Verification is an article setting that lets you indicate whether an article is accurate and current, or whether it needs review and possible revision. Verifying articles is an important part of keeping your knowledge base healthy and up to date.
This article describes article verification strategies and the resulting experience for agents and admins, and provides answers to frequently asked questions about article verification.
How article verification works
When you create an article, it is neither verified nor unverified. Articles in this state appear with a hyphen (-) symbol in the Unverified and Verified at columns of the All articles page in Guide admin. If an article is neither verified nor unverified, there is no way to determine when it was last reviewed or whether it is current.
To begin article verification, Guide admins can choose one of the following strategies:
- Manually unverify articles, prompting a review and verification by article owners.
- Automatically unverify articles by configuring article verification rules based on predefined filter and interval criteria.
Performing a one-time verification using bulk actions
You can use article verification to initiate a one-time review of your knowledge base content. For example, you might be moving to a new brand name, in which case you would want to review and revise your articles to reflect the new brand.
To perform a one-time review, you can select the articles you want to unverify from the articles list, then use the bulk actions menu to set those articles to “unverified.” If there are any articles that you know are already current, you can use this same process to set those articles to “verified.”Performing ongoing verification using rules
Guide admins can create article verification rules to send reminders when articles need to be reviewed and verified, based on defined criteria and frequency. This helps ensure that your content doesn’t become inaccurate or out of date. For example, every three months you might want to review articles that have a specific label, appear in a certain category, or haven’t been updated in a while. You can create up to 20 verification rules.
You can use the Article verification page in Guide admin to create article verification rules. When you add a new rule, you select the
- Frequency at which you want to verify articles (for example 2 weeks, 6 months, or 1 year).
- Filters that you want to apply when selecting articles for verification (for example, only articles within a specific brand or hierarchy).
When you save an article verification rule, the rule runs weekly, setting to unverified any articles that meet the defined filter criteria and were not verified within the frequency set by the rule. For example, if the frequency is set to verify articles every six months, the rule will look for articles that meet the filter criteria and have not been verified during the prior six-month period.
About article verification emails
On Mondays and Wednesdays at 00:00 UTC, Zendesk sends article verification reminder emails to article owners who have unverified articles on the Needs verification list. If the system cannot find a valid email for an article owner, it will not send the email, even if there are unverified articles still assigned to that owner. If the owner has left the company, you should change the owner to a valid agent.
This email lists all articles owned by the recipient that require verification and asks them to verify those articles. If you have a help center with more than one brand, this email contains all unverified articles that you own across all brands in your account.
Article owners can click an article link to go to the article settings for that article, where they can verify the article. Once the article is verified, it will no longer be listed in the next article verification email.
Article verification emails are sent until the article owner no longer owns articles that require verification. Even if the rule that generated the unverified article status no longer exists, the article remains in the unverified status and consequently appears on bi-weekly article verification emails until the article owner verifies it.
Verifying articles for agents and admins
The process for verifying articles is different for Guide admins and agents. If you are a Guide admin, you can verify articles, either individually or in bulk, from the Needs verification list.
If you are an agent, you must verify articles that you have permission to publish from within article settings. For more information, see Verifying articles that need review.Article verification FAQs
Refer to the following frequently asked questions to understand how article verification works in various use cases.
What happens if the owner of an unverified article leaves the company?
If the article owner leaves the company and their email address is no longer valid, the article remains on the Needs verification list, but the reminder email will no longer be sent. To resolve this issue, you can change the owner of the article to a valid agent.
What happens to unverified articles when article verification rules are changed or deleted?
When article verification rules are changed or deleted, any articles that were previously unverified will remain so unless they are manually verified. This means that article owners will continue to receive reminder emails until they verify the article, even if the rule no longer applies.
What happens when I update the filters for an article verification rule?
Changing the article verification rule filter to include additional or fewer articles does not affect any articles currently in an unverified state. Unverified articles remain unverified until they are manually verified by article owners, agents with permission to publish, or Guide admins.
The next time the rule runs (rules run weekly), it will use the new filter to include or exclude articles for verification. All articles that meet the new criteria will be assessed against the verification frequency set by the rule, and if they require review, will be unverified at the appropriate time and added to the Needs verification list.
Do I have to use an article verification rule?
You do not need to use article verification rules to implement an article verification strategy. See Performing a one-time verification using bulk actions earlier in this article.
How do I stop receiving article verification emails?
If you are receiving article verification reminder emails, that means that one or more articles that you own require review and verification. One way to stop receiving these emails is to click the article link within the email and verify the article. If you no longer own these articles, you can also change the owner of the article to redirect the emails to the current owner.
If an article is translated, does every translation need to be verified?
No, article verifications apply only to the default article language. For example, if an unverified article with a default language of English is also translated into German and French translations, you can verify only the English version.
You can establish a process by which you manually track translations for each article, and then only verify the article once you ensure that all translations are current as well. However, this is a manual process and is not managed by the article verification process.
16 comments
Liz J. Brown
Hi there!
