Ratings

The Ratings feature is one way for you to capture feedback from your readers about the quality of your content.

Using either a thumbs up/thumbs down or a five-star rating system, with the click of a button readers can rate your content. This lets your readers know you care about their input and helps you make that input actionable.

All ratings are captured in a dashboard so you can see:

• Which articles have been rated
• The total number of ratings each article receives
• The average rating the article receives

This way, you can target low-rated content for improvement, or consider using high-rated content as templates for future content creation.

To get started using ratings:

1. Go to Settings > Article Ratings.
2. Select the Rating Type.
   
   1. You can choose between Thumbs Up / Thumbs Down and 5 Star Rating. Here's how those display in the article itself:
      Sample Thumbs up / Thumbs Down

      Sample 5 Star Rating
3. Once you've configured the Ratings the way you'd like, Save your changes.
   If you'd like to change the text used for the ratings section, go to Tools > Customize Text and select the Article section.
4. Next, be sure that the Rating Merge Code is added where you'd like it in your knowledge base. By default, it's added to the Article template and the Right Column. You don't need to do anything if you're happy with the placement!

If you'd like to make changes to where the rating template is added in the Article template:

1. Go to Settings > Style.
2. Below the preview pane, select Custom HTML.
3. Select Article from the dropdown.
4. Look for the merge code in the footer section. You can cut/paste it anywhere else in the template (or remove it entirely).
   By default, the rating template is placed in the Article footer
5. Save your changes.

If you're using a layout with the Right Column displayed and you'd like to make changes to where the Rating template is displayed:

1. Go to Settings > Style.
2. Below the preview pane, select Custom HTML.
3. Select Right Column from the dropdown.
4. Look for the section with the merge code.
5. If you want to move the Rating section, highlight the entire div with class feedback-panel, cut it from this location, and paste it in somewhere else in the Right Column.
6. If you're happy with the location but just want to change the text, edit the panel-heading text that appears within that div:
   By default, the rating template is placed in the Right Column. You can edit the panel-heading text to change the text displayed
7. Save your changes.

By default, the rating merge code is added to the HTML of all articles.

If you've removed this merge code and want to readd it:

1. Go to Settings > Style.
2. In the Customize HTML, CSS, and JS section, select Custom HTML.
3. Select Article from the Select HTML section to edit dropdown.
4. Copy the merge code below and paste it in wherever you'd like the ratings to appear. (Refer to Default Article HTML to see our default placement directly above the comments template, but put it wherever you'd like.)

   [template("rating")]

5. Be sure to Save your changes.

The merge code will automatically display a title and the rating system you've selected (either the thumbs up/thumbs down or the stars).

To edit the title displayed, head to Tools > Customize Text > Article and update the Article star rating label (if using stars) or Article thumb rating label (if using thumbs). Refer to Section breakdown: Article for more detailed instructions.

By default, the Ratings section displays in all articles.

You can override this behavior in individual articles by selecting the Remove feedback ability option in Display Settings.

But if you'd prefer to have the ratings section only in a small number of specific articles, you can remove the template from your articles overall and then add it only to the articles you want. We recommend using a snippet for this so you don't have to remember the template merge code.

First, let's remove the template from all articles:

1. Go to Settings > Style.
2. In the Customize HTML, CSS, and JS section, select Custom HTML.
3. Select Article from the Select HTML section to edit dropdown.
4. Delete [template("rating")] at or around row 19.
5. Save your changes.

Now let's create a snippet that contains the template so you can add it to the articles you'd like:

1. Go to Library > Snippets.
2. Select + Create New Snippet. If you're not familiar with creating snippets, refer to Creating a snippet.
3. Enter a Snippet Name, like Article Rating section.
4. Enter a Snippet Description, like Add this snippet to articles to display the ratings section.
5. Select the Snippet Content dropdown and select Code Editor.
   
6. Copy the code below and paste it into the code editor:

   [template("rating")]

7. Select Create to finish creating your snippet.

Now you can insert the snippet into the bottom of any article where you want the ratings section displayed.

You can obtain a report on article ratings from Reporting -> Dashboard.

Sample Article Ratings report

The Article Ratings report displays all articles and categories that have received a rating. It allows for sorting. The layout will look a little different depending on which rating scale you've selected:

• Thumbs Up / Down displays a column for each
• Star Rating displays the average rating out of 5 stars

Articles are displayed with the full title; categories are displayed with a folder to the left of the full title.

You can reset ratings for individual articles or your entire knowledge base: see Reset article ratings for complete instructions!

The table will show 10 articles at a time; to view the full list at once, use the Export to CSV link next to the Article Ratings header.

Once you're using article ratings, there may be times when you want to be able to reset an article back to zero ratings. This might be:

• When you publish a new version, to ensure that all ratings apply only to the latest version.
• On a set schedule, depending on your quality control processes.

From Reporting > Dashboard, you can delete all article ratings:

• For an individual article
• For all articles' ratings, ever

Our default Editor role has permission to reset article ratings. If you're using a custom author role, that role must have the Dashboard Permissions to Reset individual article ratings and Reset all article ratings, respectively.

Delete an individual article's ratings

To delete all ratings for an individual article:

1. Go to Reporting > Dashboard.
2. In the Article Ratings Report, find the article whose ratings you'd like to reset.
3. Click the Reset Ratings trashcan in the row of that article.
   Click the Reset Ratings trashcan to delete all ratings. Here, we're deleting them for Contact form overview.
4. This will open a pop-up which will confirm the name of the article whose ratings you're trying to reset. Be sure the article named there matches what you're looking for. If it does, click OK.
   Be sure the title listed in "Delete all ratings for...?" is the correct article before clicking OK.
5. The ratings will be removed from the dashboard as well as the Export to CSV option in the dashboard.

Delete all articles' ratings

To delete all ratings for all articles:

1. Go to Reporting > Dashboard.
2. In the Article Ratings Report, click the Delete All link in the upper right.
   Click the Delete All link
3. This will open a pop-up which will confirm the number of articles whose ratings you are resetting. If you wish to continue, click OK. This action cannot be undone.
   The confirmation pop-up will confirm the total number of articles whose ratings will be deleted
4. The ratings will be removed from the dashboard as well as the Export to CSV option in the dashboard.

You can check the box next to Remove feedback ability in the Restrictions section of the editor to disable ratings in individual articles.

But if you'd like to remove ratings completely from your knowledge base:

1. Go to Settings > Style.
2. Below the Preview pane, be sure Custom HTML is selected.
3. Select Article from the Custom HTML dropdown.
4. Scroll to the bottom of the HTML. Find the line that contains [template("rating")]:
   
5. Delete that line completely. Your HTML should look something like this now:
   
6. Be sure to Save your changes.