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Creating FAQs

Learn how to create an FAQ.

Lavanya R

6 Jun, 2024 - Updated 6 months ago

Introduction

FAQ or Frequently Asked Questions are commonly asked questions about a process or a business.
FAQs are written in pairs of questions and answers. You can create an FAQ from your customers' questions if you think it might be useful to other customers.
For example, ‘How do I sign up for Vtiger CRM?’ may be a frequently asked question.
These FAQs can be uploaded on a portal or a website that all your customers have access to.

FAQ Editor in Vtiger

The FAQ editor allows you to format content by adding different font styles, headings, font sizes, and colors. You can also add numbers and bullets to your content.

Actions in Article Editor
You can perform the following actions in the Summary View of an article:

Edit - When you hover on the title of the FAQ, you will find the edit icon. By clicking the edit icon, you can edit the title of the FAQ and save it.
Follow - By clicking the follow icon, you can follow and unfollow a FAQ.
Add Tags - You can add tags by choosing from the drop-down or create your own tags.
Open in a new tab - You can open a FAQ in a new tab.
Click to copy the direct link - This is the direct link to the FAQ. By clicking this icon, a URL copied successfully message will be displayed. You can now share this link with others.

Statuses in Article Editor
Before creating an article, the article will be set to Draft. Once it is created, you can change the status based on the following statuses:
The following are the FAQ Statuses in FAQs:

Draft: The FAQ is written and not completed yet.
To be reviewed: The FAQ is written and ready to be reviewed for technical and grammatical errors.
Reviewed: The FAQ has been reviewed (by the concerned person for technical review, and grammar review, etc.)
Published: The FAQ has been reviewed and published on the website for customers to view.
To be deleted: The FAQ that needs to be deleted.
Obsolete: The FAQ is not required anymore.

Views in Article Editor
The following are the views in the FAQs:

List View - The FAQs are in the form of a List.
Kanban View - The FAQs are listed in the form of blocks. The FAQs are sorted as per the status and listed in seven different columns such as Draft, Published, To be reviewed, Reviewed, Obsolete, Junk, and To be deleted.
Calendar View - The number of FAQs created date-wise will be displayed in the Calendar View.

List View in FAQs

The FAQs are listed one after the other in the form of a List.Following are the columns that are listed by default:

Feature - The feature of the question is selected from the feature drop-down.
Answer - The answer to the question is displayed.
Views - The number of views for each and every FAQ is displayed.
Category - The category under which the FAQ falls is displayed.
Question - The question is displayed.
Status - The status of the question- Draft, To be reviewed, Reviewed, Published, or Obsolete is displayed.
Version - The version V7 or V9 is displayed.
Created Time - The time when the FAQ was created is displayed.
Modified Time - The time when a FAQ is modified is displayed.
Created By - The name of the person who created the FAQ is displayed.
Last modified - The person who has last modified will be displayed.

Summary View in FAQs

When you click on a FAQ, the Summary View opens. The Summary View displays the question and the answer.

The following shortcut keys are beside the Question:

Click to follow - You can click this icon to follow a FAQ.
Tags - You can add tags to a FAQ record.
Open in a new tab - You can open the FAQ in a new window.
Click to copy the direct link - You can copy the FAQ link and share it.

Activity

In the Activity section, you can have conversations with other members of the team by using @mentions. You can find the history of changes that happened in the FAQ and the people who have worked on it.
By clicking Filters and enabling Internal Comments and Updates, the conversation history will be displayed.

Edit Icon

By clicking the Edit icon, an editing FAQ window opens. Here, you can edit the Question and Answer, add the Question Variants FAQ Label, select FAQ visibility, and save it.

More Icon

By clicking the three dots on the top right corner of the screen, you can do the following:

Follow and Add Followers - You can follow a record and also add followers to a record.
Print - You can print a FAQ record.
Duplicate - You can duplicate a FAQ record.
Attachment - You can attach documents to a FAQ by clicking Documents under Attachment.
Add or Link - You can add another FAQ or link other FAQs to a FAQ record

Widgets

You will find the following widgets in the Summary View of Article Editor:

Analytics - You can get your analytics for FAQs by simply creating a chart or mini-list.
Details - You can see all the details of your FAQs.
Documents - You can link, and add Documents to your FAQs. You can also click the record lists or open record lists.
FAQ - You can link FAQs to a particular FAQ.

