Drupal CMS: Editing roles and publishing

Learn about editing roles and publishing in Drupal.

Differences in Drupal editing roles

A new Site Owner role has been introduced on Drupal from March 2021 along with some changes to other roles. If you are a Site Owner please refer to our how-to guide for Site Owners.

There are now three editing roles in Drupal:

Site Owner
Web Content Manager (formally Senior Editor)
Contributor (formally Author)

Note: Only the titles have changed for some roles, the permissions remain the same for all roles.

The Site Owner has overall responsibility for the site. The website owner is usually the Faculty Communications Manager, departmental manager or head of department.

Web Content Managers will have some responsibilities for their site, including providing advice and cascading information to Contributors.

Drupal role	Can	But can NOT
Site Owner	administer user accounts by granting and removing editing access, create and publish content, edit all areas of the website, oversee the workflow, set up some redirects, control certain design elements, add pages to menus	set the homepage; change the layout of teasers from having the title above or below the image on landing pages - see UCL's student pages for an example of where they have the title above the image rather than below. Email Web-Support Team to set homepages and change the layout of teasers.
Web Content Manager	create and publish content, edit all areas of the website, oversee the workflow, set up some redirects, control certain design elements, add pages to menus	set the homepage; change the layout of teasers from having the title above or below the image on landing pages - see UCL's student pages for an example of where they have the title above the image rather than below. Email Web-Support Team to set homepages and change the layout of teasers.
Contributor	edit pages	set the homepage; change the layout of teasers from having the title above or below the image on landing page, edit landing pages, publish pages; add pages to menus; add a site banner

Responsibilities of Web Content Managers

Request Drupal access for departmental users
Ensure that the web content is GDPR compliant - personal data or commercially sensitive information should never be posted on any of your websites
Remind editors/contributors that they should never put anything silly on any page, even if they are planning to delete it
Ensure that your web content meets online accessibility guidelines - show editors/contributors the accessibility checklist
Keep an up-to-date list of all editors and inform Web-support Team (email) when editors leave UCL
Provide editors with the relevant tags for feedable content types such as news and events and show them how to deal with feeds
Inform editors and contributors of any important changes and news related to the website
Show departmental users access to Google Analytics for their page(s)
Organise regular meetings with editors/contributors to discuss if the website is still in line with the departmental / project strategy, if any changes required to the contents of the website, which content needs reviewing etc
Inform Web-support Team (email) of any changes to editors, including their own role
Ensure that images used on the website meet legal and brand requirements. For example, ensure that images on your site have the correct copyright - show editors where to find UCL copyright-free images on UCL Imagestore
Show editors/contributors how to resize images.
Show editors/contributors where to upload videos on MediaCentral
Share SEO and writing for the web best practice with editors and contributors

We recommend that each site should have no more than two Web Content Managers.

How to publish content

Web Content Manager: For a Web Content Manager to publish, you need to choose 'Publishing options' from the left-hand menu when in editing mode, then choose 'published' and then 'Save'.
Contributor: In order to publish, you will need to choose 'Needs review'. Their work will then be moderated by an Web Content Manager and when approved, it will be published by the Web Content Manager.

Please note: Any new content or changes to existing content that are published can take some time to show on the website. For more information about how long the different types of content updates can take please see the how-to guide on publishing content.

Help and support

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