

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
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
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
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
Subscriptions are managed in My Activities in the Customer Portal of Help Center.
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.
52 Comments
I am the owner and admin of our Zendesk account. As I have created articles and topics in Community, I am automatically "following" that topic or article. When an end user made a new post to a topic I am following, I did not receive an email notification. Is this because I am the owner/admin?
I set up a dummy end user and the "follow" functionality works as expected.
HI Melody. We reported an issue that notifications were not being sent out when the topic is followed. I believe ZD is investigating this problem
@Mary thanks for the update!
@Melody, I replied to your post here as well: Not receiving emails for Topics I'm following in Community
Cheers!
I believe the issue is now fixed for our Community
Glad to hear it Mary :)
Let us know if you run into any other issues!
We're considering using Zendesk for release notes, announcements, and service bulletins like ZenDesk itself does here: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/categories/200201796. However, there is one blocking issue. Well, possible two.
One user story I envision is the posting of a service bulletin. In this use case, an article is posted as soon as a service issue is discovered, and then that service issue is updated as the issue is fixed, the cause is found, and a post-mortem is released. However, a customer who follows that article might want to know when that article is updated with new information, and according to this article, that does not happen. I'm curious why this feature isn't there. It seems like there could be several use cases where it could be valuable.
I can also see a use case where a customer might want notification only for a subset of a section's articles. For example, say you have a suite of several products. A service issue might affect only one or a subset of those products, so tags in the service bulletin (articles can have tags, right?) would facet the article for only the audience of customers affected. When following a section, it doesn't seem that users could also define only the facets in the section, facets defined by tags, that they would follow.
Or are these feature requests, quite possibly even on the product roadmap?
If I publish an article to one set of users, they get notifications, then I increase the scope of users and save, will the new set of users get notified as well? It basically notifies to all users who are entitled at the time of Publish/Save?
Hi Chris,
You are right, it notifies all users who have access at the time of publish. If you want the additional scope of users to get a notification, you'd have to unpublish and republish the article with the expanded user segment.
Thanks,
Maggie
This makes no sense for me;
" If you want the additional scope of users to get a notification, you'd have to unpublish and republish the article with the expanded user segment."
I totally agree with Chris Smith-Hill and Chuck Martin . We need to have a certain way to increase the "Visible to" scope and users of that segments needs to be notified.
Our scenario
We have a section within Guide where we post all our release notes;
https://support.workspace365.net/hc/en-us/sections/201230282-Latest-Announcements
Signed-in users can subscribe on this section. When new articles are published, they should receive email updates right?
Now it is the case that if you publish an article and you control the visibility via “Visible to” the selected group do receives the email notification. But… when you update the visible to, to e.g. everyone or signed-in users (at least an larger scope of people than already published), they do not receive updates.
Apparently the subscription emails are only sent once, when the article is published and not after changing the scope. Can you please take a look at this? Because we often need to switch the ”Visible to” and now people are missing out the notifications/emails about their subscriptions. And as well people need to get updates about changes made to these articles (at least we need to be able to email the changes).
Thanks,
Laurens
I have to agree. We have many articles that are being re-edited, such as a release notes article. When I edit and publish, ideally a notification should be sent out.
ZD provides "workarounds":
However, I would like to see something more event-driven and purposeful. eg: republish - notify, promote article - notify, etc.
Hi Laurens,
While it is not perfect, I find the solution work-able as is. If you need to expand the scope of users who will receive an email update, then you have to unpublish, update Visible to, and publish again.
When I create an article in Guide, I (as the author) are automatically following the article and receive email notifications. If after publishing the article, I go back in and change the owner (not the author) to someone else, is it expected behavior for the owner to automatically be following the article as well? Or does the new owner have to go manually and follow the article to receive notifications?
Hi Ryan, great question! I have set up a test and have confirmed that changing the owner will not automatically ensure they are a follower. The user will need to go to the article and follow it manually.
I hope this answers your question!
Dan Kondzela
Technical Support Engineer
Got a question? Ask our Zendesk Community
Thanks for the response, Dan Kondzela. I think this should be automatic and not manual, so I posted this in the Feedback on Guide. https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360044009794-Knowledge-Owner-Automatic-Subscription-Follow/
Understood! That is very valid, your feedback is appreciated. Please update this thread if you have further questions!
"You will not be notified when updates are made to the body of an article, post, or comment."
The "body" portion of this doesn't make sense in a world where help articles are being updated and subscribers need these updates to new guides and information relating to the article they followed. For what other reason would they follow an article if any updates to it don't send them a notification?
Is there a planned update for this in the future?
Hi Devin -
The "follow" feature is for comments on the article. Users would get a notification any time someone comments on the article.
Some users make a comment each time the article is updated in order to send a notification for edits.
There is an existing feedback request for this functionality, if you would like to up vote it and add your use-case. I don't see any recent updates from the product manager, so I don't believe it's currently under development.
Feature request: Follow article feature to notify users of article content updates
Brett Bowser Is there a way for us to edit the format of the emails that are sent for these updates?
Hi Robyn Casanova,
Could you clarify which email you are referring to? My apologies but with the length of the thread I want to make sure we're on the same page.
Hi Ben Van Iten.
SCENARIO: KB User subscribes to (follows) Section "FAQ" in the Knowledge Base. My organization posts a new Article to FAQ. Zendesk sends an email notification to KB User. This notification lets KB User know that a new Article is posted to FAQ.
Example: https://www.screencast.com/t/wkbyveEcG
Hi Robyn,
My apologies for the delay. I just checked with some of our team here and they confirmed that there is no way to customize that at this point. I would definitely encourage you to post about your use case in our product feedback section as that is monitored more by our product team than this section: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/topics/360000029847--Feedback-on-Guide
This allows other users to upvote your suggestion and add onto it. I'll be glad to flag our exchange as feedback on my end as well so this is reviewed internally.
Please let us know if we can assist further.
Thank you Ben Van Iten . For anyone interested, here's a posting covering the wish list item.
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