Important Fields in an FAQ

Field name	Description
Question	The question asked
Answer	The answer to the question
Status	State of the FAQ - Draft, Reviewed, Published, or Obsolete
Category	Category or group that the FAQ belongs to; for example, Sales, Marketing, etc.
Source	Where was the FAQ created from (for example, CRM, Case, Import, etc.)
FAQ Number	An internally generated unique number to identify an FAQ

Creating an FAQ

You can create FAQ manually in the CRM, through Import, or from Workflows.
Follow these steps to create an FAQ manually in the CRM:

Go to the Help desk.
Select FAQ. The FAQ List View opens.

Click +Add FAQ. The Add FAQ window opens.

Type the Question in the Question field.
Type the Answer in the Answer field.
Select the Status from the drop-down.
1. Click View Full Form to add the following details.

Add Question variants.
Add FAQ Label.
Select the Category of the FAQ from the Category drop-down.
Select the Version.
Select the Feature of the FAQ from the Feature drop-down.
Select the FAQ Visibility from the drop-down.
Click Save.

An FAQ will be created and saved in the CRM. You can add other details to the FAQ later.

Other ways of creating an FAQ

Apart from manually creating an FAQ, you can create a FAQ through the following sources:

Import

When you have a large number of FAQs to write, it is not easy to publish them manually by writing one at a time. In this case, you can import FAQ from your local computer.
Write all your FAQs in an XLS or CSV file on your local computer. The column names in the file must be the same as the field names in the CRM. For example, to map the Question field in the CRM to the question in your XLS or CSV document, you must create a column called Question.
To learn more about Importing, click here.

Workflow

You can automate the creation of FAQs through Workflows. A workflow has three main components:

Trigger - What causes the workflow to execute
Conditions - The conditions that must be met to create an FAQ
Action - Creating a FAQ

For example, you can create a workflow for this scenario - When a case is closed, and its Title ends with a question mark, create an FAQ. You can copy the Case Title to the Question and the Case Summary to Answer.
To learn more about Workflows, click here.

Mailroom

If you receive emails that must be converted to FAQ, you can achieve that through Mailroom automation.
To do this, you must set up the following:

Mailroom rules for FAQ
Auto-forwarding in your email client

When you do the above, all the emails landing in your email client are auto-forwarded to the mailroom. The mailroom will then scan your incoming emails and create FAQ records.
For example, when an email’s subject contains the phrase - ‘How can I’, you can automatically convert the email to an FAQ.

To learn more about Mailroom, click here.
To learn more about Auto-forwarding, click here.

Different FAQ statuses

An FAQ can take one of these statuses:

Status	Description
Draft	The FAQ has just been written and is not entirely ready.
Reviewed	The FAQ has been reviewed (by the concerned person such as the customer support manager for technical review, content writer for grammar review, etc.)
Published	The FAQ is published on the customer portal and is accessible to the customers.
Obsolete	The FAQ is no longer useful.

Note: Customers can see an FAQ only when its Status field is set to Published.

Enhancing your FAQ

Now that you have created an FAQ, you can enhance it to add value. Based on the type of information you want to display, you can add tables, screenshots, images, and links to other articles, websites, etc.
This can be useful when you have to make references to a screen or an external help document, or a website.

Adding screenshots

Follow these steps to add an image or screenshot to an FAQ:

Click the Image icon in the Answer textbox.
Click the Upload tab.
Click Choose File to browse and select the image on your local computer.
Click Send it to the Server.
Specify image properties such as the alternative text, height, and width of the image, alignment, etc., in the Image Info tab (optional).
Click OK.

The image or screenshot will be added to the FAQ.

Note: You can replace an existing image by deleting it and uploading another image in its place.

Adding links

Follow these steps to add a link to an external document:

Select the text you want to link the external document to in the Answer textbox.
Click the Link icon in the toolbar.
Type the URL of the external document in the URL field under the Link Info tab.
Click OK.

