Reader signups

To enable reader signups:

1. Select your profile icon/name in the upper right.
2. Select Readers from the dropdown to access the Readers area of your account.
3. Open the Settings tab.
4. Make sure that Password Management is set to "Allow readers to administer their own passwords". See Set up self-administered reader options for more information. If "Passwords can only be managed by KnowledgeOwl admins" is selected, you cannot enable reader signups.
   
   Signups can be used when "Allow readers to administer their own passwords" is selected
5. Scroll down to the Self-Administered Reader Options section.
6. Look for the Reader Signups section.
   Signups can be configured in the Reader Signups portion of Self-Administered Reader Options
7.  To turn on reader signups, check the box next to Allow people to sign up to become a reader.
   Spam protection
   The reader signup page doesn't have its own spam protection settings; it inherits them from the Contact Form. We're working to add a separate setting for this. Until that's released, please make sure you have spam protection turned on in the Contact Form to block spam on your reader signups!
8. If you'd like readers to automatically be given an account as soon as they sign up, leave the box next to Require a KnowledgeOwl admin to approve new reader access unchecked. If you'd like to require admin approval, check this box.
   • If you leave this box unchecked, new reader signups will receive a welcome email with a temporary password immediately after they sign up. This allows new readers to sign up and gain access to your site without any approval process. 
   • If you check this box, a welcome email and password will not be sent until an administrator approves the signup request. New readers won't have any access until an admin has approved them. When a new reader signs up, they will be added to Readers in the Pending Approval list. You will see an alert on top of the Readers list if you have new readers awaiting approval, and you can filter the readers list to only view those pending approval by selecting the "Pending Approval" filter on that page.
   • See Approve Reader Signups for more information.
9. If you'd like to be alerted when new readers sign up, check the box next to Send a notification email when a new reader signs up. Notifications are especially helpful if you want to manually add the reader to groups to give them access to restricted content or you require approval before the new reader can access the site.
10. If you checked the box next to Send notification email when a new reader signs up, be sure to add at least one email address to the Signup Notification Recipients list. These are the email addresses that will receive the signup notifications. To add multiple email addresses, use a comma-separated list.
11. Be sure to Save.

You can customize all of the text in the reader signup form using the Customize Text tool, as well as the signup prompt text and link on the main reader login form.

See Section breakdown: Reader Login for more details on the various text strings you can customize here.

Do you want to capture some additional information besides first name, last name, and email address about your readers? See Add custom fields to the reader signup form!

By default, the reader signup form requires an email, first name, and last name. You can choose to include up to 5 additional fields that will be mapped to reader custom fields 1-5.  These fields will be included in the signup and in your notification emails (if you're using notification emails).

Reader custom fields

To add custom fields to the signup form:

1. Click on your profile icon/name in the upper right.
2. Select Readers from the dropdown to access the Readers area of your account.
3. Open the Settings tab.
4. Scroll down to Reader Signup Custom Fields section.
5. Add labels for each field. The labels are what will be displayed on the signup form next to the field.
6. If you want the field to be displayed in your reader signup form, check the Enabled box.
7. If you want to require the reader to complete this field before they can submit the signup form, check the Required box.
8. Click Save.

For example, in the screenshot above, both the Company Name and Postcode fields will be included, but only the Company Name field will be required.

The custom fields will be added to your signup and will also be included in your notification emails:

Reader signup form with custom fields

When a new reader signs up and you require approval, they will see a message like this:

They will be added to your account's Readers list as pending approval.

If you have signup notifications enabled, the email you receive will have a link in it to approve the reader:

Sample signup notification email with approval link

That will take you directly to step 7 below.

If you aren't using notifications, or if you'd like to complete this step while already logged in to KnowledgeOwl:

1. Click on your profile icon/name in the upper right.
2. Select Readers from the dropdown to access the Readers area of your account.
3. You will see an alert on top of the Readers list if you have new readers awaiting approval:Sample pending approval message
   
4. Click the filter dropdown to select the Pending Approval filter:
   Select the Pending Approval filter from the dropdown
   
5. This will display a list of all readers pending approval:
   Sample Pending Approval filter display
   
6. Click on the reader's login, name, or anywhere else in that row.
7. This will open the reader's details in a new tab.
8. Click on the link that says approve or deny them here:
   Sample approve/deny message in reader details
   
9. Here you can choose to Deny or Approve their access. If you approve them, their reader account will be given access and we will send them the reader welcome email with a temporary password.
   
