Article settings

Every article has its Full Article Title, which is what displays at the top of your article. There is also an optional short title, which is used in the table of contents.

Sometimes, you need a place to leave notes for other authors (or yourself) that isn't the Version Notes field. This might include notes on who the subject matter expert is, or that if you update this article, you should also update another article, or some type of quality control note (such as Article Confidence levels if you use KCS).

This type of note is exactly what we designed the Internal Note field for.

Internal notes:

• Are notes you want front-and-center when you or other content creators are editing a given article or category.
• Are displayed only in app.knowledgeowl.com, not to your readers.
• Accept very simple HTML markup, so you can include hyperlinks and lists.
• Will be displayed at the top of ALL versions of the article.
• Are available in the Manage Articles CSV export.
• If used in a template article, will be copied to new articles created from that template.
• If in an existing article, will be copied when a new article is created from that existing article.

Our default Editor and Writer roles can add, edit, and remove internal notes. If you're using custom author roles, you can add each of these permissions independently using the Internal Note Permissions options. Authors who do not have no permissions to create, edit, or delete internal notes will still be able to see internal notes created by other authors who do. Authors with only some permissions can only see the options they have permissions to use.

Add an internal note

To add an internal note:

1. Click the Add Internal Note link to the right of the title:
   
   Click Add Internal Note
2. Add the HTML you want to use for your note. If you're just putting in regular sentences, you don't need to add HTML, but you can use it for formatting lists, hyperlinks, and so on.
3. Select the style you want to use for your note from the dropdown; we default to Alert Info. Here, we've added a one-line note and selected the Alert Warning style.
   
   Sample Create Internal Note pop-up. Click Create Note to add it.
4. Select Create Note.
5. This creates the note and displays it using the style you selected between the title and the editor. You do not need to resave the article itself for the note to be saved.
   
   Sample Internal Note from the configuration used above

Edit an internal note

Once an internal note exists, you can edit it to make updates. To do so:

1. Click the Edit Note link that appears just above the note:
   
   Click the Edit Note link
2. Edit the HTML or change the style as you'd like. Once you're done making changes, select Edit Note to save your changes. Here, we've added a more complex note with a list:
   
   Sample edited internal note HTML. Click Edit Note to save the edit.
3. The note updates immediately based on the changes you made. You do not need to resave the article or category itself for the note to be saved.
   
   Sample Internal Note displayed based on the HTML in the previous step

Delete an internal note

To delete an internal note completely:

1. Click the Remove Note link that appears just above the note:
   
   Click the Remove Note link
2. A confirmation window will pop-up to be sure you want to delete the note. Select OK to delete the note.
   
   Click OK to delete the note
3. The note is deleted immediately; you do not need to resave the article or category for the deletion to complete.

What HTML is supported in internal notes?

We've kept these notes pretty lean. They will support HTML:

• Paragraph <p>
• Numbered list <ol>
• Bulleted list <ul>
• List items <li>
• Hyperlinks <a href="www.mylink.com">Link text</a>
• Bold text <b> or <strong>
• Italics <i>
• Paragraph breaks <br>
• Headers, e.g. <h1>

For each article, besides adding a short title to be used in the table of contents, you can also add an internal title. Internal titles are used only within app.knowledgeowl.com - they aren't things your readers see when viewing the knowledge base.

Internal titles can be useful when you have a lot of articles with very similar names, just in different categories, and you want to be sure you're selecting the correct article when you use:

• The Insert Link to Article option in Modern Editor
• The Related Articles section

They can also be useful when you want to call an article one thing to your readers, and something else to your content contributors.

Sample internal article title. Readers will see "It's owl good" as the title, but within app.knowledgeowl.com, the article appears as "Search announcement".

KnowledgeOwl displays the internal title instead of the full article title in these places within app.knowledgeowl.com:

• The Articles hierarchy
• The Find Articles search in the lower left corner
• The Manage Articles interface (search and article list)
• The Manage Articles CSV export > Customizations > Internal Title column
• The Insert Link to Article pop-up/search
• The Related Articles search
• The Add Article > Copy from existing search
• The Add Article > Share content from an existing article search
• If the article is a shared content article, the internal title will be used in the shared content messages in the editor

To add an internal title:

1. With the article open in the editor, click the Add Internal Title link to the right of Full Article Title.
2. Enter the title you want to use in the Internal Article Title box that appears.
3. Select Save.

You can remove an internal title using the Remove Internal Title link in the editor.

All articles have a status. You can manually change the publishing status by selecting a new status in the Publishing Status dropdown, then saving the article. 

The six statuses available are:

• Draft (default status for newly created articles)
• Ready to Publish
• Rejected Draft
• Published
• Needs Review
• Deleted

Draft

An article in Draft status is not visible to readers. This is the default status when you create a new article.

