an article will appear in the production site
Select the option to Add Existing Manual
- Click the chevron to the right of Manuals
- Click Add Existing Manual
Select the manual
The manual is added
Note the icon to the left of the manual's title. That blue dot indicates that it is a referenced manual and changes made to any content in this manual will also be reflected wherever else this manual appears. If you hover over the icon a tool-tip will display showing which sites that manual appears in.
Add Authors
Click Authors > Add Author
Add Authors
If you already have those users created as authors, you can click Add next to their name.
If the author has not yet been invited, you can click Invite new author.
Restrict Author Permissions
- Click Authors
- Uncheck all boxes to remove publishing / deleting privileges. This allows editors to make changes and save the article as a Draft.
Send Editors the URL to the Admin area
- Copy this URL and send it to your reviewers
- They can click on the title of an article to see a preview (and they can leave notes)
Send Reviewers directly to the article preview
Alternatively, you can click on the article title and open the preview.
- Send this URL to Reviewers
- They can leave notes by clicking the revision notes icon
- They can leave overall revision notes here
Add an Existing Manual
In the new site, you can reference the existing manual(s) so that any notes or changes made on an article will appear in the production site
Select the option to Add Existing Manual
- Click the chevron to the right of Manuals
- Click Add Existing Manual
Select the manual
The manual is added
Note the icon to the left of the manual's title. That blue dot indicates that it is a referenced manual and changes made to any content in this manual will also be reflected wherever else this manual appears. If you hover over the icon a tool-tip will display showing which sites that manual appears in.
Add Authors
Click Authors > Add Author
Add Authors
If you already have those users created as authors, you can click Add next to their name.
If the author has not yet been invited, you can click Invite new author.
Send Editors the URL to the Admin area
- Copy this URL and send it to your reviewers
- They can click on the title of an article to see a preview (and they can leave notes)
Send Reviewers directly to the article preview
Alternatively, you can click on the article title and open the preview.
- Send this URL to Reviewers
- They can leave notes by clicking the revision notes icon
- They can leave overall revision notes here
Do you want to restrict your Reviewers from seeing all the content in the site?
Create a new site
Click All Content
- Click the dropdown
- Click All Content
Create a new site
- Click All Sites
- Click Create a new site
Name your site > Create and go Site
In the example, the site is titled "Staging" and the subdomain is "company-staging." The subdomain will be a new site and a unique URL.
Duplicate the manual to your staging site
One approach to sharing your manual with Reviewers is to duplicate the manual to the staging site. That way, they can make changes and those changes don't impact the manual in your production site.
Duplicate the manual
Navigate to the manual you'd like Reviewers to see (the manual will probably be in your production site).
- Click the chevron to the right of the manual's title
- Click Duplicate
You will create a duplicate of this manual and it will go to your staging site that your Reviewers will have access to. Any changes made to the duplicate manual will not impact the manual in your production site.
Choose the site you want to send the duplicate to
Choose the site that you set up for your Reviewers.
Publish Articles and Enable Comments
If you're not sure how to publish articles or enable comments, click the > next to the checklist item below to see instructions.
You can publish articles one at a time, or you can publish them in bulk ––just select the option to Change Published State.
Navigate to your site settings and check Allow comments. You may also need to enable them at the article level. You can do that one at a time or change them in bulk.
If you want to make sure that comments aren't too crazy, you may want to Moderate comments.
Add Viewers to your staging site
Invite User or Add User
- If your Reviewers are not already in the system as Readers, then you will need to Invite User
- If your Reviewers are already in the system as Readers, then you will need to Add User
Share the URL to your manual
Click View in Published Site
You can go directly to a Manual, Chapter, or Article by clicking the chevron to the right of the title and clicking View in Published Site.
Share this URL
Add Viewers to your site
Invite User or Add User
- If your Reviewers are not already in the system as Readers, then you will need to Invite User
- If your Reviewers are already in the system as Readers, then you will need to Add User
Share the URL to your manual
Click View in KB
You can go directly to a Manual, Chapter, or Article by clicking the chevron to the right of the title and clicking View in KB (or View in Knowledge Base).
Share this URL
