A Guide to the Quantexa Community Library

The Community Library is a customer & partner resource with case studies, blog posts & articles from Q SMEs', this page is an example of an article within the Community Library.

Highlights

We have the ability to set permissions:

Access to and management of the content is determined by the permissions that have been set in the Library section of each Role (Membership > Roles & Permissions).

These permissions can be overridden by KB-specific permissions for each of your KBs.

Before setting the permissions, consider:

• Who is the target audience for the KB?
• Do the current Roles suit my needs? or...

Answering these questions should provide some guidance as you decide who needs which permissions.

Create a Knowledge Base

It's easy to create a KB. Contact the Community Team to discuss the content you would like to publish. If approved, we will need the following:

General settings

In this section:

• specify a title for the KB;
• provide a description of the KB (this displays under the title if there a multiple KBs);
• specify the URL code (the URL slug);
• select a language-based locale.

✔️ TIP: You can add/remove locales by enabling/disabling them on the Language Settings page (Settings > Technical > Language Settings); changes are immediate.

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Image settings

In this section:

• choose an image to be the graphic representation of this KB (optional);
• choose an image as the banner that displays at the page top of this KB (optional); and
• choose an image to display alongside the title and search bar of this KB (optional).

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Layout Options settings

In this section:

• select a KB type (if Help Center, set the article sort order); and
• set whether to include (or not) links to untranslated articles in the sitemap.

Permissions tab

On this tab:

• slide the toggle to the right (ON) to enable custom permissions;
• select which groups of users can search for and view content in this KB; and
• select which groups of users can manage content in this KB.

Universal Content tab

On this tab:

• slide the toggle to the right (ON) to make the content in this KB universal (i.e., available and searchable in other KBs); and
• check a box to exclude this KB's content from being available and searchable in that KB.

Add & organize Knowledge Base Categories

With your knowledge base created, it's a good idea to think about how much and what types of content it's going to house. It's also a good idea to:

• create a few KB Categories in order to group articles that have similar and/or related content, and then
• organize your KB Categories in a hierarchy that has a logical structure and is easy to navigate.

Let's look at creating and organizing Categories before we add articles!

Categories notes

When creating Categories at this point, keep in mind that:

• Category names can be changed
• Categories can be re-organized

So in these early stages, don't be too concerned about giving them the perfect name or getting the structure exactly right.

Organize Categories option

On any published article page:

1. Click Organize Categories in the left margin.
2. On the Organize Categories page, click New Category in the upper right.
3. Specify a name for the Category in the New Category modal and click Save.

📝 NOTE: The new Category displays at the bottom of the list on the Organize Categories page.

Category selector button

On any in-progress (creating or editing) article page:

Click the Category selector button above the article title.

1. On the Category-selector modal, click the New Category folder icon in the lower left.
2. Specify a name for the Category in the New Category modal and click Save.

✔️ TIP: On the Category-selector modal, click the chevron (>) icon to go down one level to create a subcategory.

📝 NOTE: The new Category displays at the bottom of the list.

Organize Categories

You can easily re-arrange your knowledge base Categories in order to keep the structure logical and the articles easier to find.

On any published article page, click Organize Categories in the left margin.

On the Organize Categories page:

• All of the current KB's Categories are listed.
• The names of Categories that have subcategories are bold.
• The names of subcategories that have sub-subcategories are bold.

On this page, you can:

• add Categories,
• move/re-arrange Categories by dragging and dropping them, and
• nest Categories under one another (i.e., create subcategories and sub-subcategories).

📝 NOTE: The drag-&-drop Categories feature is applicable only to Guide-type KBs. The arrangement of Help Centers content is managed by the Layout Options > Sort Articles setting that is discussed above in Create a Knowledge Base.

Add Knowledge Base articles

Vanilla makes it easy to add articles to your knowledge base.

• On the KB Homepage, click the Compose icon.

• On any Category page, click the Compose icon.

• On any article page, click the ellipsis icon and select New Article.

Each of these opens a blank article page; the article will be created in your current location.

⭐️ EXAMPLE: If you are in the Tools Category and start to create an article, the article is created in the Tools Category.

📝 NOTE: Irrespective of where you are when you create an article, you can relocate it (while creating and while editing) by clicking the Category selector button and choosing a different Category.

1. Type or paste the article contents into the editor.

✔️ TIP: See Rich Editor for information on the various formatting options.

2. When you've finished, click Publish in the upper right.

3. Navigate to the host Category and view the article to verify it looks as intended.

Edit a knowledge base article

To edit a knowledge base article:

1. Navigate to and open the article.

2. Click the ellipsis icon and select Edit.

The article opens in edit mode.

3. Make your changes and revisions; click Publish.

🛑 IMPORTANT: The editor does not have a save option. The system auto-saves in-progress article edits every few seconds; this is indicated in the upper left of the editor:

✔️ TIP: Also check out Drafts and revisions below for "good to know" info when editing and publishing articles.

Format your article contents

Vanilla knowledge base articles are created in our Rich Editor. You can use the various formatting options of the Rich Editor to enhance the content of the article. For example, use the:

• simplified button bar to add an emoji, insert an image, insert media, and attach a file where your cursor is positioned.
• text/character format options to apply bold, italic, and add a link to a selected chunk of text.

• paragraph format options to apply headings, create bulleted and numbered lists, and apply special formatting (e.g., quote and code styles) to an entire paragraph.

✔️ TIP: The H2 Heading 2 style acts as a "bookmark." These headings are used to build the on-page "Table of Contents" that displays in the right margin under On This Page.

Drafts and revisions

It's important to remember that when you're creating or editing an article, Vanilla is periodically saving "draft" versions.

• An article (new and edited) will remain in draft mode until it is published.
• Each time an article is edited and then published, a fresh revision is saved.
• Click an article's ellipsis icon and select Revision History to access (and optionally revert to) previously published versions of the article. This option is available in the published version and in edit mode. 

Migrate/Import content

If you have an existing knowledge base that is hosted on another platform, you can migrate/import that KB into the Community Knowledge KB.

Contact the Community Team to discuss further.

Create an article from a community post

It is easy for us to automatically create an article from the content of a community post. When you do this, the post remains in place and is still available for comments, answers, etc., but now a KB article is linked to it.

1. Navigate to the post that you want to convert to a knowledge base article.

2. Click the ellipsis icon and choose Convert to Article.

3. Click Create Article at the confirmation prompt.

4. On the article page, select a Category (see Add Categories above) and click Publish.

The article is linked to the original post.

Translate Knowledge Base articles

We have the option to offer the knowledge base content in different languages, you can easily add translated versions of your KB articles.

To investigate translating KB articles, please contact the Community Team.