Content Governance: Keep Your KB Accurate and Current

Content governance is the system of policies and processes that keeps your knowledge base trustworthy over time. Writing a great article is only half the work — the other half is making sure that article stays accurate as products evolve, processes change, and teams grow. Without governance, even a well-written KB gradually becomes a liability: readers encounter outdated instructions, trust erodes, and people stop using the resource altogether. This page explains every governance mechanism in the platform and tells you exactly what you need to do to keep your content in good shape.

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What Content Governance Covers

Governance operates across four interconnected areas:

Ownership — every article has a named owner who is accountable for its accuracy
Review cadences — scheduled intervals at which owners verify that content is still correct
Stale-content workflow — how the platform detects and surfaces articles that haven't been reviewed recently
Archiving and deletion — the rules for retiring content that is no longer current or relevant

Each area is covered in detail below. For the permissions that determine who can take each action, see the Permissions and Roles section at the bottom of this page.

Content Ownership

Every article published in the KB must have a named content owner — a specific person, not a team alias or a shared account. The owner is responsible for:

Keeping the article accurate as the underlying product, process, or policy changes
Responding to flagged inaccuracies reported by other contributors or readers
Completing scheduled reviews on time and updating the "last reviewed" date
Reassigning ownership when they leave the team or change roles

Assign an owner when you first publish an article. You can update the owner field at any time from the article's Metadata panel in the editor. If an article has no owner, the platform flags it automatically and notifies the workspace Admin.

Ownership is about accountability, not exclusivity. Anyone with Contributor access or above can edit an article. The owner is simply the person who ensures the article stays current — they don't have to make every edit themselves.

Review Cadences

Different content types have different rates of change. Use the table below as your baseline for how often each content type should be reviewed. These are minimums — review more frequently if you know the underlying information changes often.

Content Type	Recommended Review Interval	Notes
Standard operating procedures (SOPs)	Every 6–12 months	Review after any major process change, regardless of schedule
How-to guides and tutorials	Every 3–6 months	Product UI changes frequently; verify screenshots and steps
Company standards and policies	Annually	Trigger an out-of-cycle review after any policy update
Reference tables and glossaries	Every 6 months	Entries become outdated as terminology and products evolve
Onboarding materials	Every 3 months	High-impact for new hires; accuracy is critical
Release notes and changelogs	No scheduled review	These are historical records — archive, don't update

When you complete a review, open the article in the editor, go to Metadata → Review, and click Mark as Reviewed. The platform records your name, the date, and the next scheduled review date automatically based on the cadence you set.

Stale Content Workflow

The platform tracks the "last reviewed" date for every published article. When an article passes its scheduled review date without being marked as reviewed, the system flags it as stale. Here is what happens at each stage:

7 days past due — the article owner receives an in-app notification and an email reminder.
30 days past due — the article is flagged in the Governance Dashboard and visible to all Managers and Admins. A "Review pending" badge appears on the article for contributors (but not for external readers).
90 days past due — the article is escalated to the workspace Admin and the owner's Manager. The article remains published but is surfaced prominently in the next content audit report.

To clear a stale flag, complete your review and click Mark as Reviewed. If the content needs updates before you can mark it as reviewed, make the edits first, then mark it. If the article is no longer accurate and needs more extensive work than you can complete immediately, mark it as Under Revision to pause the escalation clock while work is in progress.

You can see all articles currently flagged for review — across the entire workspace — in the Governance Dashboard at Admin → Governance → Review Queue. Managers can filter this view to show only articles owned by members of their team.

Archiving vs. Deleting Content

When content is no longer current, you have two options: archive it or delete it. Choosing the right option matters.

Archive an article when:

The information is outdated but historically relevant (e.g., a process that applied to a previous product version)
The article might be useful for reference, auditing, or onboarding context
You're unsure whether anyone still needs it — archive first and delete later if no one objects

Archived articles remain in the KB but are labeled Outdated and excluded from standard search results. Readers who navigate directly to the URL or find an inbound link will still see the content, along with a banner indicating the article is archived and may not reflect current information.

Delete an article only when:

The content is completely irrelevant and has no historical value
The article contains sensitive information that must be fully removed
The article is a duplicate and all inbound links have been redirected to the canonical version

Always check for inbound links before deleting an article. Deleting an article that other articles link to creates broken links across your KB, which damages reader trust and can be difficult to find and fix. In the article editor, go to Metadata → Inbound Links to see a full list of every article that links to the one you're about to delete. Update or remove those links before you proceed with deletion.

How to Conduct a Content Audit

Run a content audit whenever you want a systematic view of your KB's health — at minimum once per year for each content area you own. Follow these steps:

Filter by last-reviewed date

Open the Governance Dashboard at Admin → Governance → Review Queue. Use the date filter to surface all articles that haven't been reviewed within your target cadence. You can filter by content type, owner, and team to scope the audit to a specific area of the KB.

Check accuracy

Open each flagged article and verify that every step, screenshot, link, and factual claim is still correct. Cross-reference against the current product, policy document, or process it describes. If you find inaccuracies, note them before moving to the next article — don't try to fix everything in one pass unless the changes are minor.

Update or archive

For each article you reviewed:

If it's accurate, click Mark as Reviewed and set the next review date.
If it needs updates, make the edits, then click Mark as Reviewed.
If it's significantly outdated and requires a full rewrite, mark it Under Revision and assign a due date.
If it's no longer relevant, archive or delete it following the guidelines above.

Reassign ownership if needed

If the current owner has left the team, changed roles, or is no longer the right person to maintain the article, reassign it from Metadata → Owner. Notify the new owner directly — the platform sends an automated notification, but a personal message ensures they understand the responsibility and the review history.

Schedule your content audit as a recurring calendar event rather than doing it reactively. A quarterly two-hour block is far less painful than an annual full-day scramble. Use the Governance Dashboard's export feature to generate a CSV of your audit scope before each session.

Permissions and Roles

Access to governance actions is controlled by four roles. Admins assign roles from Settings → Team Members.

Action	Viewer	Contributor	Manager	Admin
Read published articles	✅	✅	✅	✅
Create and edit drafts	❌	✅	✅	✅
Publish articles	❌	❌	✅	✅
Mark articles as reviewed	❌	✅ (own articles)	✅	✅
Archive articles	❌	❌	✅	✅
Delete articles	❌	❌	❌	✅
Reassign ownership	❌	❌	✅ (own team)	✅
Access Governance Dashboard	❌	❌	✅	✅
Export audit reports	❌	❌	✅	✅

Viewers can read all published content but cannot create, edit, or take any governance actions. Assign this role to stakeholders who need read access but won't contribute to the KB.

Contributors can create articles and edit any published article, but their changes go into a draft state until a Manager or Admin publishes them. They can mark their own articles as reviewed.

Managers can publish, archive, and reassign ownership for articles within their team's scope. They have access to the Governance Dashboard filtered to their team.

Admins have full access to all governance actions across the entire workspace, including deletion and workspace-wide audit reports. Limit Admin access to a small number of trusted individuals — typically the KB owner and one or two backups.