Sync behavior in shared content categories

The shared content category allows you to pull in and sync the content from a category in a separate knowledge base. You must have access to both knowledge bases to set up this kind of category.

This category type is useful when you are maintaining separate knowledge bases and have content that needs to be shared between them.

The original category is called the parent, and the synced category is called the child.

Syncing behavior for the category itself

Nearly all details of the category itself sync between the two knowledge bases, including:

• Full Category Title
• Short Title
• Internal title
• Category Icon
• Category Description
• Category Type
• Category type-specific display options
• Table of contents options and display
• Reader group restrictions
• Author team restrictions
• Title Tag
• Meta Description

The only details which don't sync between the categories in the two knowledge bases are:

• Internal note
• Tags (topic display and custom content categories only)
• Search phrases (topic display and custom content categories only)
• Thumbnail (topic display and custom content categories only)
• Banner (topic display and custom content categories only)

Syncing behavior for articles within the category

Some content automatically syncs when changed in either the parent or child, while other actions don't result in synced content:

• When you add new content to the parent category using + Add > Article or + Add > Subcategory, KnowledgeOwl automatically adds it to the child and syncs the content.
• When you add new content to the child category, it's not added to the parent and not synced.
• Updating a synced article in either the parent or child updates the content in both knowledge bases, so you only need to maintain one set of articles.
• Content that is moved into the parent (for example, by dragging and dropping an article in the content menu) does not automatically appear in the child category.
• When you delete a synced article in the parent, it's also deleted from the child.
• Delete synced content from the child without affecting the parent.

Refer to Synced article behavior in shared content categories for a detailed list of what information is and isn't synced in articles within shared content categories. Refer to Behavior when you create new or delete content in a synced category for a more detailed explanation of the difference between creating and deleting content in parent and child categories.

The editing permissions for synced category content are also a bit different:

• Users with access to the parent knowledge base can edit content synced to other knowledge bases even if they don't have direct access to those knowledge bases.
• Users with access to child knowledge bases are only able to edit synced content from another knowledge base if they have access to the parent knowledge base.

This allows you to control edits to the synced content by controlling who can edit the parent.