This article explains the options Presspage offers to control timing and access for sensitive publications, and shares tips to reduce the risk of unwanted early access or accidental publication.
Sensitive publications often require strict control over timing and audience. This is common in Investor Relations, where financial results must be released at the exact intended moment to avoid unintended market impact. Another example is product launch or company update communication, where sharing information too early can affect strategy and stakeholder expectations.
Table of contents:
- Creating Articles
- Adding documents or other assets
- Publishing article to the wider public
- Additional tips
Creating Articles
Page Settings
When first creating a new Page make sure to check these options in the Add Page Settings:
- Restrict access. Limit access to sensitive articles and campaigns to only the team members who need it. This becomes more important as your team grows.
- 'Confidential' Articles set to 'Confidential' cannot be published as long as this setting is active.
Embargo
Go to the Publish Options and enable the Embargo option to place a security wall (username and password) in front of the article. Only those with the credentials can view the page.
Preview URL
Articles in draft mode have a preview URL containing the word "preview" followed by a long, unguessable alphanumeric string. This makes it impossible for users to guess the URL of an article that isn't ready for publication. Once you publish the article, this preview hash is automatically removed from the URL. Draft articles don't appear in Presspage RSS feeds and can't be found through Newsroom search.
SEO Options
The SEO options let you add a 'no-index' meta tag to individual articles. However, you will need to make sure to remove this tag once you publish the article. This makes it a fault-sensitive measure.
Adding documents or other assets
Presspage also provides controls for securing uploaded documents, images, and other assets before publication.
Assets URLs
When you upload documents, make sure that its URL cannot be guessed. The platform automatically takes care of this by adding a long unique alphanumeric string (UUID) to the URL of any asset uploaded to the Asset Manager. Once you upload anything to the Asset Manager within a published article or Newsroom, it becomes visible in the Media Library, unless you've disabled this option in your settings (see below).
Exclude from the Media Library
The Media Library section of your newsroom shows uploaded documents and images. Enable the option "Exclude from the Media Library" by default in the Account Advanced Settings to require that images be explicitly published to the Media Library.
Adding Assets to Articles
Add documents in the correct order when creating article pages:
- Create an article in drafts first
- Add the multimedia modules to the article: Inline Image, Image gallery, and/or Download Module.
- Only upload the multimedia assets (documents, images, video files) from your computer directly to the module.
Do not upload the media assets to the Asset Manager first and add the Multimedia module afterwards .
This principle applies to documents, images and/or video files.
Publishing article to the wider public
Before publishing a page to the wider public, disable all safety measures:
- Confidential: Wait until the expiry date has passed, or manually override the status.
- Embargo: Disable the Embargo option in Publish Options.
- SEO Options: Remove the no-index meta tag.
The preview URL of the page and its media assets automatically changes to live links once the article is published.
Sync the publication and distribution
Make sure all information gets published simultaneously. In Presspage, you can send out your article as an email campaign, ensuring they are linked together.
Display published articles from your Presspage newsroom on your main corporate website by using an RSS feed.
Additional tips
Beyond the practices above, consider these tips for your internal processes:
- The use of multi-factor authentication is mandatory. It significantly reduces the risk of accounts being compromised, keeping unauthorized users out of your account and away from information they shouldn't access.
- Users with Administrator rights should review their list of Presspage users regularly. You should remove users that left the company, or who should not have access anymore.
- Schedule a dry run using non-sensitive information so your team understands how the process works. Document your internal process and share it with the team.
- Educate colleagues on how your team uses Presspage, so no single key user is the only one who understands the full process.