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Help center

Help center articles

Help articles are WordPress posts of the type Help articles. You write them in the block editor. People who write articles need the Write articles capability; publishing needs Publish articles.

Change a published article without unpublishing it

  1. In Help articles, point at a published article and choose Edit as draft.
  2. Edit the draft. You can save it, send it for review or schedule it. The published article does not change.
  3. Publish the draft. Its text, categories and settings replace the published article, as a new revision. The draft then goes away.

An article with more than 100 revisions shows a warning on its edit screen.

Schedule and archive

To publish later, set the date in WordPress’s Publish panel; the article goes live at that time. Status Archived takes an article off the help center; its address then says it is gone (410) or goes to the help center home (Address of an archived article). Unpublishing on a date is available with Cliedesk Pro.

Change many articles

WordPress’s bulk actions in Help articles change the status, categories and author of many articles at once. Changing who can read them, the owner and On the home in bulk, with undo, is available with Cliedesk Pro.

Categories

Each category has an Order field. Lower numbers come first; equal numbers go by name. Categories can nest as deep as you need. Categories more than 4 levels deep show a warning, because they are hard to browse.

An article can be in several categories. The Primary category shows in the breadcrumb.

Blocks

Callout, Steps, Accordion and Video with transcript are block patterns. Contact options offers chat only while chat is open. When the page belongs to a product, the product’s own hours apply. Outside those hours the request form stays. The Ask (PRO) block needs Cliedesk Pro and shows nothing without it.

The help search finds words in titles, text and keywords. It also finds words with a small typo. Every search is logged for 90 days. Settings → Help center lists the searches that found nothing. If an article is missing from search, Setup Health in Settings shows it with a link to index it again.

To help search find an article, add Search keywords in the article sidebar. Keywords count more than words in the text. For words that mean the same thing on every article, use Search synonyms in Settings → Help center: one group per line, for example parcel = package, delivery. Searching one word then finds the others. Search by meaning is available with Cliedesk Pro.

  • Related articles shows under every article and as a block. Your own picks in the article sidebar come first, then articles in the same categories, then articles with the same keywords. Up to 5 show, and only ones the visitor may read.
  • Tick Feature on the help center home or Feature in its categories in the sidebar. The Featured articles block shows them.
  • Popular articles shows the most viewed articles of the last 30 days. Views by agents, bots and previews do not count.

Help center home in Settings → Help center sets the home order: categories first or popular articles first.

Help in the chat widget

The widget’s help shows the most read articles before a search and results while the visitor types. An article opens inside the widget, with Open in a new tab and Still need help?. Searches that find nothing are listed in Settings → Help center (the top ones of the last 30 days). The AI answer is available with Cliedesk Pro.

Suggestions while typing

When a customer types a chat message or a request, up to 3 articles they may read are suggested. If they choose That helped, the contact ends without a conversation. In Settings → Help center → Suggestions while typing:

  • No suggestions for these words: comma separated. By default: refund, billing, cancel, invoice, charge.
  • Articles first on some pages: one rule per line, for example /checkout = 12, 15.

Feedback

In Settings → Help center → Suggestions while typing, set When a reader says an article did not help to Create a review task for the article owner. Each article gets at most one open review task.

Files and imports

Files in Files as knowledge are read by a background job. They show Reading the text until the job is done. Importing articles from files or from other help desks is available with Cliedesk Pro (see Import articles).

Articles in replies

Type ? and a word in the composer to find an article. In a customer reply, an article that has a translation in the conversation’s language comes in that language.