Knowledge Base

Freshdesk helps you set up a KBase for your customers. You can create articles and add information which would act as a repository for self-service for your end-users.

Please navigate to the Solutions tab > 'New Article' button. Use the drop-down available as part of the 'New Article' button to create a New Category or New Folder. This would enable you to categorise your Knowledge Base for easy access.

With Freshdesk, you can create articles for all your customers, or restrict articles for select user segments. You might want to do this for certain reasons:

• Prevent solution articles with sensitive information from being displayed publicly.
• Show solution articles with information about a company to just contacts from that company.
• Allow only your premium customers to read solution articles.
• Share content internally with your team 

You can apply this setting to any folder (and the solution articles in them) by editing its properties. Go to Solutions > select the required category and check the box next to the folders you are looking to change the visibility for, click on the 'Visible to' dropdown and choose to have the folders visible to: 

• All users 
• Logged in users
• Agents 
• Select companies 
• Bot
• Contact Segments (Estate plan and above)
• Company Segments (Estate plan and above)

Contact and Company Segments can be customized further and you can refer to this article to learn more.

These settings will apply to the portal and the help widget. However, the widget does not support articles restricted to bots and agents. 

Yes, you can have a Folder visible to agents only and and have all the articles added in that folder. By doing so, only the agents will be able to view the contents of the folder and not your users.

You would be able to add all of these articles into the same folder and have the Folder made visible to a specific customer segment.

You could add images to the content of a solution article, as inline images or as downloadable attachments. 

To add an inline image, please click on the "Insert Image" option in the solution article text editor. You could add an image by drag+dropping the image to the "Drop Image" space or by choosing an image by browsing through your system. You could also add a image URL or manage and maintain a repository of images on your Freshdesk Account, from which you could choose.

Note: The maximum size limit for the inline images is 5.2 MB

You could add an attachment to your Solution Article, using the "Attach File" option at the bottom-left of the text editor. This would allow you to browse through your system and attach a file to the Solution Article.

Any email sent to kbase@<yourcompanyname>.freshdesk.com from your agent email address would be created as a draft solution article inside your Freshdesk Account. You can choose to have this email address added as a bcc email if you'd like to have all tickets automatically added to the knowledge base or you can also manually forward the tickets to this email address, which would save them as solution article drafts.

There is no restriction in the number of attachments that are added to articles. But the total attachments size permitted is only 25MB.

You can create any number of articles in Freshdesk. There is no restriction in the number of articles you create.

You would be having customers all around the world and our helpdesk does support a global reach to customers in their respective languages. The feature that aids this is called "Multilingual Support" which is available from our Garden plan. 

Say, for example, you would want to support articles in Chinese, French, apart from English which is your default/primary portal language. Please navigate to Admin -> Account -> Helpdesk Settings where you would see an option called "Manage Languages" which would allow you to add Chinese and French as well. Next, to these languages, you would have an option called "Hidden on portal" which when clicked upon would make the language visible on the portal.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to restore a deleted article, folder or a category. Prior to the deletion, a confirmation would pop-up asking to re-confirm if it should be deleted, once it is done it is not possible to restore them.

Once you add supported languages, you would not be able to change your primary language. However, we would be able to change the Primary Language for your account from the backend.

Kindly write to support@freshdesk.com about the same and one of our agents would get in contact with you to assist in processing the same.

You would be having customers all around the world and our help desk does support a global reach to customers in their respective languages. This feature that aids this is called "Multilingual Support" which is available from our garden plan. 

Please navigate to Admin -> Account -> Helpdesk Settings where you would see an option called "Manage Languages" which would allow you to add supported languages. When you click on manage languages, you would see an eye option which when clicked upon would be visible on the portal. By default, they are hidden. 

Please navigate to Admin -> Account -> Helpdesk Settings -> to add "supported languages" by setting up multilingual support. They are by default hidden from the customer portal. 

You can change its visibility clicking on the eye beside each language which would make it visible on the portal. 

You can use the interlinking articles capability to directly search for articles that can be linked to the content you are working on, without leaving the knowledge base text editor. To make use of this, highlight the portion of the content you would like to hyperlink and click on icon on the text editor. In the window that pops up, click on the Solution article tab. You will find that the Suggested article section displays all articles relevant to the content that you hyperlinked and you can fine-tune the results further by using the search bar. 

