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Help Center

This article will introduce you to Help Center and you will learn how to customize it to your needs.
R
Rashmi Kashyap
17 Apr, 2024 - Updated 5 months ago
Table of Contents

Introduction 

Do you need a website where your customers can read your announcements or articles?

Then, use Vtiger’s Help Center to do all this and more. 

 

Help Center (HC) is a customizable website that hosts all the content you publish. You can publish technical documentation or announce essential details about your company.

 

Tip: You can share the Help Center’s link on your official website and other social media platforms so that the customers know where they must go for information.

 

So how will the documentation appear on the Help Center?

Well, you must first write and publish your content from the Articles module. This is the backend where you create the articles and configure the HC.

Coming back to this article, let us learn about the appearance of the Help Center and how to customize it. 

Interested? Read on...

Feature Availability

 

Sales Enterprise

Help Desk  Starter

Help Desk Professional

One Professional 

One Enterprise

Feature Availability

Help Center

-

 

Note: Currently, we do not provide Articles and Help Center by default. If you feel the need for these modules, please reach out to our Support Team ([email protected]), and they will help you out.


Look and Feel of the Help Center

Before we jump into the technicalities of the Help Center, we would like to draw your attention to the appearance of the HC and the actions you can perform on it. Once you are familiar with the Help Center, you can easily customize it according to your interests.

By the way, you are currently reading this article on Vtiger’s Help Center called Knowledge Base. You can explore and check out the appearance and categorization of our articles.

Homepage

As soon as you land on the Help Center, you will see the homepage. The homepage is an introductory page of your Help Center. It consists of a lot of elements, all customizable. 

  • Header - The header contains four different elements. They are:
    • Name of the website - Displays the name of the HC.
    • Logo - Displays the logo.
      • Note: You can use your company’s name and logo on the HC. Skip to this section to learn more. 
    • Submit a request - Allows the readers to ask for enhancements, report a bug, or share their queries.
    • Sign In - Allows your employees and contacts to sign in with the portal credentials to the Help Center.
  • Search Bar - Allows you to search the entire documentation by entering keywords.
  • Categories - Displays the different categories of documentation along with the description below the search bar.
  • Recent articles - Displays the list of articles that were visited recently.
  • Top articles - Displays the list of highly visited articles.
  • Footer - The footer contains promotional links to your social media accounts and other websites. You can also insert your copyright messages here.

Subcategories

 Once you click on a Category on the Homepage, you will land on a detailed list of all the subcategories (defined in the Settings) and the articles under them.

Categories and subcategories are used for grouping. For example, you can have a category called Countries; States can be a subcategory. Under the States, you can have different articles named after cities.

You can search for your articles by writing the article name in the search bar present on the page’s top right side. 

Article

Once you click on an article on the Subcategories page, the article will open. 

Here is a list of things that you can see in the article:

  • Articles in this Category - Displays the other articles listed in the current category.
  • Search Bar - You can enter your queries or search for articles.
  • Title - Displays the title of the article.
  • Description - Displays a brief description of the article.
  • Author Name - Displays the name of the author.
  • Last Modified - Displays the time and date when the author last modified the article.
  • Related articles -  Displays other articles related to the current article.

Apart from just reading an article, you can also do the following: 

  • Share - You can share the article.
  • Print - You can print the article in PDF format.
  • Table of Contents - This is the list of all headings (H1s, H2s, and H3s) in the article. Clicking on these links will take you to the relevant sections in the article. 
  • Upvote or Downvote - You have the option to like or dislike an article.
  • Comment - If your readers are signed in using the portal credentials, they can provide their opinions on the article by commenting. 
  • Up arrow - When you click on the Up arrow on the bottom right corner of the page, you are taken back to the Table of Contents.
 

Did you know?

If you wish to go back to the subcategories page or the homepage from the article, you can click on the path on the page’s top-left.


 

Sending portal credentials to your readers

Your readers need portal credentials to sign in to the Help Center. Once they sign in, they can comment on your articles. With comments, the readers can express their opinions on an article or report a bug.

Using portal credentials, you can make sure that anonymous marketing comments will not spam the article.

Follow these steps to give access to the HC to your contact:

  1. Log in to your CRM account.
  2. Click the Main Menu.
  3. Go to Essentials.
  4. Select Contacts.
  5. Select and open a contact record for which the help center must be enabled.
  6. Click Deep Dive.
  7. Look for the Portal User field and enable it. 
  8. Enter a valid Support Start Date and Support End Date
    • Note: Customers will not be able to log in to the HC beyond the support end date.
  9. Click Save.

Your contacts will receive an email containing the credentials. They can use the credentials and login to the HC.

To know more about portal credentials, click here.


Customizing the Help Center

By now, you are aware that you can customize the Help Center according to your interests. In this section, we will tell you how. 

Accessing the Settings screen

To customize your HC, you must first go to the Help Center Settings in the Articles module. Read on to do the same…

Follow these steps to access the Help Center Settings:

  1. Log in to your CRM account.
  2. Click the Main Menu.
  3. Go to Help Desk.
  4. Select Articles.
  5. Click the Settings button on the top right of the screen.

The Help Center Settings page will appear.

This is where you can play around and customize your Help Center. All the changes you do here appear on the Help Center.

Here you will see three tabs:

  1. Basic
  2. Category
  3. Rebranding

In the coming sections, you will read a detailed explanation of all the fields in the tabs and possible actions.

