- View permissions for viewing content in the Help Center knowledge base. View permissions include both internal and external users.
- Management permissions for creating, editing, and publishing content in the Help Center knowledge base. Management permissions include internal users only.
User permissions are defined by user segments. You apply user segments to articles to define user viewing permissions. You use user segments to build management permissions, which you then apply to articles to define agent editing and publishing permissions.
Step 1: Start with the building block, user segments
User segments are the building block of user permissions. A user segment is a group of agents and/or end-users defined by a specific set of attributes. Before you build or set your user permissions, you'll want to make sure you have created the necessary users segments to define your user groupings.
There are two built-in user segments by default:
- Signed-in users includes users who are signed-in to your Help Center
- Agents and managers includes all agents and Guide admins
You can create custom user segments to further refine those groups of users as follows:
- Signed-in users, based on tags and/or organizations created in Zendesk Support
- Staff (agents and admins), based on tags and/or groups created in Zendesk Support
To create users segments, see Creating user segments.
Step 2: Build management permissions for editing and publishing
User permissions include content view permissions and management permissions. You do not need to build view permissions--you apply a user segment directly to an article to set the view permissions for that article-so you can skip this step for view permissions. You do need to build management permissions to define editing and publishing rights for agents, then apply it to an article to set agent management permissions for that article.
- Managers is active by default and gives only Guide admins edit and publish permission.
- Editors and publishers (this requires Enterprise) gives all agents and admins edit permission, but gives only Guide admins publish permission.
You can create management permissions based on user segments. On Professional, edit and publish permissions are assigned together, to a user segment of agents. On Enterprise, editing and publishing permissions are separate, so that they can be assigned to different user segments.
To create management permissions, see Creating management permissions to define agent editing and publishing rights.
Step 3: Apply user permissions to articles
- View permissions You apply a user segment to an article to set the view permissions for that article. To apply view permissions, see Setting view permissions on articles with user segments.
- Management permissions You apply management permissions to define editing and publishing rights for agents, then apply it to an article to set agent management permissions for that article. To apply management permissions, see Setting agent editing and publishing permissions on knowledge base articles.
13 Comments
Hello,
But how I can set permission for a section? I want to hide some section from all users and I want these section to be visible only by partners.
Hi Ivelin,
If you want to set permissions for all articles in a section, you can do it using bulk actions.
First create an article list, filtered by the section you want to restrict.
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/216207658
Then select all the articles in the list and bulk update the permissions.
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001912187
Hope that helps!
I have two sections, one with generally available articles, and a second with articles restricted to a certain group of users.
I create a user segment for the chosen group.
I create an article in the second section, and set it as Visible to the chosen group segment.
Does this then mean that from the main landing page the second section is not visible to users who are not part of the chosen group?
The goal is to redirect all users to a landing page, and if they are in the chosen group, they see additional information.
Hey Simon,
So if you have all articles within a Section available to only users within a chosen user segment, that section will be completely hidden fro users outside that user segment. Same goes for Categories. If all Sections within a Category are hidden due to all articles within those Sections being visible to specific users, then the Category itself will be hidden from any users outside that segment.
Let me know if the above doesn't make sense :)
Hey Stephen,
There's no option to limit visibility at the section level. This is limited to the article editing page. However, if all articles within a section are restricted to only signed-in users then that section will only be visible to signed-in users. If all articles within the section are restricted to only agents and managers then the section will also only be visible to agents and managers.
I hope the above make sense!
Why do I only have Management Permissions? How can I add View, Edit and Publish permissions?
Hi,
Management permissions is where you configure the View/Edit and Publish permission so you are in the right place. You can create additional segments of your staff members (in the User segments menu option above the Management permissions option) that you can assign to be able to edit and publish.
Being able to separate out the Edit and Publish permissions is a Guide Professional and Guide Enterprise feature - are you on one one of those editions?
Thanks,
Maggie
I'm looking to set this up to separate articles for our partners from our standard end users.
The concept makes sense as does the implementation but does this affect the answer bot at all?
So will an end user who may or may not be logged in have article suggestions shown for partners only viewing?
Same goes for the auto suggest for web form submission and articles injected into the ticket acknowledgement when a user sends in an email?
Thanks in advance..
Not to worry, I've answered my own question! The answer bot and search respects the permissions.
My mind is now racing to how I can leverage this feature!
How do light agents fit into this?
I want them to be able to view content, but not edit.
Basically we have our entire store network as light agents - want specific "store help centre" content, and so customers only see their stuff, and stores only see their stuff...
Hi Conza,
I would set up your articles so that only Guide managers can edit and publish them. Light agents cannot be set to Guide managers.
If there's certain pages that you don't want certain users to see, user segments are the way to go: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115007686307-Creating-user-segments-for-Guide-user-permissions-Guide-Professional-and-Enterprise-
Please let us know if you have any further questions or concerns!
I am trying to bulk update permissions. We have Guide Enterprise, where we are able to set editing and publishing perms separately on individual articles...but in bulk mode, that doesn't seem possible. Am I missing it?
Hi Marci Abraham - Taking a look at my own Zendesk account, it does appear that you can bulk update article permissions in Guide. Would you mind trying to select the articles you'd like to update and then click on Article Settings > Change Permissions? From there, you should see a pop-up window which allows you to select what Permission Type you'd like to update (either Managed By or Visible To). Hope that helps!
Please sign in to leave a comment.