10. Once you have approved the reader, you can assign them to reader groups in the Reader Groups section.
11. If you do make changes to the reader's details, be sure to Save once you complete those changes.

When a new reader signs up and you require approval, they will see a message like this:

They will be added to your Readers list as pending approval.

You can approve or deny multiple readers at once. To do so:

1. Click on your profile icon/name in the upper right.
2. Select Readers from the dropdown to access the Readers area of your account.
3. You will see an alert on top of the Readers list if you have new readers awaiting approval:Sample pending approval alert
   
4. Click the filter dropdown to select the Pending Approval filter:
   Select the Pending Approval filter from the dropdown
   
5. This will display a list of all readers pending approval:
   
6. Check the boxes next to the readers you'd like to approve or deny.
   1. You can use search here to refine the list, or create a custom reader filter to get at segments of the pending approval readers.
   2. You can also select all readers on the page by using the checkbox in the upper left corner.
      
   3. Once you've selected all readers on the page, if there are multiple pages, you can click the link that appears at the top of the reader list to select all readers in the filter/view.
      
   4. Not sure what you've selected? If you select all readers that match the current filter, the text will change and you'll have the option to Clear selection.
      
7. With your readers selected, click on the Approve or Deny link near the Bulk Edit option to approve or deny these readers.
   
8. When you Approve readers:
   • The knowledge base they requested access to will be listed in the Site Access column.
   • They'll be marked with an Active status and appear in the Active filter.
   • They'll receive a reader welcome email.
9. When you Deny readers:
   • The knowledge base they requested access to will not be listed in the Site Access column.
   • They'll be marked with an Active status and appear in the Active filter.
   • They will receive no email notification of the denial.
   • If the readers have no additional site access, we recommend also Deleting the readers.
10. If you'd like to assign these readers to reader groups or make other changes to their access, we recommend using a bulk reader edit to update them.

If you have reader sign-ups enabled, by default, new reader signups aren't assigned any reader groups. You can create rules to automatically assign readers to groups based on their email domain.

A common use case is to assign all readers with internal email addresses to an internal reader group. For example, Linus likes having a rule that will assign all readers with a knowledgeowl.com email address to the Support reader group, which gives them access to all content restricted to our Support group.

If you're using reader signup, this can help guarantee that new readers get access to the content they need without a KnowledgeOwl admin having to manually review and assign them to the appropriate groups.

To set up Email Rules:

1. Click on your profile icon/name in the upper right.
2. Select Readers from the dropdown to access the Readers area of your account.
3. Open the Groups tab.
4. Select the + Add Rule button.
   Click the + Add Rule button
5. This will open the Auto-Assign Groups By Email Rule pop-up. To set up your rule, include:
   The Auto-Assign Groups by Email Rule pop-up
   1. A Rule Name. This name will appear in the Auto-Assign Groups by Email Rules in Readers > Groups, so it should help describe the rule.
   2. The Email Domain the rule applies to: all readers with this email domain will have this rule applied. It must be an entire domain (such as @knowledgeowl.com, @gmail.com, @yourcompany.com, etc.).
   3. Use the Assign to Groups checkboxes to select the Reader Group(s) that people with that email domain should be assigned to. This list depends on the Reader Groups you've set up in your knowledge base.
6. Click Save Rule to save your changes. Here, we create a rule that will assign all readers with an @knowledgeowl.com email address to the Support group:
   Sample rule which will assign all readers with an @knowledgeowl.com email address to the Support group
7. Your rule will now appear in the Auto-Assign Groups by Email Rules section of Readers > Groups and will be applied to all reader signups from here on out. You can edit it (gear icon) or delete it (trashcan icon) using the icons to the right of the rule.
   Sample rule added to Auto-Assign Groups By Email Rules

By default, rules will only be applied when a new reader first signs up.