A hyperlink in blue will be added to the text you selected. This indicates that the link is embedded in the text.

List View in FAQ

In Vtiger CRM, you can look at all the FAQ in the form of a list in the List View. This view sorts and lists all FAQ based on the last modified date and time.

Columns in the List View

The columns that are visible by default in the List View are:

Question - Displays the FAQ’s question.
Answer - Displays the FAQ’s answer.
Status - Displays the status of the FAQ.
Category - Displays the category under which the FAQ is listed.
Created By- Displays the name of the FAQ’s creator.
Modified Time - Displays the date and time when the FAQ was last updated.

List actions

You can perform many quick actions such as Edit, Comment, Export, Print, etc., on the FAQ records in the List View.
To learn more about List View actions in Vtiger CRM, click here.

Did you know?
You can create lists to sort and store the records displayed in your List View and save them for future reference. This feature enables you to create different lists for multiple purposes.
To know more about creating a list, click here.

Searching for your FAQ
The search bar in the List View is a unique feature. It is one of a kind because it filters, searches, and delivers the result brilliantly.
The search bar helps you search for a record and filter the rest of the records using field names that you specify. This feature comes in very handy if you have many forms in the CRM.
To know more about the search bar in List View, click here.

Converting Cases into the FAQ

When customers ask you common questions, you can make an FAQ out of the question and display it in the Customer Portal. But when the same question is asked through a case, then you can convert the case into an FAQ.
Follow these steps to convert a case into an FAQ:

Log in to the CRM account.
Click the Main Menu.
Go to the Help desk.
Click Cases.
Select and open the case that you want to convert into an FAQ.
Click the More icon on the top right of the Summary View.
Select Convert to FAQ.

An FAQ will be automatically created.
The case title is copied as the question and in the case’s comments as the answer. You can view the newly created FAQ under Main Menu > Help Desk> FAQ.
To learn more about Cases, click here.

Accessing an FAQ

Your customers or contacts can view FAQ in the Customer Portal and in the Live Chat widget on your website. Let us learn about them in detail.

Customer Portal

The customer portal has all the information that might interest the customers of an organization. It is the one-stop destination for your customers to create a case, view the status of their cases, access FAQ, etc.
To learn more about the Customer Portal, click here.
Giving customers access to the customer portal
To give customers access to the portal, you must enable the Portal User field in Contacts. When you do this, your customers will receive credentials on their contact email address, using which they can log in to the customer portal.

Note: For customers to receive their login credentials, you must save their correct contact email address in the Primary Email field in the contact record.

Follow these steps to give access to the customer portal to a contact:

Log in to the CRM account.
Click the Main Menu.
Go to Essentials.
Click Contacts.
Select and open a contact record for which the customer portal must be enabled.
Click the Edit icon in the top right of the Summary View.
Look for the Portal User field and enable it.
Enter a valid Support Start Date and Support End Date. Customers cannot log in to the customer portal beyond the support end date.
Click Save.

Note: The support end date must be either the current date or a future date. If you enter a date that has passed, then the login credentials will not be sent to the contacts.

Viewing FAQ in the customer portal
The customer portal can be accessed by using the login credentials received by email.
Follow these steps to view FAQ in the customer portal:

Click the URL in the email. It will take you to the login page of the customer portal.
Enter the credentials specified in the email to log in. You will land on the customer portal home page.
Click the FAQ tab on top of the screen. You will see all the FAQs published in the portal.
Click more… to view other FAQs.

To learn more about using the Customer Portal, click here.

Live Chat widget

The Live Chat widget provides quick help to your customers. Your customers can find solutions to their queries through FAQ or directly talk to an agent.
Enabling the Live Chat widget
The Live Chat widget will be hosted on your website through which the customers can seek help. To enable this widget, you must do the following:

Install the extension.
Copy the tracker code from Settings > Websense > Trackers.
Inject the code on your website.

The Live Chat widget will appear on your website when you do the above.
To learn more about Live Chat, click here.
Viewing FAQ in the widget
Customers can visit your website, click the widget, and type their query. A related FAQ list will pop up on the widget if you have an FAQ for the query.

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