Zero to Hero: Build a FAQ

When we last left off, we were talking queues and chat routing. In this installment, we are switching gears a bit and talking about self-services rather than real-time services. That is, knowledgebases versus chat.

Each LibraryH3lp FAQ instance comes with a built-in mobile-specific version for smart phones. You can see of the number of views for each question and the last updated time stamp indicating answer "freshness." And there is a built-in social component as well. Guests can vote a question up as helpful (like) or down (dislike) as not helpful.

Step 1: Log into the admin dashboard.

If you need it, there's a link at the top of this page. We're back in the admin interface since we're working on managing our service and not chatting.

Step 2: Click on the Knowledge Bases (FAQs) button in the left sidebar.

If this is your first visit to this management page, your list of FAQs will be empty. Let's add one!

Step 3: Click the Add button; name your FAQ.

FAQ names need to be unique across the LibraryH3lp system -- not just within your account. If you happen to get an error, please try a variant of the desired name.

Pro tip! You get unlimited FAQs. Even trials. Create as many as you need - for both public and private use.

Step 4: Visit your FAQ as a guest.

After completing Step 3, you should be on the Overview tab for your shiny new FAQ. It is ready to receive visitors!

Click the icon to visit and view your FAQ as a guest would. Use this link on your web pages to direct guests to your FAQ.

Pro tip! In addition to linking to your FAQ on your web pages, you can also embed your FAQ in a web page.

Step 5: Configure your FAQ.

Let's customize! Here's tour of the possibilities available in the Overview tab:

CNAME: CNAMEs are custom URLs that include your organization's domain name. This means that instead of your guests seeing your FAQ URL as NAME.ask.libraryh3lp.com, they will see something like faq.myschool.edu.
Theme: We offer over 18 pre-configured themes to help you quickly customize your FAQ's look and feel.
Require authentication: You can restrict access to your FAQ by requiring a LibraryH3lp login for access. Authenticated FAQs are useful for staff-only knowledgebases.
Chat Integration: Choose any of your queues for the real-time chat integration. You may even want to create a FAQ-specific queue to help with service assessment.
Email Integration: This can be either an e-mail address or a URL. The URL allows you to link any existing e-mail contact form you already provide.

Step 6: Edit a question.

Click the Questions tab. From the Questions tab, you can do all sorts of things to manage your knowledgebase. Including search, sort, tag by topic, and metadata download.

Now click "example question." The question editor page has two parts - one for editing the question text, one for the answer. Go ahead and edit the content. Then click the Save button.

Pro tip! You can also edit questions in-place on the guest view of your FAQ.

FAQ Templates

At some point, you'll want to edit some of the boilerplate text that comes along with your FAQ. E.g. Customize the right sidebar or top navbar. To do that, visit the Templates tab for your FAQ.

Templates control the HTML and CSS for your FAQ. The common template used for all pages is called base.html. The main FAQ page is index.html and the individual question page is question.html. The header, search box, email form, sidebar, tag cloud, footer, questions listing, question preview, and question metadata all have editable templates.

Here's some of the popular customizations:

Pro tip! Browse our Pinterest board to see examples of highly-customized FAQs!

In the next installment of this series, we'll talk about the 3mail module which is all about asynchronous customer communication.

Document URL: https://docs.libraryh3lp.com/z2h5.html