Create and Share Publishing Channels

Publishing channels can be applied to a repository and then applied to all the assets managed in the repository. And when a site is created, a publishing channel is automatically created using the site name as the channel name.

A publishing channel determines the release rules that are applied to an item in a repository. A channel can be public and available to everyone, or secure and limited. A repository can use multiple channels. You can select specific channels to use with specific assets in the repository, letting you decide the policies to be applied in individual cases.

You can’t delete a channel if it has published assets. You also can’t delete a channel that’s associated with a site. You have to delete the site in order to delete the channel.

Create Publishing Channels

To create a channel:

1. Sign in as a repository administrator in your browser and click Assets under Administration in the left navigation menu.

2. Choose Publishing Channels from the drop-down list and then click Create.

3. Enter a name for the channel. Don’t use special characters in the name.

4. Enter an optional description. It’s useful to describe how the channel can be used so others will understand it quickly and easily.

5. Decide if the channel will be public or secure. A public channel is one that can be used by anyone in your organization. A secure channel is limited to people with a specific role.

6. Decide what the publishing policy will be. You can elect to have items published without approval, or restrict publishing to only those items that have been through an approval process.

7. Choose the localization policy to use for the channel.

8. Click Save when done.

After the channel is created, a channel ID and a channel token are assigned to the channel. These IDs can be used when creating customized interfaces. To see the IDs, select the channel and choose Edit from the menu bar or the right-click menu.

Share Channels

Sharing a channel is like sharing any file or folder. Just select the channel, click Members, and choose members and choose the role they can have. You can share with individuals or with groups.

If you assign someone a Manager role, make sure that person also has a site administrator role. That will allow the user to fully manage the repository, including adding other users, publish the site, manage the channels, and doing other administrative tasks.

When you create a site, a publishing channel is automatically created with the site name as its name. You can’t edit any of the details of the channel except its description and you can’t directly share the channel with others. You’ll need to share it by sharing the site.

Users without an administrative role will be able to target assets to a channel without the channel being shared with them. But you must share a channel to a person with a minimum of a contributor role in order for that person to publish or unpublish assets. Even if the person has a manager role in the repository, they must also have a role for the channel in order to use it for publishing.