Sharing content & drafts
Give people who don't have a Mass.gov CMS login temporary access to your unpublished content so that they can preview it before it goes live.
How to share unpublished content
Sometimes you need to show your unpublished content to somebody who does not have a Mass.gov CMS login, such as a subject matter expert or supervisor.
You can do this by giving your reviewer temporary access to your unpublished page, whether it be a pre-published draft, new draft of an existing page, or an unpublished page that was once public. This resource will show you how to do this.
It's important to use this tool only to share unpublished drafts that need review before publishing. Never add temporary links to any published Mass.gov pages.
Step 1: Check publish state
Make sure that the page you want to create a temporary unpublished access link for is either a pre-published draft, draft of an existing public page, or unpublished version of a page that previously was public. There's no option to send a temporary link for a published page, since the page is already public and its link is available to anyone.
Step 2: Temporary unpublished access
Find the "Temporary unpublished access" menu on the right side of your page in the CMS, and click the + sign to open the menu.
Step 3: Select life of draft
The Lifetime drop-down allows you to choose how long you want the temporary link to work. The link will always be to the latest draft of the page. This means that a link with a 2-day lifetime will continue to provide access to the latest version of that page for 2 days, no matter how many times it is edited during that period. After that, the link will expire and no longer work.
When you’ve made your choice, select the Get Link button. You can take away access by deleting an existing link.
To delete a link, open the Temporary unpublished access menu to see the links you’ve created and to access the Delete button for each of them.
Step 4: Copy link address
This link is temporary. (Sometimes it’s called a “token.”) It works a little bit like coin-operated binoculars at the top of a mountain: once activated, it allows users to see something they otherwise couldn’t for a period of time.
Select Copy.
Step 5: Test your link
Paste your link into an email (or whatever medium you’re using to send it to your reviewer) to make sure it works.
Previewing a content collection
While temporary links can be used to grant short-term access to individual pages, you might also want to preview a collection of pre-published content. An example would be a parent page like a Service linked to assorted child pages, such as Curated Lists and Information Details.
You can connect unpublished child pages within a parent page using temporary unpublished access links. But you need to be extra careful with this approach. These links won’t work after the allotted number of days they are valid. That could lead to including broken links in your draft or published page.
If you use this option, generate a temporary access link for your parent page and share it. Those you share it with will be able to review both the parent page and child pages.
One exception to this approach is the Binder. The child pages, such as Curated Lists and Information Details pages, will not display unless they’ve been published.
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