 

Note: During configuration, if you wish to make the Help Center inaccessible, click the Disable Help Center button. Your readers will see a ‘Coming Soon’ message if they open the Help Center.

After you make all the changes, you can click the Enable Help Center button to make the Help Center accessible to the customers again.


Configuring the Basic details

The first tab contains all the basic information. If you wish to edit the fields here, click the Edit button. The table below explains all the fields present in the Basic tab.

 

Field Name

Description

Name

Displays the name of the Help Center. You can enter your company’s name here.

Default Help Center URL

Displays an auto-generated URL of the Help Center.

Custom URL

You can add a custom URL to the Help Center.

Show Social Media Sharing

If enabled, you can share the articles directly or copy the link.

Show recent articles

If enabled, a list of recent articles will be displayed on the homepage.

Show top articles

If enabled, a list of top articles will be displayed on the homepage.

Allow anonymous upvote/downvote

If enabled, all readers can like or dislike the article. If you disable it, the readers must sign in using the portal credentials to like or dislike the article.

Allow request submission

If enabled, the readers can submit a request or report a bug to you.

Hide Header and Footer If enabled, the header and footer along with its contents will not be displayed on the Help Center.
 

After you make all the edits, click the Save button to save and apply the changes.
If you wish to discard the changes, click Cancel.

Once you save the changes, go to your Help Center, refresh it (press CTRL+R), and see all the changes.
 

Note: There might be a slight delay for the changes to appear on the Help Center.


Adding Categories and Subcategories

The second tab will allow you to add categories and subcategories. This will majorly help in organizing your documentation.

Adding a Category

Firstly, you must add a category. This is the first level of segregation. For example, you can have categories like Announcements, Articles, FAQs, etc. The categories and their descriptions will appear on the homepage.

Follow these steps to add a category:

  1. Click the Add Category button.
  2. Enter the following fields:
    1. Category - Enter the name of the category.
    2. Description - Enter a description for the category.
    3. Category Image - Provide an image for the category. You can either select an image from your system or the server.
    4. Hide in Portal - Enable this checkbox if you wish to hide the category on the Help Center.
  3. Click Add.

The category will be added to the list. It will show the category name, description, and the number of subcategories under it.

To enter the subcategory page, click on the category that you created previously.

Adding a Subcategory

Secondly, you must add a subcategory under a category. This is the second level of segregation. For example, under the Announcements category, you can have subcategories like Awards, Recognitions, Updates, Webinars, etc. This will appear on the subcategories page in the Help Center. 

Follow these steps to add a subcategory:

  1. Click the Add Subcategory button.
  2. Enter the following fields:
    1. Subcategory - Enter the name of the subcategory.
    2. Description - Enter a description for the subcategory.
    3. Hide in Portal - Enable this checkbox to hide the subcategory from the Help Center.
  3. Click Add.

The subcategory will be added to the list. It will show the subcategory name, description, and the number of articles under it.

When you click on any subcategory, you can see the list of articles published under it.

 

Note:

  • You can update the sequence of Categories, Subcategories, and Articles. Click the Drag icon, drag and drop them on the desired position.
  • To edit a category or subcategory, hover over the category or subcategory, click the Edit button. After you make the changes and click Update.
  • To delete a category or subcategory, hover over the category or subcategory, and click the Delete icon.
 


Rebranding the Help Center website

The third tab will allow you to customize the colors and icons on the website. If you wish to edit the fields here, click the Edit button. The table below explains all the fields present in the Rebranding tab.

 

Field Name

Description

Your Website URL

Enter the URL of your website.

Company Logo

Upload your company’s logo, which will appear on the top left corner of the Homepage.

Favicon

Displays the icon on the browser’s tab. 

Font

Select a font of your choice from the drop-down.

Header Color

Choose a color for the header. You can specify either the RGB, HSL or the Hex code of the color.

Background Color

Choose a background color. You can specify either the RGB, HSL or the Hex code of the color.

Brand Color

Choose the color that defines your company. You can specify either the RGB, HSL or the Hex code of the color.

Search Placeholder Color

Choose the color for the search bar. You can specify either the RGB, HSL or the Hex code of the color.

Footer Color

Choose a color for the footer. You can specify either the RGB, HSL or the Hex code of the color.

Google Analytics Tracker ID

Enter the Google Analytics Tracker ID.

Company Facebook URL

Enter your company’s Facebook URL. This appears as an icon on the bottom right corner of the footer.

Company Twitter URL

Enter your company’s Twitter URL. This appears as an icon on the bottom right corner of the footer.  

Company LinkedIn URL

Enter your company’s LinkedIn URL. This appears as an icon on the bottom right corner of the footer.

Company Youtube URL

Enter your company’s Youtube URL. This appears as an icon on the bottom right corner of the footer.

Copyright Text

Enter your copyright text here. This appears on the bottom left corner of the footer. 

Footer Links

You can enter other links related to your company. 

  1. Click the +Add Link button.
  2. Enter the Link Text and Link Url.

If you wish to delete a link, click the Delete icon beside the Link Url field.

 

After you make all the edits, click the Save button to save and apply the changes.
If you wish to discard the changes, click Cancel.

Once you save the changes, go to your Help Center and refresh the page (press CTRL+R) to see all the changes. 

Note: There might be a slight delay for the changes to appear on the Help Center.

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