Ready to Publish | Rejected Draft

The Ready to Publish and Rejected Draft statuses are optional statuses, supporting your documentation editing and review workflow. Both of these statuses keep the article hidden from readers, like a Draft.

As an example, some articles need to be approved before being published. You can switch the status to Ready to Publish once it is ready for approval. The approver then reviews the article, and either changes the status to Publish if approved, or switches it to Rejected Draft if it still needs work.

Published

A Published article is visible to anyone with access to your knowledge base, unless you have restricted it to specific reader groups. Refer to Reader Groups for more information.

Needs Review

A Needs Review article is still visible in your knowledge base. You can view all articles with the Needs Review status in Knowledge Base > Manage. This status is a great way of keeping your knowledge base up to date and relevant. You can regularly check for articles that require review, update them if necessary, and switch them back to Published status.

To set an article to Needs Review, you can:

• Manually set an article's status to Needs Review as a reminder to review it. 
• Configure your knowledge base to automatically switch published articles to Needs Review if the article hasn't been updated within a specified period of time:
  1.  Go to Settings > Basic.
  2. In Editor Settings, select Automatically set articles to "Needs Review" if older than the below date.
  3. Enter the time period. For example, select "6" in the first dropdown, and "Months" in the second, to set the time period to six months.
  4. Select Save to update your settings.

Deleted

Deleted articles are not visible on your knowledge base. You can access them by navigating to Knowledge Base > Manage > Deleted.

If you'd like to publish a new article, there are several ways you can do so:

1. You can edit the article directly to change the Publishing status to Published.
2. You can bulk edit several articles at once in Knowledge Base > Manage, to publish them all at once.
3. You can schedule the article to be published at a future day/time. This option is detailed more below.

Any article that is in an unpublished state (does not have a publishing status of "Published" or "Needs Review") will have the option to Schedule to Be Published in the article editor, just below the Publishing Status dropdown:

Sample Schedule to Be Published link

Using this option will prompt you to select a future day and time for the publication. Articles that are scheduled for publication will display an alert across the top of the editor letting you know what/when they've been scheduled and offering an option for you to remove them from the schedule.

Schedule an article for publication

To schedule an article for publication:

1. Open the article you'd like to schedule in the editor.
2. In the upper right, just below the Publishing Status dropdown, select the link to Schedule to Be Published. (You won't see this option if the article is already Published or in a Needs Review status.)
3. This will open a pop-up where you can complete your scheduling details.
4. First, use the date picker select the date you'd like your article to be published on. This must be at least one day in the future, but you can schedule as far out as you'd like.
   
5. Once you select the date, the date picker will disappear.
6. The time picker will automatically pick the nearest earlier hour to your current time, in US Eastern time zone. To adjust the time, click or select the time box and select the time you'd like. All times are in U.S. Eastern time. Actual publication generally occurs 10-15 minutes after the selected hour.
   
7. Once you have the date and time selected, click the Schedule button to complete the schedule.
   
8. Once your schedule is added, the editor displays an alert across the top with the details of the schedule, and an option to remove this article from that schedule. You can consider this your confirmation that the schedule is complete:
   

If you notice an error in your schedule, or you'd like to remove it, you can use that Remove from schedule link to start over. See Edit or remove an article's scheduled publication or archival for more information.

How publication schedules work

When the day and hour arrives, we run a scheduled job in the background to process your scheduled articles. Typically you'll see the scheduled article publish around :10 or :15 after the hour you selected.

What you can expect to see:

• The status will change to Published.
• The Published Date will automatically update to use the date you scheduled the publication.
• The Last Modified date will update when the schedule has run.
• If you added a New or Updated callout, it will display when the article is published. (As long as the callout's expiration date isn't in the past!)
• If you use webhooks, the article.statuschange and article.publish webhooks should update to reflect the change.
• If you use Subscriptions and included a New or Updated callout, this article will be included in your next scheduled subscription notification email. (As long as the callout's expiration date hasn't passed!)

If you'd like to archive an existing article, there are several ways you can do so:

1. You can edit the article directly to change the Publishing status to Archived.
2. You can bulk edit several articles at once in Knowledge Base > Manage, to archive them all at once.
3. You can schedule the article to be archived at a future day/time. This option is detailed more below.

Any article that is in a non-archived status will have the option to Schedule to Be Archived in the article editor, just below the Publishing Status dropdown:

Sample Schedule to Be Archived link

If the article is in an unpublished state, you'll also see a Schedule to Be Published link here. Using the Schedule to Be Archived option will prompt you to select a future day and time for archival. Articles that are scheduled for archival will display an alert across the top of the editor letting you know what/when they've been scheduled and offering an option for you to remove them from the schedule.

