Knowledge article states

concept australia Updated Sep 10, 2026 1 min read knowledge-article-states.md

Knowledge article versions can be in one of several states as it progresses through the creation cycle.

Note: You need to activate the Knowledge Management Advanced plugin (com.snc.knowledge_advanced) and set the glide.knowman.versioning.enabled system property to true. For more information, Activate the Knowledge Management Advanced plugin and Article versioning properties.

State	Description
Draft	The article is in the process of being created.Note: A versioned knowledge article in the Draft state can be modified only by the author or reviser with the contribute access to the knowledge base, owner of a knowledge base, users with the admin and knowledge_admin role, and ownership group members, if ownership group is added to the article.
Review	The draft version of the article is sent to reviewers to approve or reject.
Scheduled for publish	The draft version of a knowledge article is scheduled for publishing on a future date.
Published	The article is approved and published. When the state of an article changes to Published, the state of any previous published versions of that article changes to Outdated.Note: After a knowledge article with an ownership group is approved, only the owner of a knowledge base and ownership group members have contribute access to the article.
Pending retirement	The published article is selected for retirement, pending approval.
Retired	The published article is retired. Retired knowledge articles cannot be searched for by external users or customers. To reuse a retired article, create a new article with the same content, which is published once approved.
Outdated	One of the following occurs:- A more recent version of the article is published. An article reaches and moves past its valid to date. End users can read published articles as well as the outdated versions.

**Related topics**

Knowledge access controls

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---
title: Knowledge article states
description: Knowledge article versions can be in one of several states as it progresses through the creation cycle.
locale: en-US
canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/servicenow-platform/knowledge-management/knowledge-article-states.html
release: australia
product: Knowledge Management
classification: knowledge-management
topic_type: concept
last_updated: "2026-09-10"
reading_time_minutes: 1
breadcrumb: [Knowledge Management reference, Knowledge Management, Manage content capabilities, Extend ServiceNow AI Platform capabilities]
---

# Knowledge article states

Knowledge article versions can be in one of several states as it progresses through the creation cycle.

**Note:** You need to activate the Knowledge Management Advanced plugin \(com.snc.knowledge\_advanced\) and set the **glide.knowman.versioning.enabled** system property to `true`. For more information, [Activate the Knowledge Management Advanced plugin](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/servicenow-platform/knowledge-management/activate-knowledge-advanced-plugin.md) and [Article versioning properties](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/servicenow-platform/knowledge-management/r_KnowledgeProperties.md).

<table id="table_trn_kgl_yy"><thead><tr><th>

State

</th><th>

Description

</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>

Draft

</td><td>

The article is in the process of being created.**Note:** A versioned knowledge article in the **Draft** state can be modified only by the author or reviser with the contribute access to the knowledge base, owner of a knowledge base, users with the admin and knowledge\_admin role, and ownership group members, if ownership group is added to the article.

</td></tr><tr><td>

Review

</td><td>

The draft version of the article is sent to reviewers to approve or reject.

</td></tr><tr><td>

Scheduled for publish

</td><td>

The draft version of a knowledge article is scheduled for publishing on a future date.

</td></tr><tr><td>

Published

</td><td>

The article is approved and published. When the state of an article changes to **Published**, the state of any previous published versions of that article changes to **Outdated**.**Note:** After a knowledge article with an ownership group is approved, only the owner of a knowledge base and ownership group members have contribute access to the article.

</td></tr><tr><td>

Pending retirement

</td><td>

The published article is selected for retirement, pending approval.

</td></tr><tr><td>

Retired

</td><td>

The published article is retired. Retired knowledge articles cannot be searched for by external users or customers. To reuse a retired article, create a new article with the same content, which is published once approved.

</td></tr><tr><td>

Outdated

</td><td>

One of the following occurs:-   A more recent version of the article is published.
-   An article reaches and moves past its valid to date.

End users can read published articles as well as the outdated versions.

</td></tr></tbody>
</table>**Related topics**  


[Knowledge access controls](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/servicenow-platform/knowledge-management/user-access-knowledge.md)