Create and Publish Knowledge Articles

If your agents are constantly answering the same questions internally or externally, they can use Knowledge Articles to quickly share frequently requested information. 

In this article

What are Knowledge Articles?

Manage knowledge articles with categories and folders

Share knowledge articles in tickets and macros

Publish your knowledge articles on your public portal

Create a knowledge category

Create a category folder

Move articles between folders

Create a knowledge article

Write and edit a knowledge article

Create a Table of Contents in a Knowledge Article

Publish a knowledge article

Delete a knowledge article

Archive a knowledge article

Archive Individual Articles

Archive Articles in Bulk

What are Knowledge Articles?

Knowledge Articles are records that users can add instructional content to, which your agents can share with customers or coworkers to provide a clear and common understanding of your services. Knowledge Articles can be shared through Tickets or through links to your Public Portal Website. 

Knowledge Articles are hosted on your Public Portal Website to be used as a self-service resource for your customers.

Experienced service agents and internal writers can write articles and use them to organize frequently asked questions and product details, then educate customers and agents with that information.

A well-stocked knowledge base helps customers resolve common problems quickly and reduces the load on your team. Instead of writing and explaining lengthy or complicated procedures for every inquiry, agents can simply send customers the information they need in minutes.

For example, Knowledge Articles can include information on processes, like how to reset your product to its defaults, or common customer questions, like how much storage your product supports or what configurations it comes in.

Knowledge Articles can also be used to highlight other features on your platform, creating possible upsell opportunities.

Manage Knowledge Articles with Categories and Folders

Knowledge Articles are organized into Categories and Folders. Articles live within Folders and Folders live within Categories. You must have at least one Category and one Folder to add Knowledge Articles. Setup Categories and Folders to help your customers navigate your content on your Public Portal Website.

Categories and Folders can also be set up for internal documentation for your team by making the categories and folders viewable to agents only. The content in the portal will not be displayed for customers but agents will be able to see all content in any category and folder that is set to Agents Only. 

Share Knowledge Articles in Tickets and Macros

Articles can be sent to pre-existing Contacts or Contacts created during the Ticket creation process. Once a Ticket has been created, the link to the Knowledge Article can be inserted in the Ticket reply. Users can also add these links to Macros they build.

Publish Your Knowledge Articles on Your Public Portal

Your customers can review the Knowledge Articles you’ve created in your Public Portal Website, providing them with a powerful, public, multi-lingual self-service resource that can be configured to match your businesses' branding. 

• When reviewing articles within the Insightly Service Knowledge object, users can open an article record and click the View Version in Portal button to open the article in a new tab and display how it will be viewed in the portal. 

Here, customers are able to search for answers without reaching out to your customer support agents. Additionally, if enabled, customers can also visit your community page to ask fellow customers for assistance. 

Import Your Existing Articles

Knowledge Article records can be imported and exported using CSV files to mass update standard and custom fields. 

If you are migrating from Zendesk to Insightly, admins can use our Import from Zendesk feature to easily transfer existing documentation. 

Article Status

Article Numbers and Versions

Each article is assigned an article number, starting at 1, incrementing by 1 for each new article created. 

Each version of an article will also be assigned a number, starting at 1 and incrementing by 1 for each new article created or edited, per language. 

If an article has been published and a new draft version has been created, that new draft version can be deleted but it will be hard deleted and not soft deleted.

All users following an article will be notified when a new version is created and when updates are made. Permissions apply to the article - permissions cannot be configured for individual versions.

Create a Knowledge Category

• NOTE: AppConnect functionality isn’t available for knowledge categories.

1. Go to Knowledge Articles. Click the New Knowledge Article dropdown and select New Category.
2. Enter a name and description.
3. Click Save.

Create a Category Folder

• NOTE: AppConnect functionality isn’t available for knowledge folders.

1. Go to Knowledge Articles. Click the New Knowledge Article dropdown and select New Folder.
2. Enter a name and description.
3. Select a Category.
4. Select the Folder’s visibility settings.
   • All Users
   • Logged in Users
   • Agents Only
5. Select how the Knowledge Articles should be ordered within the Folder.
   • Manual
   • Alphabetic
   • Date Created Ascending
   • Date Created Descending
   • Date Updated Descending
6. Click Save.

