Every article in your Customer Portal has a status that controls whether customers can see it and whether your AI agent can use it. Understanding the three statuses helps you manage your content confidently.
Draft
A draft article is a work in progress. It is:
- Not visible to customers on your portal.
- Not used by the AI agent as a knowledge source (unless you manually enable "Include in AI").
- Accessible to your team in Customer Portal → My articles for editing.
Use draft status when you're writing a new article, making significant edits to an existing one, or waiting for review before publishing.
Published
A published article is live and visible to everyone. It is:
- Visible to customers on your portal, in search results, and in category listings.
- Used by the AI agent to answer customer questions (if "Include in AI" is enabled).
Publish an article when it's complete, accurate, and ready for customers.
Archived
An archived article is hidden from customers but kept in your portal for reference. It is:
- Not visible to customers on your portal.
- Not used by the AI agent (as long as "Include in AI" is disabled — always check this when archiving).
- Still accessible to your team for viewing or restoring.
Archive articles when the content is outdated or no longer relevant, but you want to keep a record of it rather than deleting it.
Changing an article's status
- Open the article in the editor.
- In the sidebar, find the Status dropdown.
- Select Draft, Published, or Archived.
- Save your changes.
A note on "Include in AI"
Regardless of status, the Include in AI toggle controls whether an article feeds into your AI agent's knowledge base. Always turn this off when archiving an article — otherwise the AI may continue referencing outdated content even though the article is hidden from customers.