Schedule an article for archival

To schedule an article for archival

1. Open the article you'd like to schedule in the editor.
2. In the upper right, just below the Publishing Status dropdown, select the link to Schedule to Be Archived. (If the article is in an unpublished state, you will also see a Scheduled to Be Published link. Be sure you select the correct one!)
3. This will open a pop-up where you can complete your scheduling details.
4. First, use the date picker select the date you'd like your article to be archived on. This must be at least one day in the future, but you can schedule as far out as you'd like.
   
5. Once you select the date, the date picker will disappear.
6. The time picker will automatically pick the nearest earlier hour to your current time, in US Eastern time zone. To adjust the time, click or select the time box and select the time you'd like. All times are in U.S. Eastern time. Actual archival generally occurs 10-15 minutes after the selected hour.
   
7. Once you have the date and time selected, click the Schedule button to complete the schedule.
   
8. Once your schedule is added, the editor displays an alert across the top with the details of the schedule, and an option to remove this article from that schedule. You can consider this your confirmation that the schedule is complete:
   

If you notice an error in your schedule, or you'd like to remove it, you can use that Remove from schedule link to start over. See Edit or remove an article's scheduled publication or archival for more information.

How archival schedules work

When the day and hour arrives, we run a scheduled job in the background to process your scheduled articles. Typically you'll see the scheduled article archive around :10 or :15 after the hour you selected.

What you can expect to see:

• The status will change to Archived, and the article will no longer be available in your live knowledge base. See Publishing status for more details on the Archived status.
• The Last Modified date will update when the schedule has run.
• If you use webhooks, the article.statuschange and article.archive webhooks should update to reflect the change.

If you've scheduled an article to be published or scheduled an article to be archived, the only way to edit that schedule is to remove it entirely and create a new one.

You might also want to remove the article's schedule completely.

In both situations, you'll first need to remove the existing schedule. To do so:

1. Open the article in the article editor.
2. Look for an alert at the top of the editor that provides details on the scheduled archival/publication. The wording is slightly different for each, but the format is the same.
3. In that scheduled alert, select the Remove from schedule option:
   Remove from schedule alert in an article scheduled to be published
   Remove from schedule alert in an article scheduled to be archived
   
4. This will automatically remove the scheduled archival or publication from the article.
5. If you'd like to set a new schedule, you can follow the steps to add one. See Schedule an article to be published and Schedule an article to be archived, respectively.

KnowledgeOwl gives you the option to mark your articles as New or Updated. These options add a New or Updated badge callout in various places in your knowledge base. This is a great way to visually let your readers know about new content as well as any changes to existing content!

You can also let your readers know if your article contains Video Content:

Setup

By default, all New and Updated callouts will expire in one week.

You can change the default used across your knowledge base:

1. Go to Settings > Basic.
2. Scroll to the Editor Settings section.
3. Change the Article Callout dropdowns to set the number and measure of your choice. (Options include numbers 1-12 and durations of days, week, or months.)
4. Save your changes.

This will update the default date that gets generated whenever a call out is added; authors can manually edit/override that date. See Basic Settings for more information.

Using call outs

To add callouts:

1. Open your article for editing.
2. Select the callout(s) you want from the Article Call Outs menu:

   

3. For New or Updated status, a Status Expiration date will be automatically added based on your knowledge base's settings. Once the status expires, the call out is automatically removed from the article.
   • You can override the date manually in the editor by clicking in the date field and using the date picker that appears.
4. Save your article. The call out is immediately visible to your readers.

KnowledgeOwl allows you to set restriction for specific articles. The Restrictions options are available in the right hand column of the article editor:

Available article Restrictions

The available restrictions are:

1. Exclude from search results: when this box is checked, the article is always hidden from your knowledge base search results but is still accessible by URL.
2. Hide from table of contents: this hides the article from the table of contents. If you're using the Contextual Help Widget 2.0, it also hides the article from the Knowledge tab in that widget.
3. Hide from home page / category landing page: this hides the article from the landing page for the category it's found in.
4. Hide from article lists: this hides the article from the home page/right hand column New Articles List, Popular Articles List, and Updated Articles List. It doesn't hide the article from the Recent Articles List.
5. Remove "PDF" icon: this option removes the PDF download icon from the article. (This might be a good idea for video content, for example.)
6. Remove feedback ability: this option removes the Ratings section in the article.
7. Remove comment ability: this option removes the Comments section from the article.

You can use the Old Links feature to 301 redirect retired permalinks and articles to a new location. You have two options for using old links:

• Enabling a setting so that when you change a permalink and save the article or category, we will prompt you to automatically add the previous permalink as an old link
• Adding old links manually

Here, we talk about how to enable automatic permalink detection/old link updates.

With this setting enabled, if you edit an article or category to change its permalink, when you click the Save button in the editor, you'll be prompted to add the permalink you just removed as an Old Link. If you click Yes, we'll automatically add the Old Link for you. We recommend turning this feature on, as it can make it much easier to add Old Links.