Move Articles Between Folders

Go to Knowledge Articles. Go to the All Articles list view (or any other standard or custom list view).

1. Check the checkbox to the left of each article you need to move.
2. Click the Change Folder button, which appears as a folder icon in the upper left of the screen. 
3. Use the dropdown that appears to select which folder the article(s) should be moved to. Click Save.

Create a Knowledge Article

Articles can only be created within the Service App. Users cannot create articles from their Public Portal Website.

1. Go to Knowledge Articles. Click New Knowledge Article.
2. Enter an English Language Title and select a Folder. A URL slug will be auto-generated by default and cannot be edited. It will contain the article number, which will remain static even if the article is updated.
3. Add Tag Information.
4. Click Save.

Write and Edit a Knowledge Article

1. Go to Knowledge Articles. Open the record you want to update.
2. Click the pencil icon to edit the knowledge article.
   1. The knowledge article editor will open in a new browser tab.
      
3. In the content box, enter the knowledge article documentation.
4. Click the title of the knowledge article to update as needed.
5. Click the Actions dropdown menu and select View Knowledge Article in Portal to review how the knowledge article will appear on your Public Portal Website. 
6. Clicking View Knowledge Article in Portal will open the knowledge article preview in a new browser tab.
7. Click Save.
   1. If you click Closebefore saving, a warning will appear.
      1. You have unsaved changes! Are you sure you want to leave this page?

Create a Table of Contents in a Knowledge Article

1. Once the content of a knowledge article has been written, a table of contents can be auto generated based off the headings applied within the article. This functionality works with headings 1 through 4 which are applied via the text editor toolbar:
   
2. Creating a table of contents requires the assignment of anchors to each heading that should appear in the table of contents. To assign an anchor to a heading, highlight (select) the heading and from the text editor toolbar, click the More Rich option and select the Add Element ID button - this will assign an anchor to the highlighted (selected) heading:
   
   1. Via the popup, enter a ID for the anchor; the ID is what will display in the table of contents for the heading title. 
      • It is a best practice to make the anchor ID identical to the heading title it is assigned to as this will allow for easy identification within the HTML of an article. 
3. Once all headings that should display in the table of contents have had anchors assigned to them, the table of contents can be built.
   1. To build a table of contents, place your cursor where the table of contents should be built in the article and from the text editor toolbar, click the More Rich option and select the Add Table of Contents button:
      
   2. The table of contents will auto build where your cursor is and will be based on the headings that were assigned anchors. 
4. Once a table of contents has been created, if article headings are edited, added, or deleted, there are a different routes that can be taken to update the table of contents appropriately:

Publish a Knowledge Article

1. Go to Knowledge Articles. Open the record you want to publish.
2. Click the pencil icon to edit the knowledge article.
   1. The knowledge article editor will open in a new browser tab.
3. Click Publish.
   1. Clicking Publish will immediately close the browser tab.

An Insightly administrator will need to add the Knowledge Category in Portal Settings if it has not been added already for the knowledge article to appear on your Public Portal Website.

Delete a Knowledge Article

When an article is deleted, all versions of that article will also be deleted and moved to the recycle bin. The recycle bin will only show that specific article record, however, all versions will be restored when that record is restored.

1. Go to Knowledge Articles. Locate the record you want to update.
2. Click the three-dot menu and select Delete this Knowledge Article or Delete Draft.
3. A warning will appear. Click Delete.

Archive a Knowledge Article

Archived articles can be reviewed by changing the list view of the Knowledge object to Archived Articles.

Once an article has been archived, it can be removed from the archive and reinstated by clicking the three dot menu for the article and selecting the Un-Archive Knowledge Article option.

Archive Individual Articles

1. Go to Knowledge Articles. Locate the Knowledge Article record.
2. Click the three-dot menu and select Archive this Knowledge Article.
3.  A warning will appear: Are you sure you want to archive this Knowledge Article? Click OK.

Archive Articles in Bulk

1. Go to Knowledge Articles. Go to the All Articles list view (or any other standard or custom list view).
2. Check the checkbox to the left of each article you need to archive.
3. Click the Archive button, which appears as a file box icon in the upper left of the screen. 
4. A warning will appear: Are you sure you want to archive the selected Knowledge Articles? Click OK.