
The Help Center is designed to provide end-users with a complete self-service support option. They can get information from the knowledge base or turn to the community, if available, for answers. If they can't find an answer, they can submit a request to an agent.
For information about submitting and tracking support requests, see Submitting and tracking support requests in Help Center.
Topics covered in this article:
- Anatomy of the Help Center
- Searching for content
- Sorting content in the community (Gather Professional)
- Making posts in the community (Gather Professional)
- Viewing your community contributions
- Following content in the KB and community to get notifications
- Viewing and managing your subscriptions (Guide Professional and Enterprise)
- Sharing links to specific comments
Anatomy of the Help Center
The Help Center can consist of a knowledge base and a community platform.
You can use search to find information in both the knowledge base and the community at the same time. The search results are displayed in two columns, with one column listing the knowledge base results and the other listing the community results.
You can browse the content in one or the other by clicking Knowledge base or Community. See the following sections for more information.
Getting around the knowledge base
The knowledge base consists of categories, sections, and articles. Articles are grouped in sections, and sections are grouped in categories.
To get around the knowledge base, you can use search or browse categories and sections. If available, use breadcrumbs to go home or to a parent section or category. Depending on how your Help Center is configured, you may also have links to browse recently viewed articles, related articles, or promoted articles. You can subscribe to sections or articles so that you're notified when somebody creates an article or comments on an article.
Getting around the community
The community is where you can post questions or ideas or provide answers. Community posts are associated with topics of discussion.
You can use search to get around the community or browse the community discussion topics. There are also sorting options available (see Sorting content in Community). You can subscribe to topics or posts so that you're notified when somebody creates a post or comments on a post.
Searching for content
- Find multiple words: Use double quotes (") around each word to find content that contains all those words.
For example,
"article" "title" "section" "author"
retrieves content that contains all four words, in any order. Make sure you put spaces between the search words, otherwise the search handles the text as one string.You'll get hits if there is a stemmed version of a word (e.g. articles). You won't get hits where content contains only the words title and section, for example.Note: If you use single quotes (') around a word, the single quotes are ignored. If you search for'article' 'title' 'section' 'author'
, you'll see hits for all content that contains any of the words title or article or section or author(exactly as if you had searched without the single quotes). - Find a phrase: Use double quotes (") around a phrase to find content that contains all the words in that phrase.
For example,
"article title"
retrieves all content that contains the words article and title, in that order. You'll also get hits if there is a stemmed version of the word (e.g. articles). You won't get hits where content contains only the word title, for example.Note: If you use single quotes (') around a phrase, the single quotes are ignored. - Exclude results containing certain words: Use the minus operator (-) in front of the search term to find every article or post that does not include that word or phrase.
For example,
reporting bugs -support
returns content containing the words reporting and bugs, but excludes those that contain the word support from the result set. - Combine operands for advanced search: you can combine the operands above to find a very specific set of results.
For example,
"reporting bugs" -support
returns hits for content that contains both the words reporting and bugs, but does not contain the word support.
Sorting content in the community (Gather Professional)
If the Help Center includes community, you can view content in the community by browsing topics or by showing all the posts in community, regardless of topic. Within topics you can sort posts by newest, recent activity, votes, or comments. Within a post, you can sort comments according to date or votes.
To show all posts across all topics
- On the community landing page, click the arrow beside Community, then select Show all posts.
All of the community posts appear in a list, regardless of which topic they are associated with. To show all topics again, select Show topics.
To sort community posts within a topic
- In a community topic, select one of the following options:
- Newest - (Default) Lists posts in the order they were created, starting with the most recently created
- Recent activity - Lists posts in the order of recent comments, starting with the post that most recently received a comment
- Votes - Lists posts in order by votes, starting with the post that has the most votes
- Comments - Lists posts in order by comments, starting with the post that has the most comments
To sort comments in a topic by date or votes
- In a community post, select Dates or Votes to sort the comments by the date the comments were made or by the number of votes the comments have.
Comments appear chronologically by default, with the oldest comment appearing first.
Making posts in the community (Gather Professional)
If the Help Center includes community, you can participate in the community by making a post or a comment to ask questions, provide answers, or share ideas, among other things. Before you post, it's always a good idea to run a quick search to see if the question has already been asked and answered in the community.
