Setting Up Knowledge Base Permissions

Setting Up Knowledge Base Permissions

Not all solution articles are meant to be shared with your customers or end-users in the help center. That said, you can easily restrict access to specific categories or sections or even to the entire KBase using the granular and the advanced access settings in Zoho Desk. Support Managers and agents can choose to restrict access to the knowledge base components at 5 different levels, namely:
  • Article Level
  • End-user Level
  • Parent and Child Section Level
  • Category Level
  • Knowledge Base Level
Article Level
When you create an article, you can choose to display it only to the other agents in your help desk. These articles are private and will be visible only to your agents to assist them in providing customer support. To mark an article as private:
  1. Navigate to an article you want to mark as private.
  2. In the Article Detail page, click the  icon in the upper-right side of the page. 
  3. In the Edit Article page and under the Display Permission section, check the Agents Only option.
  4. Click Publish. 
The article will be set as private. Despite you, choosing to show the article's folder in the help center, this particular article will not be available for your customers.

End-user Level
Most of the businesses today, have adopted the freemium model whereby readers who aren’t a registered customer are limited to certain number of articles they can read in the help center. If you are one among them, it is fairly straightforward to implement this in your help desk. To display an article only to the registered users in your help center:
  1. Navigate to an article you want to display for registered users.
  2. In the Article Detail page, click the  icon in the upper-right side of the page. 
  3. In the Edit Article page and under the Display Permission section, check the Only to registered users option.
  4. Click Publish.
The article will now be available only for the customers who had signed up for your help center.

Parent and Child Section Level
A category can have sections and sub-sections in a parent to child relationship. You can choose to hide the articles under any of those sections or sub-sections in the help center. To hide sections and sub-sections:
  1. Go to the Help Center module.
  2. In the Help Center Dashboard page, click the   icon from the top bar.
  3. In the Organize Category page, click on a category to navigate to the section you want to hide.
  4. Hover your mouse pointer on the section and then click the  icon.
The section will now be hidden from your customers in the help center. You can display the hidden section anytime you want to, by clicking on the  icon.

Category Level
You may be aware that a category will be added whenever you create a new department under setup. But, it is not that all the time you will have a department for customer facing purposes. In such scenarios, you can simply hide the entire category from your customers. To hide a category:
  1. Navigate to the category you want to hide.
  2. Hover your mouse pointer on the category and then click the  icon. 
The category will now be hidden from your customers in the help center. When you hide a category, the sections underneath it will also be hidden. You can display the hidden category anytime you want to, by clicking on the  icon.

Knowledge Base Level
If you have no intention to add any articles in the knowledge base, but will like to use the help center for other purposes, you can remove the knowledge base tab. To remove the knowledgeable tab and its component from the help center:
  1. Go to the Help Center module.
  2. In the Help Center Dashboard page, click the   icon from the top bar.
  3. In the Settings page, click Access.
  4. In the Access Settings page, disable the Display knowledge base in help center feature.
The knowledge base tab will now be hidden from your help center. Please note that only the administrators in your help desk can perform this operation.