Help Center
DocsAuthoring & Verifying KB Articles
Write, review, publish, and keep knowledge base articles trustworthy
The Knowledge section of the Service hub is your team's internal knowledge base. A category rail on the left files articles into a tree you build yourself, and the list beside it shows each article's title, status, visibility, verification, owner, tags, views, and last update. Agents can pull articles into a ticket reply from the Inbox context panel, which makes the knowledge base a deflection engine, not just a wiki.
Finding an article
- Search articles: the search box above the list matches article titles as you type.
- Filters: Status, Owner, Verification, Visibility, and Health each narrow the list, and each one shows the value it is filtering by.
- Hide sample articles: a switch that drops the seeded example articles out of the list while you work with your own.
- The category rail: All articles clears the category, No category shows the articles that were never filed, and every category row filters to itself.
- Sorting and paging: the Title, Views, and Updated headings sort the list when you click them; the pager sits under it.
All of that lives in the address bar, so the link you copy reopens the same view for a teammate, and Back to articles puts you back on the list exactly as you left it. The browser tab now names the article or the view you are on, so several tabs open at once no longer read the same.
Create a category
New category at the top of the rail opens a name field in place. Type the name and press Enter, or use Save; Cancel and the Escape key both abandon it.
Create a subcategory
Each category row carries its own New subcategory control. The name field opens under that row, and the new category is filed inside it, so the tree is built from the row you are looking at rather than from a separate form. Rename and delete controls sit on the same row. A delete is refused while the category still holds anything: The category must be empty first.
Move a category
Move into… opens the Move category dialog, which lists every other category plus Move to top level. A category that already holds articles or subcategories cannot be moved inside another one, and the dialog says so before you choose: “Cannot reparent a category that contains articles or subcategories”. Moving that same category to the top level is still allowed, so a full category is never stuck where it is.
Articles are written in a block editor. Type / to open the slash menu and insert a block: Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, Bulleted list, Numbered list, Code block, Callout, Divider, Link, Image, Insert snippet, or Insert variable. Keep typing to filter the menu, the arrow keys move through it, Enter inserts the highlighted block, and Escape closes it and leaves your text alone. Images are scanned for malware before they upload, and all content is sanitized when it is saved and again when it is rendered, so a pasted script can never run.
Select text and a small formatting toolbar appears over it with Bold, Italic, and Add link. On text that is already a link, the same toolbar shows the address it points at, plus Edit link and Remove link. Only web addresses are accepted; anything else is refused with “Use a link that starts with http or https.”
Adding an image
- Choosing Image from the slash menu opens your file picker.
- Images must be under 10MB. A larger file is refused before anything is uploaded, so you are not left waiting to be told no.
- One image uploads at a time, and the editor names the file it is working on while it goes.
- When the upload lands, Describe this image asks What does this image show? before the picture is placed, so a reader hears a real description instead of a camera filename. Insert image places it. Leave the field empty if the image is decorative, which is a real answer and better than a filename read aloud.
- If you close that prompt, the upload is not lost: Describe the image reopens it and Discard throws it away.
- If an upload fails, one line says so and nothing is added to the article; Retry sends the same file again.
Changes save automatically. The line beside the title says whether the article is saving or saved, and a save that fails offers Try again without disturbing what you are writing.
Reusable content, shared values, and the links that keep articles honest.
Authoring aids
- Snippets: reusable blocks of content. New snippet in the Snippets panel takes a name and the content it inserts; the field takes HTML, basic formatting is kept, anything unsafe is removed on save, and a Preview under the field shows what will land. Insert one with Insert snippet. Deleting a snippet leaves the copies already inserted in articles alone.
- Variables: merge fields that fill in a shared value, such as a support address or a product name. New variable takes a key, a value, and an optional note; insert its token with Insert variable. Changing the value updates every article at once. Renaming one asks first, because articles that already use the old token keep it and it reads literally from then on.
- Linked records: in the article's side panel, link the article to a product, a company, or a quote so it stays connected to what it describes. Those links are what flag the article for review when the record behind it changes.
- Autosave: your work saves after a brief pause in typing, with a clear saving or saved indicator. You will not lose a draft.
The panel beside the editor holds Workflow (the current status and the moves you can make), Visibility, Category, Details (Owner, Reviewer, Next review, and Verification), and Linked records. Under them sit two controls: Preview and Revision history.
- Visibility is a separate decision from publishing. Internal means only your team can read it. Public means customers can read it on your Help Center, in the help widget, and in AI Customer Support Agent replies, but only once it is published and verified.
- Category files the article in the rail and in the public Help Center grid. No category is a legal state; those articles land in the Help Center's other-articles group.
- Reviewer is who gets notified when the article is submitted for review. Leave it empty and the move still happens, but nobody is told, which the panel says in one line rather than doing quietly.
- Preview shows the article as a reader sees it, built from what is in the editor right now rather than from the last save. Its first line names the audience, and if a merge variable has no value yet it says so, because a reader would see the raw token instead of a value.
Every article has a workflow status. The Workflow section of the panel shows only the legal next steps for the current status and your permissions, so the path is always clear:
- Draft: the article is being written. Visible only to authors and editors.
- Under review: submitted for a reviewer to check.
- Needs revision: the reviewer sent it back with changes to make.
- Approved: the reviewer signed off.
- Published: live and available to your team.
- Archived: retired from the main view. Can be restored later.
When a move exists but is not yours to make, the panel says which permission it needs and who the assigned reviewer is, instead of offering a control that would only be refused.
Revision history opens the list of versions: Every save creates a version. Restoring adds a new forward revision. Choosing Restore on a version does not write anything yet. It expands that row into a preview of what the version holds, with Restore this version and Close preview under it, and asks you to confirm before it acts. The confirmation says what it will do: the version replaces the title and body in the editor, including edits you have not saved yet, and the current version is kept in history so you can restore back to it. Revisions are append-only, so the record of who changed what is never lost.
Published does not always mean current. The verification layer adds a second signal: whether a subject-matter expert has confirmed the article is still accurate.
Verify an article
A user with both the KB verify and KB edit permissions gets a Verify now control in the article's Details section. The article then shows a green Verified by {name} · {date} badge so readers know it has been checked. Where the permission is missing the control is not offered at all, and a refusal from the server says why rather than reading as a network blip.
Set a review interval
Choose how often the article should be re-checked. When the next-review date passes, the article is flagged as stale and the verified badge turns into an amber Needs verification warning.
Re-verify when prompted
Stale articles surface in Content health with their own Verify now action, so nothing quietly rots out of date. When an article is flagged stale, its owner also gets a notification, a quiet one in the bell rather than a per-article email, and the article shows up in My Work so re-verifying it is a task you can clear, not an alert you have to remember.
Content health in the toolbar groups articles into five buckets, each with its own definition on screen:
- Stale: past their review date.
- Never updated: unchanged since creation.
- Low rated: more “not helpful” than helpful.
- Zero views: never opened.
- Flagged: a linked record changed.
Each bucket carries an approximate count, marked as approximate because it is an estimate, and lists the most urgent articles first. When there are more than the list can show, a line under it says how many are on screen and repeats that the count is an estimate, so a bucket that barely moves after a morning of verifying is not a sign that something is broken. Every row offers Open to review, and Verify now where you hold the permission for it.
Readers answer Was this helpful? with Yes or No at the foot of every article, and those votes plus the view counts are what fill the Low rated and Zero views buckets.