Knowledge Base Articles in the User Portal

In this guide we will cover:

• Enabling the Knowledge Base Area
• Showing User Article Views
• Set if Users need to Login to Access Articles
• Showing/Hiding Article Details
• Pin the FAQ list to the page 
• Allow Users to leave feedback on Articles

Enabling the Knowledge Base Area#

First, the knowledge base area will need to be added to the self-service portal. Go to Configuration > Self Service Portal > Menu Buttons, and add "Knowledge Base" and/or "Knowledge Base Search".

Fig 1. Adding the knowledge base to the portal

These will then appear in the menu button list.

Fig 2. Knowledge base in the menu button list

These will then appear as either tiles or within the navigation bar, depending on if you set them to "Show on home screen" and/or "Show on navigation bar" when adding. Below is how they will appear by default on the home screen.

Fig 3. Knowledge base button on the home screen

Clicking into "Knowledge Base" will show the below view by default, with the FAQ lists on the side as well as the most upvoted articles.

Fig 4. Knowledge base screen

If clicking into "Knowledge Base Search", you will see the search screen, filtered to the "Articles" entity. 

Fig 5. Article search screen

Using Tile view for the Knowledge Base (v2.246+)#

The Knowledge Base can be displayed using FAQ List Tiles. To do this, use the Knowledge Base Menu Button "Opens the Knowledge Base browse screen in tile mode". 

Fig 6. Knowledge Base Tile Menu Button

Within the configuration for this button, you can restrict the root level FAQ list when accessing the Knowledge Base.

Fig 7. Root FAQ List for Tile view

Each one of these tiles can have a customised icon, and up to three Articles to show as a quick access, useful to present your most visited Articles. To customise each tile, you can adjust the settings per FAQ List (Configuration > Knowledge Base > FAQ Lists). 

Fig 8. FAQ List Tile settings

When clicking the Menu Button in the Portal, the User is shown your FAQ Lists and a new search bar.

Fig 9. FAQ List tiles

When clicking into an FAQ List tile, child FAQ Lists as well as Articles in the FAQ list are shown.

Fig 10. Child FAQ in Tile mode

Users will be able to navigate back to a previous area of the Knowledge Base by clicking on the Breadcrumb.

Fig 11. Knowledge Base breadcrumbs

To allow the home screen search bar to make use of the tile mode's searching functionality, head to Configuration > Self Service Portal, and enable "Use the Knowledge Base Tile Search for Article searching". This will also make clicking Top 5 Articles on the home screen take the User to the tile mode view.

Note: All HTML elements within the tile search have unique CSS classes to allow for full customisation of the tile mode view to suite your Organisations branding requirements.

Showing User Article Views#

In Configuration > Knowledge Base > Articles, you can choose to enable "Show Knowledge Base Article views in the Users activity feed". Their activity feed will then show when a user views an article on the self-service portal. This can be useful for tracking which issues each customer tends to struggle more with or have more questions about.

Fig 12. Enabling view tracking

This can be viewed in the "Overview" tab of the user's profile.

Fig 13. User viewing an article

Set if Users need to Login to Access Articles#

To set if users need to login to the portal in order to access articles, head to Configuration > Self Service Portal > Configuration > toggle "Require Users to login to access the portal" and "Require Users to Log in to Access the Knowledge Base".

Fig 14. Settings to control if users need to login to access the knowledge base

Note: "Require Users to Log in to Access the Knowledge Base" is only available when users are required to login to the portal. 

When users are not required to login to access your knowledge base, logged out users will only be able to see articles that have no visibility restrictions and are on FAQ lists that are set to "Show for all users". 

If you would like to restrict which users can access particular articles in your knowledge base checkout our dedicated guide here. 

Showing/Hiding Article Details#

In Configuration > Self Service Portal > Knowledge Base Settings, you can find options to choose which details of an article are shown. Visibility of the creation, tag and edit information is split out to enable you to truly customise what your users can see.

Fig 15. Hide/show knowledge base information

Pin the FAQ list to the page#

You can enable 'sticky' FAQ lists. When stick FAQ lists are enabled clicking on an FAQ list in the portal, or navigating directly via its URL, will load the related articles directly into the main content area and automatically highlights the corresponding FAQ list in the sidebar. It also ensures the FAQ list menu says pinned to the screen as you scroll through an article, rather than needing to scroll back to the top of the page to change the FAQ list. 

Fig 16. Knowledge base when stick FAQ lists enabled

To enable this, head to Configuration > Knowledge Base, and enable "Enable sticky FAQ navigation menu on the portal". 

Fig 17. Enable Sticky FAQ lists

Allow Users to leave Feedback on Articles#

Voting can be enabled for knowledge base articles to allow users to leave feedback on articles. This includes single click voting and prompting users to complete a form, which logs a ticket. 

For more information on this, checkout: Knowledge Base Article Feedback.