Articles

An article is a document containing essential information about your company’s products, services, and processes. The objective is to assist customers in resolving common queries by referring to the information in articles, enabling them to find solutions independently rather than relying on ticketing or speaking to agents.

Users with edit rights can create new articles and modify existing ones.

Article management

Create an article

To create a new article, do the following:

Go to Settings > Support > Knowledge Base and click on +Article. A blank article page is displayed.
Select one of the following options:
- Write a new article using the rich-text editor. Include a title and a description.
- Add a link to an existing article hosted on a website. When selected, this link should redirect to the source in a new browser tab, ensuring view access to the document link.
- Upload a file (PDF or MS Word document). Selecting a PDF should open the source in a new browser tab, while selecting a Word file should download the source, requiring the user to open it in the MS Word application.
If you are writing a new article, specify additional settings for the article:
- Part: Define the feature or capability the article addresses (Required).
- Owned by: Assign a singular point of contact responsible for the article, aiding in management and ownership (Required).
- Status: Indicate the current stage of the article (Required).
- Collection: Categorize the article under a topic/theme in your help center.
- Visible To: Decide whether the article should be visible to all customers or only verified customers.
Click Create. Once created, the article will be accessible on the customer portal under Knowledge Base > Support.

Edit article content and settings

To update the content or settings of an existing article, do the following:

Go to Settings > Support > Knowledge Base and select the article you want to edit. The article will open in an additional window on top of the knowledge base view. Select the full screen mode icon to expand the article view.
Click Edit Latest in the top right corner of the article.
Make the necessary changes and click Save or Publish.
- If you Save the article, the changes will be saved as a new draft version. Edits will not be reflected in the current published version if one exists.
- If you Publish the article, a new version will be created and published, making the changes visible to your customers.

Once saved or published, the article will be updated accordingly.

Delete articles

To delete an article from the knowledge base, click the bin icon next to the article in the main window. You can also select multiple articles to delete simultaneously.

You must have admin privileges to delete an article.

Bulk change options

In the main knowledge base view, you can select multiple articles and perform the following bulk actions:

Delete articles in bulk
Modify article settings, such as transitioning multiple articles from Draft to Published stage.

Status settings

Draft: The article isn't ready to be released to the public. You can make edits at this stage.
Published: The article has already been released to the public.
Review needed: Articles that need approval and review before publishing.
Archived: Articles that are outdated and no longer required can be removed by archiving them.

Visibility settings

Article visibility

To control who can view the articles, open the Visible to menu and select one of the options:

Customers: Allows public access without verification.

Public access requires the public portal to be enabled. If the public portal is not enabled, only verified (signed-in) customers can view the article.

Verified Customers: Limits visibility to customers signed in to the customer portal.
Customer Admins: Restricts access to a subset of verified customers in the Customer Admin group. Membership in this group is managed through Settings > Groups > Customer Admin.

If an article is for internal use only, leave the Visible to field blank.

Enable customer access for your knowledge base

To make your help center, including your knowledge base, accessible to the public, do the following:

Go to Settings > Support > Portal Settings > Help Center and enable Help Cente and Public Portal.

Once you've created an article, you have two options to share it:

Use Copy external link to share with your customers, allowing them to access the article directly.
Use Copy internal link to share with your internal organizational team members.

The ability to view the article depends on the settings for Visible to and Status that have been configured.

If you are sharing an external link with non-signed-in customers, the article should be visible to customers. If the Visible to option is set to Verified Customers, only signed-in customers will be able to view the article.
When sharing an external link with customers, the article status should be Published. If it is in Draft mode, they won’t be able to view it.

Article Formatting

When you’re creating a new article or editing an existing article, formatting options are displayed. While inputting text, type the slash command. This will open up a drop-down menu of formatting options. The drop-down menu offers typical options like font styling and alignment, as well as special elements like hyperlinks, code, quotes, callouts, tables, and video embeds. The supported video providers are YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia, and Loom.

When you select text in the editor, a formatting bar appears above the text. This bar includes a subset of formatting options from the top pane, along with the Ask AI feature, which can rephrase, lengthen, shorten, or correct the text in articles.

You can filter articles using a variety of criteria. Click the + icon to reveal additional criteria. Additionally, you can sort, group, and customize the columns displayed.

Article Analytics

Article Analytics in DevRev is a customized prebuilt dashboard designed to assess whether customers can find relevant articles to address their queries effectively.

It is under Settings > Support.

The dashboard provides insights into the effectiveness of your knowledge base for both customers and internal employees by presenting critical metrics, including:

Viewership: Total views, unique views, viewership by user type, viewership by channel
Engagement: Average time spent on an article
User feedback: Upvotes and downvotes

To view specific metrics, you can adjust the time range using the Date filter located at the top left of the section.