Knowledge base settings

Your knowledge base settings control how your knowledge base looks and functions. Access them to enable your knowledge base, create a homepage, configure access, and more.

Customization admins can navigate to Settings ⚙️ -> Account -> Knowledge bases and click a knowledge base's name to access its settings. This article provides an index of your knowledge base's settings and explains what they all control.

Overview

General

  • Enable knowledge base: Check the box to enable or disable your knowledge base.

  • Title: Customize the title of your knowledge base. Check Show title in header if you want this title to display in your knowledge base's header.

  • URL: Customize your knowledge base's URL. Enter your desired URL extension in the field provided. It must be comprised of lowercase letters and numbers. You cannot use spaces or special characters, but you can separate values by hyphens.

    When you publish a knowledge base, it is automatically assigned a random unique number ID as part of its URL path. Updating the Custom URL path replaces this random number ID — so you can simplify your knowledge base URL.

  • Access: Determine who can access your knowledge base.

    • Public: Anyone with the URL can access your knowledge base.

    • Password: Visitors must enter a password to view your knowledge base.

    • SSO: Visitors can be authenticated to your knowledge base via single sign-on.

  • Search engine indexing: Check the box next to Allow indexing to allow search engines to index your knowledge base.

    Allowing search engines to index your knowledge base does not guarantee its appearance in search engine results. It simply allows search engines to index your knowledge base.

  • AI search: Enables AI search functionality in the knowledge base. Users can chat with AI to quickly find answers to their questions based on information from knowledge base articles. Responses are generated automatically using AI and may include inaccurate information.

  • Report user: This user's permissions will determine what data is visible when embedded views are added to you knowledge base.

Publishing

  • Publishing workflow: Choose when changes you make to documents will appear on your published knowledge base website:

    • Publish as you write: Document edits are immediately visible in the knowledge base.

    • Publish after drafting: Draft changes can be published when you are ready.

    • If you have a custom role configured in your account, you may have an additional setting: Only users with a custom role can publish. Once you check the box next to the setting, only users with a custom publishing role will be able publish documents in your knowledge base.

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Documents

General

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Homepage

General

  • Enable homepage: Enable or disable your homepage. When disabled, users do not see a separate homepage.

  • Homepage display name: Customize the label on of the homepage button in the left sidebar of your knowledge base.

  • Logo: Upload a logo image to display on the homepage banner.

  • Knowledge base title: Show or hide the knowledge base title on the homepage above the search bar.

  • Headline: Add a welcome message that displays on the homepage above the search bar. Leave this empty to hide the headline.

  • Search bar: Show or hide the search bar on the homepage.

Banner image

  • Banner image: Upload the image you want to display at the top of the homepage.

  • Banner style: Choose how your homepage's banner displays:

    • Covered: Header content will partially cover the bottom of your banner image.

    • Overlaid: Header content will appear on top of your banner image, with a gradient overlay to improve the text's visibility.

  • Banner image size: Choose how the banner image size adjusts to different screen sizes:

    • Full width fixed height: Maintains a fixed height, but extends the banner image to the sides. This option might crop the banner image.

    • Proportional: Maintains the banner image's aspect ratio and prevents cropping.

Featured content

  • Featured sections: Add sections to your homepage to promote content. Add links to the sections to knowledge base articles or outside resources.

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Customization

Branding

  • Color: Select colors that match your brand for buttons, text, headers, and more. Select from the color choices provided or enter a hex code to use a custom color. Preview your color choices in light and dark mode at the bottom of the Color section.

  • Logo: Upload your logo here. It displays in the upper left corner of your knowledge base. Click Remove logo to remove your logo.

    The optimal size and dimensions for a logo is 480px by 300px, with a preferred aspect ratio of 1.6:1.

  • Favicon: Upload a favicon here. It must be PNG, GIF, or ICO, and 16x16 pixels. Click Remove Favicon to remove it.

  • Light and dark mode: Choose your knowledge base's default appearance:

    • Light: Always displays the knowledge base in light mode.

    • Dark: Always displays the knowledge base in dark mode.

    • System: Respects each user's system preference for light or dark mode.

  • Custom domain / CNAME: Configure a custom domain for your knowledge base.

  • Display: Configure how you want to display your knowledge base:

    • Standard: Displays your knowledge base as a standalone website.

    • Embedded: Enables you to embed your knowledge base in an iframe within your product or website. When you select this option, a code snippet will display that you can add to the body of your HTML in the location you want the knowledge base to appear.

Layout

  • Header: Click Add navigation item to add links or buttons to your knowledge base's header.

  • Footer: Enable and customize a footer for your knowledge base.

Document options

  • Folder display: Choose how folders are displayed by default in the left side navigation:

    • Collapse all: This option will collapse all folders, showing only the names of top-level folders.

    • Expand top level: This option will expand only the top level folders in your knowledge base.

    • Expand top two levels: This option will expand the top two levels of folders in your knowledge base.

    • Expand all: This option will display all folders expanding, displaying all folders and documents in your knowledge base.

  • Hide source documents: Check the box next to Hide source documents if you want to hide top-level documents in your knowledge base. This will display child documents as the top level of your knowledge base. Source documents that do not have child documents will not be hidden when the Hide source documents setting is enabled.

  • Nested document style: Choose how to display folders and nested documents in your knowledge base:

    • Links: Displays a list of links showing each nested document or folder.

    • Cards: Displays a two-column grid layout that shows each nested document as a card.

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