Why do private answers have their status changed to 'public' automatically?

Environment:

Answers having a private status type with a Publish On date value
Oracle B2C Service, All versions

Resolution:

If an answer is set to a private status type, but the Publish On field is not cleared, the answer will be automatically set to "public" once the Publish On date is reached or exceeded. Once the answer is automatically published, the Publish On date is cleared. 

For more information on this feature, refer to
Answer ID 1999: Automatically publishing answers on a specific date.

To help illustrate, let's say we have an answer set with the details below:

• The answer was created on 1/1/2018
• The Publish On date was set to 2/15/2018
• The answer is manually set to Public on 1/28/2018 (Publish On date remains set to 2/15/2018)
• The answer is then set to a Private status type on 7/1/2018, but the 2/15/2018 Publish On date is not manually cleared.
• RESULT: The answer will auto-publish the next time the agedatabase utility runs (7/1 or 7/2), because the 2/15/2018 Publish On date is less than or equal to the current date.  The Publish On date is then automatically cleared by the agedatabase utility.  The agedatabase utility generally runs nightly around midnight.

For this reason, you will want to ensure the Publish On field is visible within each agent's workspace who edits answers so agents can clear the field when needed.

You can create a report that lists all answers published by the agedatabase utility.  The report's configuration would be similar to the following:

- Filter:  transactions.source_hierarchy >> "in list" >> select Utilities > Agedatabase - Answer Publish

- Output fields: fields of your choice, for example:
Answers > Answer ID
Transactions > Date Created (this will give you the date/time the answer was published).

Information regarding creating custom reports can be found in Answer ID 2509: Creating a basic custom report.