Note: The interlinking articles capability is available from the Blossom plan onwards.

The users need not be logged in to change the language of the portal. Please navigate to the customer portal as a user to see the dropdown of your languages supported in your helpdesk. When you select from this list, the portal is available in that chosen language.

As of now, there is no feature to restrict this to only logged in users. You could always keep the language hidden by not clicking the eye icon (which makes it visible on the portal) next to it in the Admin -> Account -> Helpdesk Settings -> Manage Languages. 

Please go to Solutions tab -> Click on the category -> open the article which has to be translated where you would see an option called "Show master" on the right end of the header. 

Yes, by default all the four roles in Freshdesk - Account Administrator, Administrator, Supervisor and Agent have the ability to view, edit and create solution articles, by default.

However, if you are on the Estate plan or above, you can create a custom role, under Admin--> Team -> Roles and restrict agents from editing/creating solution articles.

This is not available as a report as such, but if you open a solution folder, on the right, you'd be able to view the number of likes, along with the number of views for each solution article. 

There is also an option to reset these numbers inside each article on the bottom right under Analytics.

You can also integrate with Google Analytics to derive these metrics with further details.

While formatting a table, you could make use of the following formatting options.

• Adding Table Header

• Inserting Rows/Columns - Before/After a selected cell

• Resizing Table - Drag to resize the table and its cells

• Styling the Table - Dashed Borders, Alternate Rows, No Borders

• Styling the Cells - Highlighted, Thick

• Merging & Splitting cells - Vertical, Horizontal

• Adding Cell Background Color

• Aligning the text - Horizontal, Vertical

In the solution article text editor, you would get the option to customize your articles by editing the HTML source with code formatting and colouring, using the Code View feature. This is a built-in compiler, within the solution article which shows the output of the HTML code directly(on disabling the code view).

Other formatting options include:

• Line number on the source code

• Syntax Highlighting

• Search and Replace tags within the code view

• Shortcuts: Search - Ctrl+F, Replace - Ctrl+Alt+F

To export your solution articles, go to Quick views > All articles, represented by the hamburger menu under the 'Solutions' tab in Freshdesk. 

From the Article list view that opens, select all the articles you are looking to export and click on thebutton. This will open a window where you can select all the columns to be displayed in the exported file. Click on Export once you have selected the required columns. You will receive an email with the .CSV file that you can download. You can also filter articles in the Article list view and export only those articles. 

Please note that only agents who have been given export access (available under the Solutions section while editing or creating a role within Admin > Team > Roles) can export articles.

Note: You can only export the list of articles and its properties by following the steps above. If you want to export the content of the solution article, you would need to export your helpdesk data and access the Solutions XML file.

You can also export data other than the solution articles from Freshdesk. To know more, click here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTa_LDg8vng&list=PLsYJ3BsyR4qGFujlW0iDtOBOf4IPVsAqt&index=11

In Freshdesk, you would have the option to create multiple portals, from the Estate Plan onwards. Under Admin > Channels > Portals and Select the Portal of your choice and you would find the option to associate Solution and Forum Categories to specific portals alone, using which you could make the solution articles from that category to be displayed on the corresponding Portal.

Furthermore, the visibility of the articles can be defined on a folder level under the Solutions tab.

Once you have populated your knowledge base articles, you can setup your support portal to "auto-suggest" solutions that are in line with a customers' query(Ticket Subject) when they are submitting a ticket.

If you navigate to Admin > Channels > Portal --> Settings tab, you would see an option called "Auto-suggest solutions while creating a new ticket", available under "User Permissions for portal" --> Who can submit a new ticket on portal.

You could turn this option on and each time when the customer starts submitting a ticket, based on the text added to the Subject, corresponding Solution Articles would be auto-suggested.

Even if the Agent is deleted the Articles ported by the Agent would remain in the Account. 

You could make the author name to be displayed for each of the Solution Articles, on your Support Portal. 

