Creating drafts

When the drafts feature is enabled, any new surveys are created as a draft and you can immediately make changes to it. If a survey has already been published, it cannot be directly modified and you choose whether to create a draft or not. You can edit this draft as usual and it can then be published instead of the current live survey. This applies to any changes to the published survey such as editing the survey components, modifying targeting rules, changing translations, and so on.

When you try to make changes to the published version you can:

• View the current configuration without making any changes.
• Create a new draft of the published survey. The content of this draft is initially identical to that of the published survey.
• When there is already a published version of the survey and an active draft you can choose to not keep the current draft and instead edit a new draft by selecting Discard from the form's context menu. You have to confirm the action, to protect against accidental data loss.

Publishing a Draft

Publishing a draft makes the survey available to the website where Digital is deployed. The publish action has been moved to the context menu. If the survey has not been published before, this is one step operation. If there is already a published version, the following dialog is shown:

• Text: "Publishing this draft will discard the currently published survey version, are you sure?"
• Buttons: "Yes", "No".
  • Yes- Discard the previous version and publish the draft
  • No - Close the modal and do nothing

When publishing a draft, its status is updated to published and is reflected in the surveys list. Once a survey is published, it is not possible to directly make any changes to the survey.

If the approver role has been enabled you can download a spreadsheet that shows the differences between the draft and published versions. This capability is available only when there is a draft and a published version of the survey. To download the comparison spreadsheet click Export from the survey's context menu.

Updated Survey list

With survey drafts enabled, additional information is available in the list view. The updated list survey view shows:

• Modified shows the date of the last modification to the survey. This includes the date of the latest save of a draft.
• Status can be one of Published or Draft. If the survey is published and has a draft version, a red indicator is displayed next to the Status. Similarly, the hover tooltip shows This form has a draft.
• If there is a published and draft version of the survey with different trigger types, the survey list displays the trigger type of the published version.

Context menu changes

The draft surveys feature changes the survey context menu, and some of the changes depend on factors such as whether the survey is a draft or published survey, your user's role, and so on. When you click on the three dot button, the following differences are available:

• Discard Draft is shown when the survey you opened the context menu on has a draft. This permanently deletes the draft version only.
• Remove is shown when the survey has both a draft and published version. This permanently deletes both the published and draft versions.
• Preview opens the preview modal. If the survey has a published version, the default view is the published version.
• Lock or Unlock are only available when there is a draft of a survey.
• Duplicate when there is an active draft and a published version you chose which version to duplicate. The duplicated survey is a draft regardless of whether you duplicate the published version or a draft.
• Unpublish is only displayed when the survey has a published version. Once you unpublish survey, it automatically becomes a draft. If there is also a draft version of the survey you are trying to unpublish, choose whether to keep the draft or the published version.

Additionally, if the approver capability is enabled then the user's role changes whether the Publish and Unpublish option are available. See Approver role.

Comparing the draft and published version

Each survey form can have one draft and one published version, and throughout the Digital Command Center you can compare the two versions. A toggle between "Edit Draft" and "View Published" modes is available in the following:

• Survey editor
• Targeting settings
• Form settings
• Translations
• App Rating Settings modal

Generally, when you are in Edit Draft mode the Digital Command Center functions in the way it would if the draft surveys feature is not enabled. When you are in View Published mode you cannot change most settings to ensure the published version is static. Use the View Published mode to check the design of the current published version, how it is targeted and what settings are in place. Toggling back to the draft shows the differences.

Additionally, for properties where the approver capability has been enabled, you can select Export from the context menu to download a detailed spreadsheet which contains a comparison between the form elements in the published and draft version of the survey.

The comparison spreadsheet contains four separate worksheets:

• Form Builder - details of the form structure such as fields, questions, configuration, and so on.
• Form Settings - details of the form settings modal such as buttons, thank you page, and so on.
• Form Targeting - details of the form targeting settings, display options, and so on.
• Translations - shows whether there has been a change in translated forms or changes in the default languages.
  Tip: In order to compare between translations of a draft and published versions, toggle between the draft and published versions and export the translations spreadsheet for each version.

Approver role

Use the approver capability for additional control over who can publish draft surveys. When enabled for a property, the different Digital roles have the following capabilities:

• Users with the CX Manager role have almost all of the usual functionality in the Digital Command Center. They can modify the experience program in the usual manner, but they do not have the ability to publish draft surveys.
• Users with the CX Group Manager or Administrator role have the approver capability and can publish drafts.

The result is that users with the CX Group Manager role are responsible for publishing draft surveys, which they or users with the CX Manager role create and edit. This ensures a level of governance where a user with the CX Group Manager role must approve changes from users with the CX Manager role.

When the approver role is enabled, you can download a spreadsheet to compare the differences between the draft and published versions of a survey. Use this spreadsheet to get a full insight into what has changed in a draft version before publishing. Other administration teams can use the spreadsheet to create an audit trail for experience program updates to achieve regulatory governance and compliance.

The process of assigning these roles to users follows the usual Experience Cloud process. To use this feature there should be at least one user with the CX Manager role and CX Group Manager role.

To illustrate with an example, this leads to a workflow where:

1. One or more users with the CX Manager role create or edit surveys. The survey context menu does not show the publish option because these users do not have the approver capability.
2. A user with the CX Group Manager role is notified that a survey needs to be published. The CX Group Manager reviews the draft survey, either in the editor or using the preview. When they are happy with the draft, they can publish it. CX Group Managers do see the publish option in the survey's context menu.
3. After some time, another CX Manager notices a way to improve the survey. They create a draft, make their changes and notify the CX Group Manager.
4. The CX Group Manager reviews the changes, and possibly objects to a specific change. Instead of publishing the draft they reviewed, the CX Group Manager proposes a different change by sending a modified draft to the CX Manager.
5. When the changes are agreed on, the CX Group Manager publishes the updated draft.