How to save and publish articles in Zendesk Guide

Managing a knowledge base means constantly creating, updating, and refining content. But before your help center articles go live for customers to see, they need to go through a draft and publish workflow. If you're using Zendesk Guide, understanding how to properly save drafts and publish articles is essential for maintaining quality control.

The process sounds straightforward, and it mostly is. But there's a catch. Zendesk restricts some draft functionality to Enterprise plans only, which can create headaches for teams on lower tiers who need to prepare content updates in advance. This guide walks you through the complete workflow, explains the plan limitations, and shows you how to work around them.

What you'll need

Before you start creating articles in Zendesk Guide, make sure you have the following in place:

• A Zendesk account with Guide enabled Guide is Zendesk's knowledge base product, available as an add-on or included in certain plans
• Appropriate permissions You need to be a Knowledge admin or an agent with management permissions to create and publish articles
• At least one section created Articles must belong to a section, so you'll need your knowledge base structure set up first
• Understanding of your plan level The draft features available to you depend on whether you're on Team, Growth, Professional, or Enterprise

If you're unsure about your permissions, check with your Zendesk administrator. They can grant you the necessary access or create articles on your behalf.

Step 1: Create a new article

To start building your knowledge base content, navigate to Guide Admin from your Zendesk dashboard. Click the Add button in the top menu, then select Article.

You'll see the article editor interface, which works similarly to most word processors. The main content area is where you'll write your article, and the toolbar provides formatting options including headers, lists, links, images, and tables.

Before you start writing, select the section where this article will live. Every article must belong to a section, which is nested inside a category. This structure helps customers navigate your help center and find what they need.

Key things to know:

• You can create a maximum of 40,000 total articles across your knowledge base
• This limit includes all articles except archived ones
• The new article editor supports both WYSIWYG editing and HTML source editing
• You can format text using Markdown if you prefer

Step 2: Configure article settings

Before saving your article, you need to configure several settings in the right-hand panel. These determine who can edit the article, who can see it once published, and where it appears in your help center.

Management permissions control who can edit and publish this specific article:

• Administrators Only Knowledge admins can edit and publish (default for new articles)
• Agents and admins All agents and admins can edit and publish
• Editors and Publishers All agents and admins can edit, but only admins can publish (Enterprise plans only)

Visible to determines who can see the article once published:

• Everyone Visible to all end users and search engines
• Signed-in users Only visible to users logged into your Zendesk (rarely used)
• Agents and admins Internal documentation only

You can also configure labels for search optimization, enable or disable comments, and set an owner who will be notified when the article needs verification.

Step 3: Save your article as a draft

When you're ready to store your work, click the Save button. This saves your article as a draft, meaning it's stored in Zendesk but not yet visible to your customers.

Drafts are only visible to users who have the appropriate management permissions. This lets you and your team review and refine content before it goes live. You can click Preview at any time to see how the article will appear to end users.

Important distinction: On Team, Growth, and Professional plans, you can only save drafts of new articles. Once an article is published, you cannot create a draft version of updates without immediately overwriting the live content. This is a significant limitation we'll address in the next section.

Step 4: Publish your article

When your article is ready to go live, click the dropdown arrow on the Save button and select Publish. The article immediately becomes visible to everyone based on your "Visible to" settings.

On Enterprise plans, you have additional publishing options:

• Schedule publishing Set a specific date and time for the article to go live
• Schedule unpublishing Automatically remove the article after a certain date (useful for time-limited promotions)
• Team Publishing Mark articles as ready for review before publishing

If you need to update a published article, simply open it, make your changes, and save. The changes go live immediately unless you're using Team Publishing workflows.

Understanding plan limitations: Enterprise vs other plans

Here's where things get complicated. Zendesk restricts advanced draft functionality to Enterprise plans, which creates real workflow challenges for teams on lower tiers.

On Team, Growth, and Professional plans:

• You can save drafts of new articles
• Once published, you cannot draft updates without immediately changing the live content
• No scheduling options available

On Enterprise plans:

• Team Publishing allows you to create drafts of updates to published articles
• You can schedule publishing and unpublishing
• You can set up review workflows with specific reviewers

This limitation is a major pain point. Here's what one Zendesk user shared in a community discussion:

When we know an update to a product is coming that will impact an existing article, we'd like to be able to draft an update to that article and save it within Zendesk Guide before publishing that change. Currently, if we need to draft an update to an already-published article, we have to do so in Google Docs and then copy/paste the changes into Guide when the product update is released.

Zendesk Community

Workarounds for non-Enterprise users:

1. Use external drafting tools Write updates in Google Docs or Notion, then copy into Zendesk when ready
2. Create duplicate articles Draft updates as new articles, then swap them out when ready
3. Use article templates Standardize your content structure to make updates faster

For teams looking to streamline their knowledge base workflow beyond what Zendesk offers natively, eesel AI integrates with Zendesk to help manage content creation and templating.

Tips for managing drafts effectively

Whether you're on Enterprise or a lower-tier plan, these practices will help you manage your knowledge base content more efficiently:

• Use clear naming conventions Include "DRAFT" or version numbers in article titles while working
• Leverage labels Create labels like "needs-review" or "scheduled" to track article status
• Set up a review process Even without Team Publishing, designate someone to review articles before they go live
• Use templates for consistency Zendesk Guide article templates help ensure all your content follows the same structure
• Plan your content calendar Know what needs to be published when, so you're not scrambling to update articles at the last minute

If you're managing a large knowledge base, consider using eesel AI's AI Agent to help with content suggestions and maintaining consistency across your help center.

Common mistakes to avoid

Even experienced Zendesk admins sometimes trip over these workflow issues:

• Publishing with wrong visibility settings Double-check "Visible to" before hitting publish, or you might accidentally expose internal documentation
• Forgetting management permissions If you set an article to "Administrators only" and another agent needs to edit it later, they'll be locked out
• Not using preview Always preview articles before publishing to catch formatting issues
• Confusing draft status with visibility Remember that drafts are still stored in Zendesk; they're just not visible to end users

Start streamlining your knowledge base workflow with eesel AI

Understanding the Zendesk Guide draft and publish workflow helps you work within the platform's constraints. But if you're looking to go beyond those constraints, eesel AI offers tools that complement Zendesk's native functionality.

Our AI-powered knowledge base tools help you create consistent, high-quality content faster. From article templates that standardize your formatting to AI suggestions that help you fill knowledge gaps, eesel AI works alongside Zendesk to make your knowledge base management more efficient.

Ready to see how it works? Explore our Zendesk integration and discover how eesel AI can help you build a better help center.