To do so:

1. Go to Settings > Basic.
2. Go to the Editor Settings section.
3. Check the box next to Automatically prompt to create a redirect link when changing the content's current permalink.
   
4. Save your changes.

With this enabled, once you edit a permalink in an article or category and click the editor Save button, you'll see a pop-up like this, asking if you'd like to add the previous permalink as an old link:

Clicking Yes will automatically add the old link for you.

Clicking No will leave the old links as they are.

You can use the old links feature to 301 redirect retired permalinks and articles to a new location. You have two options for using old links:

• Enabling a setting so that when you change a permalink and save the article or category, we will prompt you to automatically add the previous permalink as an old link
• Adding old links manually

Here, we'll show you how to manually add an Old Link.

To manually add old links:

1. Open the article or category in the editor.
2. Click on the Old Links hyperlink at the top of the editor.
   
3. Specify the old permalinks that should redirect to this new article.
   
4. Click on the Update Redirects button to save those redirects.
5. Save your article or category in the editor.

For old link redirects referencing a separate article (the first use case below), the old link articles you want to redirect need to be in an unpublished status--either Draft or Deleted.

Use cases

Old links let you redirect permalinks for old/outdated links to a current article. There are two primary use cases for old links:

1. When you've written a new article that "replaces" an existing article.
2. When you've updated an article's permalink due to title or content changes.

Let's look at each of these in turn.

Replacing an existing article

Linus, our trusty owl, has written an article called Giving a hoot about knowledge, and the permalink was something like:

https://support.knowledgeowl.com/help/giving-a-hoot-about-knowledge

After that article was published, his marketing team used that permalink in a public blog post on owls and wisdom.

Now, let's suppose that Linus has since written a new and better version of this content called Docs or it didn't happen:

https://support.knowledgeowl.com/help/docs-or-it-didnt-happen

But Linus isn't sure all the places out in the wide world that referenced that giving a hoot article. And what if it was so brilliant that other people also referenced it, linked to it, or bookmarked it?

Old links to the rescue! Instead of trying to track down every instance of the original permalink for Giving a hoot about knowledge, Linus can set Giving a hoot about knowledge to a deleted status and enter the giving-a-hoot url as an old link for Docs or it didn't happen. When people try to go to the giving-a-hoot URL, we'll auto-redirect them to docs-or-it-didnt-happen instead.

Updated permalink

In other cases, maybe Linus didn't write an entirely new article but, instead, he changed the title on an existing article and wants to change the permalink, too. Let's say Linus has an article whose permalink has always been this:

https://support.knowledgeowl.com/help/a-hooting-good-time

But that permalink was generated from the article's old title (A Hooting Good Time). When Linus updated this article to a new version,  he renamed it to "Why Knowledge Management Matters." He wants to update the permalink to:

https://support.knowledgeowl.com/help/why-km-matters

But he also want any links or bookmarks to a-hooting-good-time to still work.

First, Linus can edit the current permalink to why-km-matters.

Then, he adds an old link to a-hooting-good-time so that the old URL will automatically redirect to why-km-matters:

Once Linus clicks Save Redirects and re-saves the article, anyone visiting  

https://support.knowledgeowl.com/help/a-hooting-good-time

will be redirected to

https://support.knowledgeowl.com/help/why-km-matters

In a nutshell, old links are here to make it easier for you to keep older/public article permalinks but have them point to the most recent relevant content.

Search phrases can help your readers discover your content.

When to use search phrases

Search phrases are useful in the following situations:

• You've configured your knowledge base search to weight search phrases to rank higher than other fields. This allows you to artificially boost an article up the search results list. Refer to Search weights for more information on configuring search weights. For example:
  You have three articles about taming owls: "Introduction to owl taming", "Best owl breeds for taming", and "Dangers of owl taming". The default search places "Dangers of owl taming" at the top of the results when readers search for "owl taming". You want your readers to start with the introduction (and not be scared off!) You can configure your search settings to favor search phrases, then add the phrase "owl taming" in the Search Phrases field in the "Introduction to owl taming" article.
• You want readers to find the article when they search for a phrase or term that doesn't occur in the content itself. However, you should consider using the Synonyms feature for this use case.

Adding individual search phrases

1. Open the article for editing.
2. Type the term or phrase you want to use in the Search Phrases field. 
3. Press Enter or Tab to add the phrase. You can now type another phrase, or save the article.
   

Adding multiple search phrases at once

You will need to have your search phrases in a comma-separated list, formatted like: phrase1,phrase 2,phrase3,phrase four.

1. Open the article for editing.
2. Paste your comma-separated list of searches in the Search Phrases field. 
3. Press Enter or Tab to add the phrases. You can now type additional phrases, or save the article.
   Here, we're copying the tags field and pasting it into the search phrases field (this is not a best practice, but it does allow you to see the functionality!):