Use cases on when the site needs publishing

1. Publishing After Latest Content or UI Changes in the Community

When admin makes changes to community content like:

Home page banners , Announcement sections , Knowledge articles , Event details or Navigation links or buttons

Why Publishing is Needed:

• In Experience Cloud (especially if using Experience Builder), changes are made in the draft (unpublished) version first.

• Publishing pushes the updated draft to live so end users (customers, partners, employees) can see the new content.

Publishing pushes the updated draft to live so end users (customers, partners, employees) can see the new content.

2. Publishing After Deployment of New Features or Components

When development team deploys new features, Lightning components, flows, or customizations using CI/CD or change sets.

Why Publishing is Needed:

• Even though the deployment brings new code or components into the org, the community site itself does not automatically reflect these changes.

3. Publishing After Salesforce Seasonal Releases (Spring, Summer, Winter)

Salesforce performs a seasonal release (e.g., Winter ‘26) introducing changes that impact:

• Standard components behavior

• Deprecated features

• Updated UI layouts

• Performance or security updates

Why Publishing is Needed:

• Some changes may not reflect in your community until you publish the site again — even if the platform is updated.

• Salesforce may introduce new features that must be manually added and published to activate.

• To ensure compatibility, performance, and access to latest features, publishing is often required post-release.