Can we allow certain users to be able to view Draft news pages

Steel Contributor

we have a classic online team site, and users are using the modern pages. now when users create a new modern page, they have the option to save it as draft, as follow:-

 

save as draft.png

where the draft page can only be viewed by the author. but my question is if i can allow certain users to be able to view draft news modern pages created by other users, so they can review these draft pages and publish them accordingly if they want?

 

second question, now when i access the "site pages" library versioning settings, i can see that the versioning is set to have major version only, as follow:-

major.png

so from where the modern pages got the ability to be saved as draft?

13 Replies
Yes, you have to play with the default permissions levels in SharePoint and/or create a custom one...but basically if you enable the approval flow and content approval you will have this. This feature has been part of SharePoint since SharePoint 2007

@Juan Carlos González Martín wrote:
Yes, you have to play with the default permissions levels in SharePoint and/or create a custom one...but basically if you enable the approval flow and content approval you will have this. This feature has been part of SharePoint since SharePoint 2007

@Juan Carlos González Martín

i do not think it is a permission issue, as when a contributor user create a new modern page and save it as draft. then even using the site admin username , i was not able to view this draft page. also i add a user to the Approvers group and this user was able to view the draft. even when i enable the "require content approval" for the "site pages" library, this did not have any effect. and still the Approvers users + the site admin user name can not view draft/pending pages...

The way the pages work if you edit them using the default UI and hit edit, you should see the last person that saved in draft forms version if you have full control on that site pages library and be able to discard or publish that page from that draft. Unless that site admin is a site collection admin need to verify the permissions are set at that page library level.

@Chris Webb wrote:
The way the pages work if you edit them using the default UI and hit edit, you should see the last person that saved in draft forms version if you have full control on that site pages library and be able to discard or publish that page from that draft. Unless that site admin is a site collection admin need to verify the permissions are set at that page library level.

there is nothing unique on the page permission and if i check the page permsion using the author, i can see that it is shared with all the user as per the "site pages" library. but no one (even site collection admin) can not view draft pages created by other users.. i tested this on multiple tenants and i got the same behavioure, and even when i manually type the draft page url and i am login using the site admin, i will get page can not be found.. did you test this at your end? again i am using classic team site which have publishing features enabled.

Oh, drafts that haven't even been checked in yet? Thought you meant draft edits of pages.

@Chris Webb wrote:
Oh, drafts that haven't even been checked in yet? Thought you meant draft edits of pages.

yes correct. as mentioned on my original question. contributor user create a new page >> click on "Save as draft" >> then this page can not be viewed by any other user (even can not be viewed by the site admin). here is the button i am talking about:=

save as draft.png

 

now i have noted when a user save a  page as draft, then it will be internally checked-out to this user, but if the user click on "discard checkout", the user will get an error. and if the user check-in the page, then mainly it will be published .. but my question is how i can allow certain users to be able to view draft pages created by other users...

You being on a classic site could be throwing things off. I've never had this issue on a communication site and do what you're trying to do all the time. If I get some time I'll try to reproduce it in a classic page.

@Chris Webb wrote:
You being on a classic site could be throwing things off. I've never had this issue on a communication site and do what you're trying to do all the time. If I get some time I'll try to reproduce it in a classic page.

@Chris Webb

thanks for your reply. I want to make sure i have described the issue correctly. now i am not working on classic pages. i am working on classic team site but i am using modern pages and modern UI. and the problem i am having is within modern pages.. as you can see the "Save as draft" will only be shown in modern pages

save as draft.png

Regards

When I said classic, that's what I meant an old school template SharePoint site, I knew you were in ModernUI on the pages.

Yeah you're using modern pages but there could be some things different to the library from the current templates that come in with new sites and the way that works, especially with Publishing on and all that like you said.
Has anyone found a way to visualize News drafts? not even I being the author can do it
I'm surprised you can't do this either. Just hit a similar problem. I'm working up a new draft of an existing page that I want somebody else to see before I publish it. Doesn't appear to be possible. When the other user opens the page, they see the old page and a message saying that I'm editing it: https://i.imgur.com/fQEUI6k.png

It would be neat if there was an option here to "View draft" for certain nominated people? Guess one for uservoice.

I'm going to either have to copy the page to a new page and publish it (and run the risk of a normal user finding it via search) or print as PDF and share that, asking for mark-up changes.

The user I'm about to share with might say "Can we put this in Word" and I'm *trying* to discourage the writing of help articles in Word documents which nobody can ever find! :)

@rob_nicholson_helios considering the claims Msft makes about compliance and governance it's shocking that this obvious requirement has been missed. Even if you explicitly share a draft item with a user, they can't access it until it's published. The only option is to allow your reviewers to edit a post or publish a post before it's been reviewed, both of which go against all accepted publishing industry standards,. 

Hi @john john 

this is a really old post but I was facing the same issue last week. Owner A created a draft and Owner B was not able to see / edit it.

Your second screenshot gave me the final hint: You have to change the version settings of the library to the most extensive setting "Create major and minor (draft) versions". After changing this setting Owner B is able to see the draft of Owner A. 

Not sure if this is still important to you but maybe there will be someone in the future facing the same issue :)