To make a community post
- Click New post in the top-right side of any community page.
- Enter a Title for your post.
- Enter Details, which might be anything, including a question, feature request, or tip.
- Use the toolbar for formatting options or to add links or images.
You can add an image with a maximum file size of 2MB. If you add images to a post in a restricted topic, be aware that users who follow your content will only see these images within their email notifications for a limited amount of time (seven days).
- @mentions: If you want to mention another user, type "@" followed by a minimum of the first three characters of their alias, or user name if the user does not have an alias, then select the user you want to add from the autocomplete menu.
For instance, if you want to @mention Jane Doe, type "@Jan," then select Jane Doe. The user mentioned is automatically emailed, and now follows the post.
Note: If public user profiles (Guide Professional and Enterprise) are not enabled, or if a user has not yet submitted a post or comment in the community, you can't use @mentions.
- Use the toolbar for formatting options or to add links or images.
- Select a Topic for the post from the drop-down menu, if you want to change the selected topic.
- Click Submit.
Viewing your contributions
If the Help Center includes community, you can participate in the community by making a post or a comment. You can also participate by making comments on articles, if article commenting is enabled. You can view all your own contributions in one place.
To view all your contributions
- Click your profile icon on the upper-right side of any page, and then click My activities.
- Click Contributions.
Any posts you've made show by default.
- Click Community comments or Article comments to view the comments you've made on post or articles.
- Click any link to view the contribution.
Following content in the KB and community to get notifications
You can choose to follow select sections and articles in the knowledge base and topics and posts in the community. When you create a community post or comment on an article or post, you are automatically subscribed to follow that article or post.
When you follow content, you are subscribing to it, so that you will be notified by email when new articles, posts, or comments are added. You will not be notified when updates are made to the body of an article, post, or comment.
You will receive email notification for contributions made by other users who you are following, but you will not receive notifications for your own contributions.
You can stop following content at any time.
Following content
In the knowledge base, you can follow section and individual articles. You cannot follow entire categories. In the community, you can follow topics and posts. You will not be notified when updates are made to existing articles or posts. You cannot automatically follow all new articles across Help Center. You must follow each section instead.
To follow a section or topic
- Navigate to the section or topic that you want to follow.
- Click Follow, then choose notifications for only new articles/posts or for all new articles/posts and all comments.
For articles/posts, you will receive email notifications for new articles/posts only in the section or topic. For articles/post and comments, you will receive email notifications for all new articles/posts in the section or topic and any new comments.
To follow an article or post
- Navigate to the article or post.
- Click Follow.
You will receive email notifications for any new comments on the article or post; however, you will not receive notifications when the content in the article or post is updated.
Unfollowing content
You can stop following content at any time if you no longer want to receive notifications. For sections and topics, you can also modify your subscription if you decide you only want notifications for new articles/posts and not all comments or vice versa.
- In the section or topic, click Following, then select Unfollow.
- In the article or post, click Following.
The button changes to Unfollow, indicating that you are no longer following the post.
Viewing and managing your subscriptions (Guide Professional and Enterprise)
You can view and modify all your subscriptions in one place. You must be signed in as an end-user to manage your subscriptions.
Subscriptions are managed in My Activities in the Customer Portal of Help Center. Customer Portal is available only on Guide Professional and Enterprise.
To manage your subscriptions
- Click your profile icon on the upper-right side of any page, and then click My activities.
Note: You must be signed in as an end-user to see the link.
- Click Following.
- Make any changes to your subscriptions.
Unsubscribing removes the subscription from the page.
Sharing links to specific comments
You can share a link to a comment on an article or a post to point users to the exact answer or solution.
To copy a link to a specific comment
- Click the options menu beside the comment, then select Permalink.
- Click Copy.
- Paste the link where you want to share it.
36 Comments
Hello,
I looked for the whole day, but i couldn't figure out how to allow the End-users to edit their complete profile.
They can well change their name, image, telephone and e-mail (even their password), but nothing more. Shouldn't they be able to edit the "details" or the "notes" fields ?
Beside, i created a Custom User field. Couldn't it be editable also by the end-users themselves ?
The option "Allow users to view and edit their profile data" is well checked in the parameters.
Thanks in advance for your answer.
