The Salesforce Knowledge article lifecycle involves distinct stages. An approval process is used to review and validate the content of an article. Upon final approval, the article is considered ready but is not yet visible to end-users. The final, necessary step to make the article available in its selected channels (e.g., Internal App, Public Knowledge Base) is to explicitly click the "Publish" button. This action changes the article's status to "Published" and makes it accessible to the intended audience.

B. Set the status to Published from the Knowledge approval page.

This is incorrect because "Publish" is a specific action on the article record, not a status you can set directly from an approval-related page. The publishing action triggers visibility.

C. Set the final approval action to 'Lock the record for editing’.

Locking the record is a common final approval action to prevent further changes, but it only controls editability. It does not make the article visible to users.

1. Salesforce Help, Article: Publish Articles and Translations

Reference: Under the "Publish a Knowledge Article" section, the documentation states, "Publishing an article makes it visible to its intended audience... When you’re ready to publish your draft article, you can publish it immediately or schedule it for a future date." This confirms that the "Publish" action is what controls visibility.

2. Salesforce Help, Article: Create an Approval Process for Articles

Reference: This document outlines the steps for setting up an approval process. It details actions like field updates and record locking upon final approval. It implicitly separates the approval from the publishing act, which is performed on the article record itself after the approval conditions are met. The approval process makes an article eligible for publishing.

3. Salesforce Help, Article: Knowledge Article States

Reference: This documentation describes the typical lifecycle states of an article, such as Draft, In Review, and Published. It clarifies that an article must be in the "Published" state to be visible. The approval process typically moves an article from "Draft" to an intermediate state (like "Approved" or back to "Draft" if rejected), but the final transition to "Published" is a separate, deliberate action.