If your knowledge base has subscriptions enabled, readers can subscribe to categories to receive email notifications when:
- New articles are added to the category
- Existing articles in the category are updated
Subscription notification emails go out using your own SMTP server, so you can configure the "From" email address and name and guarantee that these emails are seen as coming from a non-spam source.
Subscription notification email schedule
You can choose whether to send subscription notification emails on a weekly or daily schedule, at a time of your choice. All subscribed readers will receive notifications at the same time.
Notifications for multiple categories are bundled into a single email, so your readers don't have to worry about getting multiple notification emails every scheduled day.
Articles included in subscription notification emails
The power is in your hands. Articles are only included in subscription notifications if they have a New or Updated article callout:
So you can make as many small edits for typos, grammar, etc., without triggering a notification. Once you set the New/Updated callout and save the article, it will be included in the next scheduled notification.
Does a reader need to be logged in to subscribe?
By default, subscriptions are only enabled for logged-in readers. If you have a mixture of public content and restricted content that readers must log in to access, only logged-in readers will see the subscribe button. They'll see that option for all categories of content--public and restricted alike.
If you have a public knowledge base, or a mixture of public and restricted content and you want public readers to be able to subscribe to public categories, you can opt to enable public subscriptions. This will display the Subscribe button for anyone who visits your knowledge base--logged in or not. If you want to use public subscriptions and you're using your own private domain (such as help.my-amazing-company.com rather than my-amazing-kb.knowledgeowl.com), you'll need to set up Spam protection for these public subscriptions.
Who controls subscriptions?
Individual readers choose which categories to subscribe or unsubscribe from. Readers can unsubscribe at any time.
Knowledge base administrators choose the email schedule (weekly vs. daily) and time.
Authors determine which emails are included in notification emails by adding the New/Updated callout.
The SMTP settings determine the "From" email address and name.
How do readers subscribe to categories?
When subscriptions are enabled, category landing pages have a Subscribe button to the right of the category title. Readers can click that to subscribe to the category.
You can also opt to include subscribe buttons in your table of contents.
Subscribe buttons will not automatically show up in Custom Content categories. They'll need to be explicitly added.
What do subscription notification emails look like?
By default, the subject line will look like: [[Knowledge Base Name]] Update for [[date]]
So if you subscribe to our KnowledgeOwl Support knowledge base, you'll get email notifications that say: KnowledgeOwl Support Update for February 18th.
For each category with activity, you'll see a list of New articles, followed by a list of Updated articles. Links will take you directly to the articles:
Sample subscription notification email, with three New and one Updated article
