Picture this -- you are working on a DotNetNuke site, you edit a Text/HTML module, and hit the "update" button, not knowing that you've made a mistake.  Where is the "Undo" button, you ask?  It isn't there!

What DotNetNuke needs is "versioning."  The good news it you can now have versioning of the content in your "Text/HTML" modules, and it also comes with some basic "workflow" management.  In particular, you can now separate  creating or editing content for your site from the approval process.  In other words, you can have some people creating and modifying your site's content, but they don't have permission to make that content live.  You can give editing or approval permission to others.

How do I do this, you ask?

You have several choices, and the good news is that one of them is free!

Effority's Text/HTML Workflow Module is now an Open Source project and you can download it here.  This module is almost a direct replacement for the DotNetNuke Text/HTML module.  I use it that way.  The only major feature missing is the Token Replacement feature of the DotNetNuke module.  When you edit a Text/HTML Workflow module, the previous (and other previous) version of the module's content are saved.  You can choose which version is "active."  

The Text/HTML Workflow module includes these features:

• There are three levels of access to the module: Viewer (Reader), Editor, Approval and these are controlled, as are all DotNetNuke modules by security roles.
  • Viewers  see the most recent approved version of the content
  • Editors can create new content or edit existing content.
  • Approval roles can approve or determine which version of the content is approved for viewing.

• Workflow Control Center: Manage Text Versions
• Viewers always see the latest approved version of the content
• When a Workflow Member visits the site, they will see a Notification if new content is available.
• Each submitted content is stored as separated version, and any version can be made active by someone in the approval role.

Where price is important, I'm using the Effority module quite a bit.  I'd recommend it to the point of suggesting that you use in instead of DotNetNuke's Text/HTML module.  As I noted, the only missing feature is the Token Replacement one.  I suspect that this will be added to the Effority module fairly quickly as the Token Replacement engine is now part of DotNetNuke's core functionality.

Other modules that fit the versioning/workflow module include Ventrian's News Articles module and Engage's Publish module.  I'll discuss them in some upcoming postings.