Readers overview

A reader is anyone who can view your knowledge base. You can have unlimited readers for your knowledge bases. You can also create Reader Groups to segment readers and show different content to different readers.

KnowledgeOwl authors with Full Admin Access or Admin access to readers admin rights can view and edit reader accounts.

You can view a complete list of all your readers:

  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.

Sample Readers page

Here's an orientation of the page and its functions:

  1. The Readers tab displays a list of all your readers.
  2. The Groups tab displays your reader groups. Here, you can create, edit, delete, and reorder your reader groups. You can also set any Auto-assign groups by email rules you'd like to use for those groups if you aren't using Single Sign-On (SSO).
  3. The Settings tab displays the account-wide settings for readers, including setting password complexity, whether readers' passwords are admin managed or self-administered, set up self-administered reader options like sign-up and approval, customize the reader email templates (including welcome and password reset), and configure custom SMTP to send those emails from.
  4. The filter dropdown allows you to select different Standard filters for your readers, and will display any Custom filters you've created. These filter selections are reflected in the Export Readers to CSV functionality, too. The app will remember the last filter you viewed. The Standard filters are:
    • Active (the initial default): shows all non-deleted readers in your account, regardless of login method
    • Pending Approval: displays readers who have signed up for access to your knowledge base; only relevant for accounts using reader signups requiring approval. See Approve new reader signups for information on approving readers.
    • SSO Readers: displays all readers who are designated as authenticating through a Single Sign-On (SSO) integration
    • Non-SSO Readers: displays all readers not designated as authenticating through an SSO integration (passwords and group membership are managed within KnowledgeOwl directly)
    • Deleted: will show you all the deleted readers in your account
  5. Use the Create new filter button to create new custom filters.
  6. Use the Import Readers from Spreadsheet button to import a spreadsheet to create multiple new reader accounts at once.
  7. Use the Add Single Reader button to create a reader.
  8. Use the Search to search within the selected filter, which will further refine the list of readers to match your search term.
  9. Check the box next to a reader and click the Edit link to edit that reader's account. (You can also just click the reader's row in the table.)
  10. Check the box next to multiple readers and click the Bulk Edit link to edit readers' group membership in bulk.
  11. Check the box next to one or more readers with Pending Approval and click the Approve link to approve their access request(s).
  12. Check the box next to one or more readers with Pending Approval and click the Deny link to deny their access request(s).
  13. Check the box next to one or more readers and click the Delete link to delete those readers.
  14. Use the Export Readers to CSV to export the current displayed list of readers to a CSV file. This can be useful for auditing who has access to which knowledge bases, and so forth.
  15. Use the Purge Deleted Readers link to permanently wipe all record of Deleted reader accounts. Only Full Admin Access authors or authors with both the Admin access to readers and Admin ability to purge readers rights will see this option.
  16. Use the Readers per page controls to change how many readers are displayed on each page of the table.
  17. Use the checkboxes to the left of the reader accounts to make selections, or use the checkbox in the header row to select all readers on the current page / all in the current filter.
  18. The Login column displays the reader's username/email. You can click to sort this alphabetically.
  19. The Name column displays the reader's Last Name, First Name. You can click to sort this alphabetically.
  20. The Site Access column displays the knowledge bases that this reader has access to.
  21. The Groups column displays the reader groups this reader belongs to.
  22. The Last Activity column shows the last time the reader was active in your knowledge base.