I have a question about first-time rule setting for verification - we have roughly 1632 articles we want to apply this rule to. If we were to apply this rule tomorrow, would there be an initial blast to the whole team asking them to verify ALL of the articles they've written (so that the system can 'set to 0' in a way, and knows when to ping folks when the next verification check is required)?
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Elizabeth Williams
Hi Liz J. Brown - If you were to apply the rule tomorrow, then the next time the rule runs (it runs weekly) the rule would look at the articles and set to "unverified" any articles that meet your defined filter criteria and were not verified within the frequency set by your rule. For example, if the frequency is set to verify articles every six months, the rule will look for articles that meet the filter criteria and have not been verified during the prior six-month period.
If you want to set all articles to unverified you can use the manual article verification process to prompt a one-time review. To do this, you can select the articles you want to unverify from the articles list, then use the bulk actions menu to set those articles to “unverified.” For more information about how to implement either an article verification rule or a manual verification, see Setting reminders to review and verify articles.
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Alana Martin
I would like more information regarding what happens to an unverified article over time. Our system has automatically unpublished them. Where are the rules around this? What is the time frame, and can we manage these settings?
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Katarzyna Karpinska
Hi Alana Martin,
The unverified article stays unverified there is no automation connected to it that unpublishes articles. If you've observed that in your set up I suggest contacting our support who might be able to help with finding out what happened.
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CS1 Resep 4D
Please someone help me !!! why my seconds agent cannot sign in, when sign in have a message appear like this Cannot sign in suspended user #1514085922341
i chat live support but no one online, only a bot answere me
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Brett Bowser
Thanks for bringing this to our attention! It looks like our Tier 2 team was able to help get the account unsuspended and are just waiting for you to follow up to confirm everything is working on your end.
I'd recommend replying back to that ticket so they can assist further if you have any other questions.
Cheers!
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Rebeca
I'm not quite understanding the difference between unverify/verify an article and submitting it for review. When should I be using one or the other? Thanks for the help
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JR Lausin
Regarding your question. Unverify means you need to make changes or update on an article. For example, you might be moving to a new brand name, in which case you would want to review and revise your articles to reflect the new brand.
Unverifying article can be done manually or automatically.
* Manually unverify articles, prompting a review and verification by article owners.
*Automatically unverify articles by configuring article verification rules based on predefined filter and interval criteria.
Please check this article:
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408828628634-Setting-reminders-to-review-and-verify-articles
While Verifying means you're already in the process of Verifying an article.
Articles that need verification are considered unverified until someone verifies the articles.
Once articles are unverified, they remain in the Needs verification list and are listed in About article verification emails to article owners until they are verified, regardless of whether the rule that put them there is changed or deleted.
Here's our article about verifying an article.
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408822044186
Sincerely,
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Rebeca
JR Lausin, thanks for your response and time. I understand the difference between an unverified and a verified article. My question is more about when I should unverify an article because it is outdated and when I should submit an article for review. When should I use one or the other? Hope I'm making sense.
Thanks again :)
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JR Lausin
I believe your confusion lies on unverifying an article and submit an article for review because those 2 are the same when you unverify an article you're submitting it for review and once articles are unverified, they remain in the Needs verification list and are listed in About article verification emails to article owners until they are verified.
I hope that makes sense.
Regarding the question on where you can unverify an article I believe that question needs to be answer on your end or the one who handles your articles review as they need to check on when an article is updated or needs to be updated.
Sincerely,
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Agis Kalogiannis
Can a light agent user that owns an article re-verify the article after they receive the reminder email? Or they need to be normal Agents to access the guide admin, since the verification process takes place on the admin side.
I'm asking from a license management perspective as having external SMEs (not agents) owning and reviewing articles is a common use case.
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Paolo
You have the ability to give management permissions to all agents, including light agents. This will allow them to actively participate in the article creation and management process. You can find that information here: Creating management permissions to define agent editing and publishing rights.
Best,
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Ian Morgan
Is it possible to modify the email that is sent. In my use case I have an article that needs to be updated from an external source. I have added a label for that article to require verification every 3 months. I would like to add the link to the external source in the verification email that is sent to me. Is this possible?
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Christina hernandez
Question. We have a rule in place to verify articles with a frequency of 1 year intervals with no filters applied. Any new articles I create have no verify/unverify button to select, but the 1 year rule is in place. So, at what point will my brand new articles be unverified? On the Created Date 1 year from then, or on the first Published Date 1 year from then? What's the starting point?
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Ian Hawkins
We have Light Agents in a group who we do not want to edit/verify knowledge articles (and the Light Agent role does not have Manage Guide set to do this). However, Light Agents still receive the verify request if the group they are in is set as the article owner, but if they click the link they get an access denied message. If they don't have access, surely it shouldn't send them the email?
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Elaine
Thank you for your question!
Based on our article verification process, new articles you create will start with no verification status. They will automatically become unverified one year from the Created Date. This means that after one year, if the articles haven’t been manually verified, they will shift to an unverified status in accordance with your policy of verifying articles at one-year intervals.
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