After you create or insert a content block in an article, you can edit, unlink, or remove the content block as needed. You can manage a content block from within an article or from the content blocks list, which is the central repository of content blocks that can be shared between articles.
You must be a Guide admin to manage content blocks, as you must have admin permissions to access the central repository of content blocks. Agents can manage content blocks in articles where they have permission to edit.
Viewing your content blocks list
If you are using content blocks in your articles, you can manage them from the content blocks list. You can see all of the content blocks that have been created in the account, when they were last edited, and in how many articles they are being used. From the list you can also edit or delete content blocks.
To view your content blocks list
- In Guide, click Guide admin at the top of the page, then click the Manage articles icon (
) in the sidebar.
- Under the Tasks tab in the left menu, click Content blocks.
- Click a content block to see more information about that block.
A sidebar appears, listing the articles in which the content block is used, as well as their current status. If the content block is used in one or more translated articles, the sidebar displays a list of the articles in which the content block is used and the translations that it's used in. You can click the article links to view a secondary sidebar that displays the status of the selected article and links to the translated versions of that article in which the content block appears. See Using content blocks in translated articles.
Editing a content block
You can edit a content block from any article that is using it. Any changes you make to a content block will affect all articles that use that content block. After editing articles using the content block (including changing the title of a content block), their status sets to “In progress”. This means you must publish/republish the articles to reflect the changes in your help center.
Both agents and admins can make changes to content blocks.
To edit a content block
- Open the article that contains the content block you want to edit in Edit mode.
- Hover over the content block you want to edit, click the Options menu icon (
), then click Edit.
Note: When you are editing a content block from within an article, the article remains open in the background. To return to the article without saving the content block, click the breadcrumb in the upper left corner of the window. - Make any necessary changes in the content block editor.
You can edit the name of the block or any text in the content block. If you want to reformat the content (such as adding bold or inserting a link), use the content block editor toolbar. See Help center editor toolbar reference.
- Click Update all articles.
Your updates are saved and visible in all articles that use the content block. You must republish these articles to reflect the changes.
Unlinking a content block
To include the text from a content block in an article and modify it without affecting any other articles, you must unlink the content block. Once you unlink a content block, the text from the content block is inserted into the article as regular text and can be modified without impacting any other articles.
To unlink a content block
- Open the article that contains the content block you want to unlink in edit mode.
- Hover over the content block, click the Options menu icon (
) then click Unlink.
The content block becomes regular text and is no longer a content block.
If you unlink a content block, it is represented in the source code as an alphanumeric ID and not as regular HTML. In the following example the highlighted content block will be unlinked.
After unlinking the content block, the section of text is represented in HTML as an alphanumeric ID.
Removing a content block
If you want to remove a content block from the article completely, use the remove option.
To remove a content block
- Open the article that contains the content block you want to remove in edit mode.
- Hover over the content block, click the Options menu icon (
) then click Remove.
The content block disappears from the article. The content block remains in any other articles where it is being used and is still available for reuse.
Deleting a content block
When you delete a content block it is permanent and you cannot restore it afterwards. It’s only possible to delete a content block if it's not being used in any of the articles in your Knowledge Base.
Only Admins can delete content blocks.
To delete a content block
- In Guide, click Guide admin at the top of the page, then click the Manage articles icon (
) in the sidebar.
- Under the Tasks tab in the left menu, click Content blocks.
- Hover over the content block that you want to delete, click the Options menu icon (
), then click Delete.
- If the content block is still being used in any articles, you’ll see a notification that it has to be removed from them first. Use the link to see a list of the articles.
- Click Delete content block.
23 Comments
Hi! We are super excited about this feature.
We have run into an issue though! When updated a content block, our understanding is that all articles would automatically update. While this is true, all of the articles with the content block in them are moved to "In Progress" and we must then go to every single article and publish the update.
This really seems to defeat the benefit of having a content block in articles to save time. Is there an update coming for this??
Hi Caillee,
I'm happy to hear that you are excited about the content blocks' functionality.
As you rightly observed at the moment content blocks are closely following article publishing workflow, which means that if they are updated the articles that contain them move to "In progress" state and have to be republished for the change to be visible in Help Center. Hopefully, the recent addition of a content block list allows to easily see the articles that blocks are being placed in, the bulk publishing in the article list should also make the task of republishing slightly easier.
In the future, we plan to separate content block and article publishing workflows so that the changes in the blocks won't be impacting the states the articles are in. We will start working on it as one of the first improvements after the content blocks launch.
Do you have any word on when you might add images, by chance? I've started creating part 1, part 2, etc. of content blocks with the same subject so I can insert images in between. Since there's no notes functionality, I'm having to remember which images go where.
I really look forward to a potential addition!
Hi Darcy Peters,
We'll start working on adding images to Content Blocks at the beginning of 2022!
Hi guys,
This is a great feature; however I was under the impression that once we edited the content block, it would update and publish across all Knowledge Bases. As mentioned by Cailee, all of the articles with the content block in them are moved to "In Progress" and we must then go to every single article and publish the update.
This defeats the purpose of streamlining the content. As someone who runs 25 Knowledge Bases, it would be great if we could develop a function to "update and publish" all in one go.
