How to publish a blog post with the Contributor Role

The Contributor Role is a great way to give more people access to write posts, while still allowing an Administrator to manage which posts get published and when. This role gives a user the ability to write a post and edit it, but in order to publish, schedule or delete it they will need approval from an Administrator or Editor.  A Contributor sees only their own posts, they cannot access posts created by others.

Assigning a user with the Contributor Role

Anyone that has the “SmartPress Administrator” role in Reward Manager can add Contributors. 

Navigate to the Manage blogs page and click on the blog you want to add access to. Click on add a new blogger and search for the name of the user. 

Once you have added in the user, click on the pencil next to their name (it will set them as a Blogger automatically) and select Contributor in the drop down. 

Note: You can also choose to make everyone on a blog a Contributor by default by choosing the "Everyone, but posts need approval” option in the settings section within a specific blog.

Writing a post as a Contributor

Once a user has Contributor rights on a blog, they now have access to write a post. They will follow the same steps on creating a new post, including writing a title, the content, adding a featured image, etc. Once they have finished their post, they should click Submit for review. This will then send the post to all Admins and Editors on the blog for review. For more information, check the following article creating a new post. 

Once the post has been submitted, it can no longer be edited by the Contributor. If the Contributor would like to make more edits, they can click Cancel submission which will allow them to continue to edit the post. From there, they can either delete the post or submit again for review. 

Reviewing a post as an Administrator or Editor

When a post has been submitted for review, all Administrators and Editors on that blog will get an alert and an email that there is a post waiting for review. Whomever starts the review process first can either click on the alert or email link or navigate to the manage blogs page to view all posts awaiting review. 

During the review process, an Administrator or Editor can make any changes to the blog post as if they were the original author; they can edit the content, add segmentation, choose to make the post featured, etc. From here they can choose to publish the post or reject it. 

If choosing to reject the post, the Administrator or Editor will choose the reason (or reasons) for rejecting, along with a message to be sent to the Contributor. The Contributor can then make edits based on the feedback, and resubmit the post. 

If choosing the publish the post, the Administrator or Editor can either choose to Publish now or select more options and choose to schedule the post to publish at a specified date and time. 

Once the post has been published, it will be live for all to view, and the Contributor will get an alert that their post has been published.