Creating and editing articles

Guide managers can create new articles and edit all existing articles in the knowledge base. Agents who are not Guide managers can create and edit articles if they have management permissions. End-users can’t contribute articles to the knowledge base.

Light agents on Guide Lite and Professional cannot create or edit articles. Light agents on Guide Enterprise and Legacy can create and edit articles where they have permission.

You must have at least one section in the knowledge base before you can start adding articles. When you create an article, you must assign it to a section. For more information, see Anatomy of the Help Center.

Adding articles to the knowledge base

Guide managers can create new articles. Agents can create new articles if they have management permissions. Agent privileges for new articles vary depending on their management permissions. See the complete list of agent privileges for existing, published articles.

You can create a maximum of 40,000 total articles, including translations. This limit includes articles in all states, except archived.

To add an article to the knowledge base

1. In Help Center or Guide, click Add in the top menu bar, then select Article.

   

2. Enter your content.

   • Use the article editor’s toolbar for formatting options or to add links, images, or tables. This toolbar is not the same as the toolbar in community posts.

     

     For information, see the Help Center article editor toolbar reference. See also Inserting links, Inserting images, and Inserting videos. For tables, check out this formatting tip.

   • Edit the HTML source by clicking the Source Code button at the end of the editor’s toolbar.

     Help Center quarantines unsafe HTML tags and attributes to reduce the risk of malicious code. For information, see Allowing unsafe HTML in pages.

3. Under Managed By, click the drop-down arrow, then select management permissions to determine which agents have editing and publishing rights for this article.

   • Managers enables only Guide Managers to edit and publish the article. This option is selected by default on new articles.
   • Editors and publishers (Enterprise only) enables all agents and managers to edit this article but only managers can publish the article. This option appears only if it’s been activated.
   • Custom management permission (Professional and Enterprise) enables specific user segments to edit and publish the article.

   Depending on your account, you might also see an agents and managers option.

   Guide Managers can apply any management permissions. Agents with management permissions can apply only the management permissions they belong to. Agents who do not have management permissions on any article will not see this option, and the management permissions will default to managers.

4. Under Visible to, select one of the view permissions options to determine which users can view this article.

   • Visible to everyone includes anyone who visits Help Center and does not require sign in.
   • Signed-in users includes internal and external users who create an account and sign in to your Help Center.
   • Agents and managers (Professional and Enterprise) includes staff members only, so that you can create content that is internal-only.
   • Custom user segment (Professional and Enterprise) enables you to restrict viewing access to specific users based on tags, organizations, or groups by applying custom user segments (see Creating user segments to restrict access).

   Guide managers and agents with publishing permissions can set view permissions for articles. Agents who do not have publish permissions on any article will not see this option, and the view permissions will default to agents and managers.

5. Under Publish in section, click Select a section, then select a new section and click Ok.

   You can search for or navigate to the section. All of your categories might not appear in the window. To navigate, click the expander arrows to drill down to the section you want.

   

6. Chose any of the following options:

   • To close the article for comments, deselect Open for comments.
   • To promote the article in its section, select Promote article.
   • To add an attachment, click Upload attachment on the lower side of the editor.

   The file size limit is 20 MB. You can remove an attachment by clicking the x next to it.

7. (Guide Professional and Enterprise) Under Labels, add any labels you want.

   As you start typing, a list of existing labels appears for you to chose from, or you can add a new keyword by selecting Add as a new label or by typing a word and pressing Enter.

   

   For more information about using labels and best practices, see Using labels on Help Center articles.

   You can add labels to the default language article only and not to translations of the article. You can add labels in multiple languages to the default article.

8. (Guide Enterprise) Under Template, if you have multiple article templates in your live theme, click the drop-down, then select a template.

   You might have to scroll down to see this option. If you do not select an alternate template, the default article template will be applied.

   

9. When you are finished working on your article, do one of the following:

   • To save your new article as a draft or work in progress to publish later, click Save.

     

     Clicking Save creates the article as a draft (Guide Lite and Professional) or a work in progress (Guide Enterprise).

     Click the Preview in Help Center link (Guide Lite and Professional) or the Preview link (Guide Enterprise) to view the article in your Help Center. The preview link expires after one hour.

   • To publish your new article, click the drop-down arrow on the Save button, then select Publish now.

     Clicking Publish now creates the article and publishes it in your Help Center.

     Click the Show in Help Center link (Guide Lite and Professional) or the Published link (Guide Enterprise) to view the article in your Help Center.

For information about how you can display an article in multiple sections, see Displaying an article or section in multiple sections or categories in our Support tech notes.

Editing articles in the knowledge base

Guide managers can edit any articles. Agents can edit existing articles where they have management permissions. Agent privileges for existing articles vary depending on their management permissions. See the complete list of agent privileges for existing, published articles.

On Guide Lite and Professional, you cannot save edits for an existing published article. On Guide Enterprise, you can save edits for an existing published article as a work in progress.

There are some article updates that you can make on multiple articles in bulk. For more information, see Updating knowledge base articles in bulk.

To open an article in edit mode

• In Help Center, navigate to the article you want to edit, then click Edit article in the top menu bar.

  

• In Guide Admin, click the Manage articles () icon in the sidebar, search for the article, then click the title to open it.

• In Guide Admin, click the Arrange content () icon in the sidebar, navigate to the article, then click the options menu at the end of the title and select Edit article.