Can you let us know when something like this will be rolled out?
Thanks!
Hi,
Solving this problem is definitely on our minds, but unfortunately, I don't have any timelines just yet.
Are there any plans to allow us to create raw html or "source code" content, which is currently available for articles? We use some custom HTML at the top of each of our articles to add some visual flair (for different types of articles. It would be nice to edit source code for these content blocks.
Hi Jordan Dayton, We'll be working on adding the raw HTML view for Content blocks this quarter. If you are interested in our roadmap for Knowledge management it's available here.
I don't see the "tasks" option as mentioned in this article.....
As shown at the top of this article, managing content blocks requires our Suite or Guide Enterprise plans – it's likely that you're on a lower subscription plan. You can see you plan level and, if you're the account owner, make changes here: Viewing and managing plan subscriptions
Hi! I'm enjoying the Content Blocks feature—it's really encouraging me to think of new and better ways to organize related content.
That said, one thing I'd love to see improved is how the blocks appear and behave in the WYSIWYG editor and the Source Code editor. For example:
1) If my cursor is in the WYSIWYG editor above a content block, I cannot get use my "down arrow" key to move the cursor below the block (the same happens moving from below a block to above it). I can use my mouse to relocate the cursor, but that's not a great experience—especially when I'm reviewing or editing an article with several content blocks.
2) If I'm performing any extra styling or other actions in the Source Code editor, there is no indication that a content block has been added to an article. I get that this is probably injected after the source code is read, but it would be a big help to see a placeholder so I know where within the source code the content block will appear in the WSYIWYG editor.
Additionally, there are times when I've added a content block in the WSYIWYG editor, opened the Source Code editor, and found that all or some of the source code does not appear. The content block has some sort of effect on how the source code displays in the editor. (Happy to provide images/links in a support chat)
Hi Patrick Morgan,
It's great to hear that you see potential in content blocks, and thanks a lot for all the feedback you provided. All of your observations are right, there are consequences of how we've implemented rich text formatting in articles and blocks (they use different technologies, which are not necessarily compatible). One of our main focuses in 2022 is to unify this experience and make the work with blocks more seamless (eg. navigating with arrow down between blocks and non-blocks) you can track them here under every card that says something about "editor". The first improvements - new editor for content blocks and source code editor for blocks should land very soon :)
Katarzyna Karpinska Cool! Thanks for the update and REALLY cool public roadmap.
This is an excellent feature and I just started using it in our KB (where everything displays fine) but when I look at the list of content blocks in the tasks area they all say they are being used by 0 articles (and none show in the sidebar) even if that isn't the case. Is there some sort of setting or permission somewhere that might be interfering with that?
Hi Andrew Brook,
Thank you for your kind feedback. We know that the counts of the articles where the content blocks are being used atm can be confusing. We are working on making it easier to understand right now and we expect to have some changes to it in the next few weeks.
Hello
Is there any update about the lack of image support in the block feature ?
Hi Boris Fernandez,
We are actively working on this feature and expect to launch it later this year.
Hi!
Do Content Blocks have an influence on the search results?
Hello, It's mid 2022. Content blocks should not create "In Progress" drafts that need to be manually published. If you have used a single content block in the 200 article max, that is 200 articles that need to be republished. I noticed the first comment on this blog reply which said that the first thing you were going to work on was separating the workflows (that was July 2021).
Recently ZenDesk made a change to content blocks which created hundreds of article needing to be republished across multiple brands. Plus, whatever the ZenDesk enhancement had to do with, it stripped out formatting in many of the content blocks which we also had to fix manually, again creating hundreds of articles needing to be republished. This is very time consuming and defeats the idea of edit a piece of text that is automatically distributed among every place it is used. That should not require any extra effort to a published article.
ZenDesk needs to create a method of automatically republishing articles when there is an edit to a content block.
Also, there were replies to this blog that images would be allowed (how about better editing tools)?
Can you provide an update on when these features will be upgraded/fixed?
Agree with the above comment and adding a critical point - sure, it's possible to bulk publish 30 at a time (the advice I got in my ticket). However, we can't blindly do that without inadvertently publishing articles we had in progress prior to Zendesk's systemic update. My team had to manually check 466 articles one at a time to make sure we didn't publish something that is pending legal review, SME review, was halfway done, etc.
Exactly part of our problem with content blocks. We have 5 brands for a total of over 3,000 articles. This was a nightmare due to the ZenDesk change that caused so many In Progress (draft) articles. Plus having to review each content block and fix the formatting that was stripped out which also caused another large amount of In Progress articles after fixing the content block formatting.
This really is an issue.
I added a content block under a video I had embedded. The video disappeared.
As mentioned above, when I go to the HTML to manually add the video back, I cannot see the content block HTML to add the video above it.
hi, how can I bulk publish the articles that contain a content block I have just updated?
I have a content block in 34 articles
I can't see a way to mark them and bulk Publish them.
Also, I would recommend putting at the top of this article a note saying that you have to publish the articles every time there's an update in the content block. It's not clear or mentioned at all in the article. I did changes several weeks ago and realising now that the articles are not up to date.
thanks!
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