User Guide - Steps to Follow when Activating the Content Block Publishing Feature
What is Content Block publishing and versioning
Publishing a Content Block — Makes your changes available for use in messages.
Saving a Content Block — Saves the changes in the Content Block but does not apply these changes to the messages in which they are used.
Versioning — Each time you publish a Content Block, the system creates a new version.
When you embed a Content Block in a message, you can choose to:
- Use a specific version — the message stays on that version
- Always use the latest version — the message updates automatically when a new version is published
This gives you control over when and how updates apply to your messages.
How publishing affects messages
When you publish a Content Block:
- All messages configured to use the latest version automatically use the newly published version.
- Messages configured to use a specific older version are not affected and continue using the selected version.
This approach helps you manage updates without disrupting existing content.
Content Block publishing permissions
When this feature is activated, users who can edit Content Blocks also receive rights to publish Content Blocks.
One-time steps after activating the Content Blocks publishing feature
When we activate the Content Block Publishing feature for your environment, we apply a one-time update to all existing Content Blocks created before the feature was enabled. With this automated API-based update, all existing Content Blocks will be published.
Important: We only publish Content Blocks that don't have any validation errors.
What you need to do still - one time per message:
1. Once the feature is activated and all Content Blocks have been published, go to the message in which one or more Content Blocks have been used before the feature activation.
2. Republish the message. This ensures that the message will use the most recently published version of the Content Block going forward — or a specific version, if the Content Block in the message is configured to use a fixed version.
3. Double-check that the applied styling in your message is as desired. The first-time publish after activation of this feature may show some slight styling differences. Make changes where required, then save and publish the message again. From that moment on, all styling will work in a consistent way.
IMPORTANT: Once publishing for Content Blocks is activated, keep the following behavior in mind:
For emails that use Content Blocks with variables created before the Publishing feature was activated, changes made to a variable in the Content Block do not update the value used in the email after the Content Block is published. To use a different value, assign the variable directly in the email.
If the variable did not yet exist in the Content Block and is added later, the email will always use the most recent default value for the Content Block.
Example:
1. Content Block 'Legal disclaimer' has one variable Var1 = Local.
2. You have an email with that Content Block. Indicate to use the latest version and publish. The email will use Local as value for Var1.
3. Update and Publish the Content Block in the following way:
- Var1: Global
- Var2: Limited
The email will still use Local for Var1 because it was already used before. It will use Limited for Var 2.
4. Update the Content Block again in the following way:
- Var1: Global
- Var2: Corporate
The email will still use Local for Var1 but use Corporate for Var2.
Tip: If you want an email to keep its own value, override the variable inside that email. Overridden values aren’t changed by Content Block updates.
After completing these steps, no further action is required for that message. From that point forward, any published updates to a Content Block will automatically apply to all messages using that Content Block, based on the versioning option you selected.