Xavier Liégeois
Hi Xavier,
The built in functionality of the Help Center does not allow for any more fields outside of the 4 you mentioned to be edited by the end-user. This includes custom fields and the two fields you mentioned (details and notes).
If you are looking to make this available to your end-user you may be able to develop something using our API. If you take a look at our Developer Portal, https://developer.zendesk.com/, you will find Zendesk's API, Apps, and SDK documentation.
Off the top of my head, you could create a web form to display the fields you'd like to display and allow users to edit those fields. But like I said, this is not built in functionality and what you are seeing right now with regards to how the Help Center is functioning is all that is available "out-of-the-box."
If you were to begin your Community with only one topic, is there a way to default the Community page to "Show All Posts" instead of "Show topics"?
Hi,
Can an 'End-User' export a report from their account of the tickets that have raised? I think this was possible in the old version.
Thanks for your help.
Sharon
Hola, alguien sabe si puedo cambiar o bien ocultar la fecha de actualización de artículos?
Gracias
hi
please remove restriction from our country pakistan
when i calling some person today call not willing to connect but i am using this app most of time in last 3 months
Hi,
we don't have comments enabled in our help center as we don't want to create another channel for question and answers so following articles to get notified of comments made is not relevant for us.
what is relevant however is for users following an article to be notified of changes made to it but it seems that they aren't. how can I give our end-users the option to be able to do that?
thanks!
not only end users but article owners should be aware if changes are made to their article by others ...
I'm doing some Category/Section restructuring and cleanup of older articles. Is there a way to skip the notification to subscribed users when I make any changes?
Hi Ingrid, I believe the notifications are only for when new articles are created in sections users follow or when comments are added. I don’t believe there are any notifications when articles are moved around or deleted. And not sure that there are notifications when sections are moved around or deleted either. But perhaps I’m wrong.
Also I’m not sure if this is the right space to ask questions as mine hasn’t been answered since I posted it in May.
Thanks for the tip, Catherine. I'm new to Zendesk (a little over a month). I'll reach out to support.
In case anyone's interested, here's what I learned:
Asking again as Sherri did above, is this possible?
If you were to begin your Community with only one topic, is there a way to default the Community page to "Show All Posts" instead of "Show topics"?
Thanks.
How can I reactivate or reinstall the application? There seems to be some restriction to reinstall.
Just wondering if we will ever be able to follow categories and receive notifications when articles are updated?
Thanks!
+1 for email notification when articles in a section I'm following are changed.
Hi I'm an end user. I've been trying to set up section subscription (by the way, is the subscription a real-time webhook?) following the instructions at:
https://developer.zendesk.com/rest_api/docs/help_center/subscriptions#create-section-subscription
but received error : can't authenticate you. What credential am I supposed to use please? Thanks.
Hi,
If I publish an article but make it only visible to a certain set of users, but users outside of that set are following the section, do they get an email of the article?
Thanks,
Chris
Hi Chris -
No. Notifications will only go to users to whom the article is visible.
Thanks!
How do I UNDO something in the Article while creating the article without starting over, saving several times or deleting an entire numbered or bulleted list?
If I create a bulleted list and decide the last item is incorrect, I woul dlike to be able to click on UNDO to undo the last action(s). Instead, backspace deletes the entire list.
Or if another department adds articles with images, If I edit the line spacing the pic dissappears, but isnt in the file to choose from so I dont have the article to paste back in. UNDO would allow my last action to be undone.
Hello Stassa,
There is a feature in Guide that will allow you to restore previous versions of your drafted work. I've linked before to an article that goes into this process in further detail.
Viewing article revisions and restoring a previous version
Best regards!
Thank you, Devan, that helps!! I also finally found Ctrl X & Y.
Happy to help!
Hi,
Is it now possible for end users to get notified when an article is updated?
Thanks
Hey Catherine,
Users will only be notified if a comment has been posted on an article or there's a new article posted within the section they are following.
Let me know if you have any other questions!
I am not able to see a dropdown list when using @mentions. Shouldn't a list of users come up when I type the name?
Hi Mary,
Yes, a drop-down list of users displays once you type @ and begin typing their name.
See below for a screen shot of what happened when I typed @Maggie Ungerboeck:
Thanks,
Maggie
Thank you. I was testing and it didn't work. But found out the feature will be available later this month. Thank you
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