Structuring your knowledge base with Flexible Hierarchy (up to 5 folder levels)

We have recently refreshed our branding across our offerings and changed the names of our pricing plans. If you have signed up before Aug 9, 2021, please click Previous plans to view your applicable plans.
We assure you that this change will not impact your product experience, and no action is required on your part.

As a business, you will have a knowledge base to host information (how-tos, guides, tutorials, etc.) about your product or service, which can be consumed by both your agents and customers. 

Your content team would want to organize and structure their knowledge base in a hierarchical way based on your product lines, services offered, regions, or user journey. It should be easy for your customer to understand the content structure and be able to navigate through the levels to find their answers quickly. 

As your knowledge base grows, managing articles within a limited structure become cumbersome. The content team would require flexibility in setting up desired levels of hierarchy to better represent their content in a meaningful way for their users. 

Using a Flexible hierarchy, you can structure your Freshdesk knowledge base into a six-level hierarchy - Categories that hold a group of related content, Folders under each Category, and folders; you can create folders up to 5 levels. Except under a Category, you can add both folders and articles under each level. Below are a few examples of how a knowledge base can be structured:

At the top level, Categories broadly classify your solutions page into several sections. For example, you could place various folder levels Mobiles and Laptops > Mobiles > OS > Brands > Model under the Electronics category. Another interesting application of this organizational system is when you're providing support across multiple brands or products (more about multi-product support here).

Related solution articles are organized into Folders. Folders allow users to read similar articles and other possible solutions to their problems. For example, you would club solution articles related to tracking codes and postal services under the Shipping folder. 

After creating several Categories on the knowledge base, you can structure folders up to 5 levels under each Category.  

Structuring folders and sub-folders in your knowledge base: 

• You can create a folder by  Solutions > New Folder under the Category in which you wish to create a folder.

• Once you have set the folder's name, description, and visibility, you can click on the 'Select Hierarchy' to map the folder under a Category or sub-folder. 

You can add both folders and articles under each sub-folders. However, you will not be able to add an article under a Category. 

NOTE: For Freshdesk accounts that were created before May 2022. 

If you are using a customized Portal theme, please follow the below steps to set up Flexible Hierarchy on your account. 

• Go to Admin > Portals  
• Hover over the Portal of your choice and click on Customize

• Click on Layout & Pages and select Portal pages

• Select Solutions home from the left pane. 
• Refer to the sample code below, make the required changes and paste it to the code editor. 

{% for folder in category.folders %}
 <section class="cs-g article-list">
   <div class="list-lead">
     {{ folder | link_to_folder_with_count }}
   </div>
   {{ folder | sub_folder_article_list:5 }}
 </section>
{% else %}
  {{ portal | filler_for_solutions }}
{% endfor %}

• Now, click on Folder view from the left pane. Refer to the sample code below, make the required changes and paste the same to the code editor. 

{% if folder.articles_count > 0 or folder.subfolders_count > 0%}
        {% paginate folder.entity_collection by 10 %}        
            <section class="article-list c-list">
                {% for item in paginate.collection %}
                    <div class="c-row c-article-row">
                        <i class="icon-{{item.source_type}}-table-row"></i>
                        <div class="ellipsis article-title"> 
                            <a href="{{ item.url }}" class="c-link">{{ item.name | h }}</a>
                        </div>
                        {% if item.source_type == 'article' %}
                          <div class="description-text">
                            {{  item.body_plain | h | truncate:160 }}
                          </div>
                        {% else %}
                          <div class="description-text">
                            {{  item.description | h | truncate:160 }}
                          </div>
                        {% endif %}
                        <div class="help-text">{{ item.modified_on | short_day_with_time }}</div>
                    </div>
                {% endfor %}
            </section>
            {{ paginate | default_pagination }}
        {% endpaginate %}
    {% else %}
        {{ folder| h | filler_for_folders }}
    {% endif %}