To have this done, kindly enable the Show Author Names option under Admin > Channels > Portals

Click on Edit next to the name of the Portal

Manage Sections > Knowledge base

Check the box that says "Display author name on this portal"

You have many customers to whom you extend your services and not all of them would be a verified contact on your portal. This is because you would not be sending an automatic email notification which guides them to set up an account. During such an instance, you could send out an activation URL manually from the "Customers" tab or inform them to do a password reset and activate their account. 

A recommendation would be to create an article with complete details about how the account creation in freshdesk works along with information about performing a password reset from the portal homepage. This article would have to be visible to all users - the visibility can be changed in article properties by clicking on edit within the article. 

When changes are made to the master article in the Solutions tab, please note that you would find an option to "Mark other Translations as outdated" at the right side of this article. 

We will be able to import an existing Knowledge Base onto your Freshdesk Account. Please write to support@freshdesk.com with the CSV file of your current Knowledge Base and one of our agents will get in touch with you to check the data and process your import.

To delete a category, folder or article, click on the Edit option next to it and then click Delete icon. As a precautionary step, you'd have to type out the name of the item you are looking to delete.

Note: Once solution articles are deleted, we would not be able to retrieve the content.

Please navigate to the Solutions tab -> Click on the category and open the article part of the folder. 

To create a solution article in Freshdesk, follow these steps:

• Log in as an Administrator: Ensure you have administrative access to your Freshdesk account.
• Access the Knowledge Base: From the Freshdesk dashboard, click on "Solutions" in the left sidebar menu.
• Create a New Article: In the Knowledge Base section, click on the "+ New Article" button to start creating a new solution article.
• Title and Content: Enter a descriptive title for the solution article in the provided field. This title should accurately represent the article's content and help users understand the topic at a glance.
• Add Content: Compose the solution article by adding text, images, and any relevant media. Use clear and concise language to provide step-by-step instructions or guidance.
• Formatting: Utilize formatting options such as headings, bullet points, and numbered lists to structure your article for easy readability.
• Attachments and Links: If necessary, attach relevant files or include hyperlinks to external resources to enhance the article's value.
• Categorize and Tag: Choose appropriate categories and tags for the article to ensure it's easily discoverable by users browsing the knowledge base.
• Save and Publish: Once you're satisfied with the content, click on the "Save as Draft" or "Publish" button to either save the article as a draft or make it live for your customers to access.
• Review and Edit: Before publishing, review the article for accuracy and completeness. Make any necessary edits to ensure the information is up-to-date and relevant.
• Publish the Article: Once you've reviewed and edited the article, click on the "Publish" button to make it available to your customers in the knowledge base.

When an article is published, there is a message at the bottom which says "Did you find it helpful?" which is basically a yes or no question. Upon giving a negative feedback, it creates a new ticket within the portal. Feedback on the article is visible in the Feedback section in the specific Article View page. 

This way you could resolve these tickets and address the negative feedback as well all from one place. 

You can have your customers jump to specific sections in your solution article by adding anchor tags. This can help with quicker user navigation within your articles. 

Steps to add an anchor tag:

• Open any article from your Knowledge Base.
• Click on 'Edit' and then click on the 'Code view' option of the article.
• Navigate to the section your anchor should jump to, when clicked. Add an ID in the element for that section, as shown (example: id="anchor" ) 

<p id="anchor">Section 2</p>

• Now, navigate to the first section that your customers would click on, to jump to the section below, select the required phrase (say, 'Jump to Section 2'). 
• Click on the 'Insert link' button for the selected phrase, and in the URL field, enter the # symbol followed by the ID label. Based on our example, it will be #anchor:

• Once you're done, hit Publish.

You can view this from the Solutions section in your Freshdesk. Next to the article you will be able to see the number of Views by your customers. You can also view the number of likes and dislikes.

You can also create your own knowledge base reports if you're on the Estate plan or above.

Yes, refer this link to get the API details to export or update Solutions articles and folders. 

You can also do this by navigating to Admin > Account > Account Details > and click on 'Export'. This will send a downloadable link to the registered agent email address, clicking on which would download a folder containing Solutions in XML format, along with other account information.  Please note that only Agents with the 'Account Administrator' role would have access to Account Settings and only these agents would be able to trigger an account export.

This link has the detailed procedure to create or edit a Solution article using API.

No, a customer's response in a ticket can never be deleted by agents and also the customers themselves cannot revert back their replies.