Module: KB Articles

Description

KB articles are used to document how to perform tasks and provide consistent information to your team and website visitors.

Key Features

• Unlimited number of categories.
• Different KB Articles for specific versions / variations.
• Classify the KB Articles based on the user level of expertise.
• Track how many people are viewing the KB Articles with their user/IP address information.
• KB Articles can be shown based on a specified start/end date.
• Set the last updated date.
• Ability to have different display templates.
• Set SEO information for better positioning on the search engines.

Requirements

You will need to have a valid system login that has been granted access to the KB Articles module.

Sample Screenshot

Click for the full size version of the image.

Adding & Editing

• Description: The title of the KB Article.
• General Information
  • Category: The category that the article is assigned to.
  • Published: Whether the article is visible or not on the website.
    • Draft (Not Visible On Website): The article is not available and if someone would go to this KB Article they would get a message that the article is presently not available.
    • Published (Visible On Website): The article will be available on the website.
  • User Level: The level of knowledge a user should have to be able to use this article. For example, an Administrator (Advanced) should be used by those that are familiar with the overall site.
  • Page Name: This is the KB Article number page name.
    • Note: This name needs to be unique for each page.
  • Version: When dealing with software or even documentation there is a version number assigned. This is where you can have one article for multiple versions. There should be a unique KB Article for each version.
  • Icon: You can use this to assign a unique icon related to the article.
  • Author: This is who the person is that is writing the article.
  • Page Views: The number of views that have happened since the article was originally published.
  • Summary: A brief summary that explains what is covered.
  • Description: The complete detail of the article.
• Miscellaneous Information
  • Start Date: When is the article available to start being viewed.
  • End Date: When is the article set to no longer be available.
  • Updated Date: The last date that the document was changed.
  • Display Order: The display order for the article. This allows you to display certain items above others. To learn more about how to use display order click here.
  • Template Name: If a custom template is to be used for displaying the article. This is useful if you want the information to be displayed in a unique format that is outside the default format.
  • Language: What language is the article written in. The languages available is what is set within the system.
  • Alternate URL: If the article is available on another URL beyond what this article is you can list it here.
• META Information - Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Information
  • Title: The title of the page that displays in the web browser.
  • Description: The description that is provided to the search engines.
  • Keywords: Not used by the latest version of the search engines this allows you to set the keywords for this article.
    • Note: Each keyword phrase should be separated by a comma.
  • Robots: Explains to the search engines how it should treat this page.
    • Index, Follow (Default): Index the page and follow all links.
    • No Index, No Follow: Don't index the page and do not follow any links.
    • Follow: Follow all links that this article has in it.
    • Index: The article should be indexed.
    • Index, No Follow: The article should be indexed but any links should not be followed.
    • No Follow: The article should be indexed but any links should not be followed.
    • No Index: The search engines should not index this article.
  • Include in Site Map: States whether or not to include this KB Article in the sites sitemap.xml file.
• Advanced Information
  • Header Embed: Allows the embedding of custom code in the header of the KB Article.
  • Footer Embed: Allows the embedding of custom code in the footer of the KB Article.

Tips & Tricks

• KB Articles should be treated as miniature blogs where the information provided is grouped in a standardized format.