Your platform is live and people use it. This guide explains how to keep its knowledge correct and complete from then on. It describes the steps that an article goes through, who is responsible for each step, and how often to do the work.

The other guides in this collection each cover one part in detail. You find them at the end of each step below.

The six steps

Step	What happens	Features
1. Capture	Someone writes what they know, or imports it.	Editor, templates, file import, email pipelines, MCP
2. Approve	A second person reads the content before it is published.	Approval, annotations
3. Publish	The article reaches the people who need it.	Spaces, tags, digests, alerts, urgent notifications, portals
4. Use	People and AI agents find the article and act on it.	Search, Answer, Smart Assistants, MCP
5. Maintain	The owner confirms that the article is still correct.	Verification dates, "Tasks", article requests
6. Retire	The article leaves the search results when it is no longer useful.	Archive, content transfer

These steps form a loop. The questions that people ask in step 4 show you what is missing, and each missing answer starts a new capture.

1. Capture

Contributors write articles in the editor. A template gives every article of one kind the same structure, for example every procedure or every lessons learned report.

Knowledge that already exists in files does not need to be typed again. You can turn a PDF or Markdown file into an article, import a folder in bulk or send content by email.

An AI assistant that is connected to Elium through MCP (Model Context Protocol) can also create a draft from notes or from a conversation. A contributor then reviews the draft and publishes it.

While you write, Elium warns you when similar content exists, so that the same subject is not written twice.

Guide: Capture knowledge from experts.

2. Approve

With approval, a second person reads an article before it is published. You can make approval mandatory in a space, or let contributors ask for it when they want a review. Approvers leave their remarks as annotations on the text.

Not every space needs approval. Use mandatory approval where an error has a cost, such as procedures or answers given to customers.

Guide: Decide who owns and approves what.

3. Publish

The space of an article decides who can read it. Its tags help people filter and find it.

Elium then tells people what is new: digests list the new articles of their spaces, and alerts follow a saved search.

Some articles must be read by everyone they concern, such as a safety rule that changes. Send these as an urgent notification. The message stays on screen until each recipient clicks "Mark as read", and you see who has read it.

For readers outside your organisation, a public portal (beta) shows the articles of one space to people who have no Elium account.

4. Use

People find articles with the search or ask Answer a question, which replies with its sources. Smart Assistants answer on a subject that you define. Through MCP, ChatGPT, Claude or a Copilot Studio agent can search the same articles.

All of them respect the rights of the person who asks: nobody gets an answer from an article that they cannot read.

Readers decide whether to rely on an article by looking at its owner and its verification badge. See Find and trust an answer.

Guide: Prepare your knowledge for AI.

5. Maintain

Each article has one owner. The owner sets a verification date on the article. When the date is close, the article appears in the owner's "Tasks".

Other members help too. When an article is missing, they create an article request in a space where they can publish.

Guides: Set up a review routine and Find and fill the gaps.

6. Retire

An article that is no longer useful is archived: it leaves the search results, and a space coordinator can restore it if needed.

When someone leaves the organisation, a platform administrator gives their articles to a successor with content transfer. The successor keeps the useful articles and archives the others.

Guides: Keep knowledge when someone leaves and Review your platform every quarter.

Who does what

Role	Responsibility	Where they work
Readers	Use the articles, give feedback on AI answers	Search, "Ask AI"
Contributors	Write articles, update them, ask for missing articles	Editor, drafts, article requests
Owners	Keep their own articles correct	"Tasks"
Space coordinators and administrators	Approve content, assign requests, follow their space	"Tasks", article requests, space analytics (administrators only)
Platform administrators	Set the rules and follow the whole platform	"Settings": "Content management" and "Analytics"

One person often has several of these roles. A space coordinator is usually also a contributor and the owner of some articles.

For the rights of each role, see User roles and rights.

One page for the daily work

"Tasks", in the menu on the left, lists what is waiting for you. It has four tabs:

"Expired": your articles that must be checked.
"Approval": the articles that you can approve.
"Content Transfer": the articles that someone handed over to you.
"Annotations": your articles with open annotations.

The number next to "Tasks" adds up the four tabs. If you open this page once a week and handle every item, your part of the work is done.

How often to do the work

Use this calendar as a starting point, then adapt it to the size of your platform.

When	Who	What
Every week	Owners	Open "Tasks". Check the expired articles and answer the annotations.
Every week	Space coordinators	Approve the articles waiting for approval. Assign the new article requests.
Every month	Platform administrators	Look at the expired articles of the platform, the searches without results and the AI feedback.
Every quarter	Space and platform administrators	Review the spaces and the tags. Archive what nobody reads.
When someone leaves	Platform administrators	Transfer their articles to a successor.

Before you start

Check these points with the administrators of your spaces:

Each space has a coordinator or an administrator who accepts the role. Without one, nobody in the space approves content.
Each space has its rules. Decide whether approval is mandatory, and which verification period new articles get by default.
Article requests are enabled in the spaces where members should be able to ask for content.

Next step

Start with the rules: Decide who owns and approves what.