'Related Articles' links and update
We are using KCS methodology and to assure the effectiveness of the content we split it into many articles each of its own type. In articles we are using manually an entity called 'Related Articles' to provide end-users with the linked content.
As the content optimization if a permanent non-stop process, some less efficient articles may be reworked (deleted, joint with other articles etc). The imperfection of the manual approach to set links to 'Related Articles' is in the fact, that we have to check all the time whether the related articles are still there or they've been transformed in some way (title changed or article vanished).
That would be nice to have a possibility to manually link one article to others — create an entity 'Related Articles' updated automatically.
Or at least, to make possible the automatic *verification that all the internal (in knowledge base) links used in the articles exist *(are not corrupted).
Please, vote if you find it useful :-)
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Kiryl, I like the idea, but wonder whether there might be a more powerful solution to the same business problem.
For example, would it make sense to use labels to mark the articles that were similar, and for Zendesk to allow a property that shows links to all the articles with the same label(s)?
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Phil,
Whether I didn't get your idea or you didn't understand mine.
I would prefer to see articles which I linked directly to the chosen article. In other words, I want to name articles which I consider as linked (by topic or some content) to another article in KB and once they are deleted or modified, I don't have to change names or delete links producing 404 error.
So, I don't see in what way labels can be more powerful than the solution above. Please, develop.
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I guess I got your idea. Still, the labels can be in some way overlapping. So, this won't probably be very helpful in this case.
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Understood. Which would be the best solution depends on the specific needs.
We'd certainly benefit from the robust links you've described for some things.
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Hi there - I am having the same problem. I really want to manually link articles so that they can appear in the Related Article section to benefit our users but can't get it to work. The algorithm is providing articles that are totally unrelated... :(
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Hi Trine,
Our 'Related Articles' section is created manually (it's not an existing entity of Zendesk), simply by adding this title — Related Articles — at the very end of the article and listing the titles of articles with appropriate links (see example below).
As I said, this manual work is vulnerable as requires regular manual update of the related articles' titles and links. It may become a titanic task, as the knowledge base is growing and may have hundreds of articles.
Related Articles
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I'm joining to this request, we also are facing the same problem, we want to be able to have a link to other articles in the side like the "Recently viewed articles"
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+1 to this
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I am also looking for a feature from zendesk which allows:
- Ability to set ‘related FAQs’ against each FAQ.
Is it possible.??
I mean i want to set/allow one FAQ to relate other is there any way to relate each other.??
Thanks!
- Ability to set ‘related FAQs’ against each FAQ.
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+1 for this.
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I would also like to register my request here. Especially useful would be the feature to automatically update article titles in the body of a linked article. For example, suppose Article 1 contains a link to Article 2, and the link is displayed in the body as "Article 2". Later, I change the name of Article 2 to "Article Two" - the display name in Article 1's body would automatically update to reflect the change.
Here is my use case from another thread:
Zendesk Guide will be exponentially enhanced by the concept of Article Linking. By Article Linking, I mean the following:
- One Article is aware that another article has been "linked" to it. Many Articles can be linked to one Article.
- Article Edit page includes a list of articles that are linked to the article in question.
- Article Edit page includes a list of articles that this article is linked to.
Here are the use cases:
- When I update an article (or remove it), I can also update the articles it is linked to, so my linked information stays up to date.
- When I update an article that other articles link to, I can do so with the awareness that other articles contain hyperlinks to this article, and may need to be checked for content that must be updated.
Adding this type of linking will be really helpful to keep knowledge organized and up to date.
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115008452948-Guide-Article-Linking
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I agree with Zac's comment. I would like this whole process to be easier and not depend on the help center URL or later article edits. As mentioned by Peter, Confluence does this well.
My use cases are:
- The first time that I refer to a term in an article, I link it to an article in a "Glossary" section that defines the term. This lets me keep the text concise with easy links for the newbie reader who doesn't understand something.
- At the bottom of each article I have a "See also" section like Kiryl's post above. I want to decide exactly what content is linked to.
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Facing the same issue. Any update on the way?
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Hi Hassan,
I know there's lots of work being done around KCS and the KC app, but I can't speak to this functionality specifically. I'll check in woth the product team and see if we can get an update from them on things soon.
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+1
The ability to change the title/location of linked articles, etc.. but have links remain stable is important too (only achievable if linked by ID rather thank URL).
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1) I posted the same concerns as the ones posted by Zac, somewhere in another thread (not sure where), but happy to find this thread. In addition to KIryl's comment above, I'm adding my Vote to all the use cases stated by Zac.
I'm also adding another use case for that, which is:
- When Deleting an article, we will be aware that there are existing (linked) articles that will be impacted. So that will help decide whether to just keep the article and update it, or go and delete the article and review the rest of the articles linked to it.
2) Another functionality that might be very useful when linking articles, is that same concept with what you have released recently - The Knowledge Capture App in the ticketing platform. Can this function also be available in the Knowledge Base for the purpose of linking related articles?
Example:
- When the article is in Edit Mode, there can be a feature on the right side where we can search for existing articles. It will return list of top results that we can just select-and-drag-and-drop into the article's content.
- We can place/insert the article (selected from the result list) anywhere in the content, depending on where we will point the mouse (example: inserting it within a sentence, or to be outlined as "Related Articles" at the bottom of the article).
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Thank you for the detailed response, Lou.
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Cannot agree more with everyone else here!
Much like this other issue (https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/203436346-Allow-Redirect-of-Urls?page=1), when an article is archived or deleted, it's hard to determine if this deleted article was referenced in any other article anywhere else as a link.
Joining forces and combining this with redirects would help us all with managing links and ensuring broken links redirect to something else instead.
Self-service is a booming sub-industry of customer support. Help us make our self-service better, ZD!
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We also need to specifically call out related articles. The related articles algorithm is not providing helpful information to our end users. Is there an estimated timeline for this functionality?
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This feature related articles it is so important! Please make this happen and soon. If I could I would give billion votes on this.
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Jason and Sari - thanks for adding your voices to this thread. If you have details about your use-cases, those are always helpful.
There are a bunch of improvements planned for Guide in the coming months, though I'll need to defer to the Product Manager to speak to the specifics. I'll ping him and see if we can get some better insight on this particular issue.
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Hi Nicole,
Thank for your feedback and for engaging the Product Manager.
Our use case is a product information KB article page.
We would like the Related Articles section contain links to related webinars, release notes and events, but are not able to call out the specific content we want to highlight.
Is there anyway to "help" the related articles appear on the product info page through tags or votes... or something else?
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Just chiming in to agree with others.
We have a pretty complicated product line (we sell curriculum, so there are questions about placement, materials, how to use, how the pieces fit together, the concepts taught) and it's really important that people be able to find related information easily -- the right related information.
We will also be adding links to related articles manually until we can make sure that the articles Zendesk is recommending include the most important ones. I would love to see this feature.
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Checking in to see if there has been any progress made on adding this as a feature to the Help Center. We are finding that the related articles shown oftentimes don't match to the article currently being looked at. Plus we really need an easy way to provide our users with references to related articles. For instance, we release something new and post it in the release notes. The detailed user instructions are included in the Quick Reference Guide. We'd like to be able to show this as a reference within the Release Notes. Thanks.
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Another customer asking for this feature. The way it works now is "recently visited" not "related."
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