Getting started with self-service – Part 4: Writing your knowledge base articles

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<p class="sidenav-heading">Articles in the series</p>
<ul class="nav nav-underline flex-column" id="topic-1__ul_vgz_vzs_x5b">
<li class="li"><a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408885576346">Introduction: Elements of a self-service channel</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408886455578">Part 1: Planning your self-service content project</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408883389338">Part 2: Planning your self-service content structure</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408894140826">Part 3: Determining what articles you need to create</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408887322522">Part 4: Writing your knowledge base articles</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408885574298">Part 5: Launching your help center</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408894139930">Part 6: Tracking essential self-service metrics</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408882663194">Part 7: Maintaining and improving your knowledge base</a></li>
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<p class="p">The previous articles in this series have described the steps involved in the build up to
this step: writing your knowledge base articles. This article describes the processes and
tools you can use to write your knowledge base articles and prepare them to be published when
you launch your help center. </p>
<p class="p">You have many options for where you actually write the articles. If you already have
processes in place for creating, sharing, and reviewing documentation (you use Google Docs or
Microsoft Office, for example), you can create your content in another tool and then publish
it in your help center. Or, you can write your articles directly in your help center.</p>
<p class="p">This article covers the following topics:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic-1__ul_kxc_w53_x4b">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_hz2_nhd_jmb">Using external authoring tools</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_tmt_c4j_x4b">Creating articles in Knowledge admin</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_gyf_k4j_x4b">Defining your process for reviewing and publishing your articles</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_q2h_t4j_x4b">Using Knowledge to create articles</a></li>
</ul>
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<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="topic_hz2_nhd_jmb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">Using external authoring tools</h2>
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<p class="p">If you’re creating your content in an external authoring tool, you need to insert it into a
new blank article that you create for that content in Knowledge admin when it’s ready to be
staged or published. </p>
<p class="p">The editor fully supports HTML and, on all plans except Suite Team, you can modify the
style.css file for your help center and create custom styles and formatting for the content
that you add to an article. You can paste the HTML code for an article that was written in
another tool by editing the source code in the editor.</p>
<p class="p"><img class="image img-screenshot" id="topic_hz2_nhd_jmb__image_efm_ynj_x4b" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/zug_ss_guide_source_code.png" width="800"></p>
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<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> The process used by the Zendesk product documentation team is described in <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408844161050" target="_blank">How product docs are produced at Zendesk</a>. This article also
describes how we import our articles into our help center using the Zendesk API. It
contains links to the code we developed that is available on Github.</div>
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<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested1" id="topic_tmt_c4j_x4b">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title3">Creating articles in Knowledge admin</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">If you choose to create your knowledge base articles directly in Knowledge admin, you can
use formatting styles provided in the article editor and never need to bother with the HTML,
or you can do a mix of both WYSIWYG and HTML writing and editing to achieve the formatting
you want.</p>
<p class="p">Each person who creates articles must be an agent in your Zendesk account
and also have the proper permission to create articles. By default, agents with the
Knowledge admin permission can create and publish articles, but you can extend this to other
agents as
well.</p>
<p class="p">To understand how user roles and permissions are set and used, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408827842458" target="_blank">Understanding Knowledge roles and privileges</a>, <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408834435738" target="_blank">Setting agent editing and publishing permissions on knowledge base
articles</a>, and<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408827952538#topic_tmz_zrp_gfb" target="_blank"> Creating management permissions to define agent editing
and publishing rights</a>.</p>
<p class="p">When all your contributing writers have the proper permissions to create and publish
articles, they can create their articles and publish them as soon as they’re ready or based
on whatever review and publishing process and schedule you’ve come up with.</p>
<p class="p">For more information, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408839258778" target="_blank">Creating and editing articles in the knowledge base</a>.</p>
<div class="p">
<div class="note tip">
<span class="tiptitle">Tip:</span>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_tmt_c4j_x4b__ul_hhw_2rq_cpb">
<li class="li">You can create your articles directly in Knowledge admin or in an external authoring
tool.</li>
<li class="li">You can copy Google Docs into new articles or bring in content from an external
source as text or HTML.</li>
<li class="li">You need to think about formatting and consistency (especially when bringing in HTML
from an external source).</li>
<li class="li">People who create articles directly in Knowledge admin need to be agents in your
Zendesk account with the proper permission to create articles.</li>
</ul>
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<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title4" class="topic nested1" id="topic_gyf_k4j_x4b">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title4">Defining your process for reviewing and publishing your articles</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">As articles are completed and queued up, you should have a simple process for reviewing and
then publishing them. Assuming that you’re creating your articles directly in the Knowledge
admin interface, you can review them there and then publish them on the specific date or
dates you’ve chosen for them to go live. </p>
<p class="p">The new articles you create remain in draft mode until they are published. This means that
only you and the other members of your team who have access to the articles are able to see
them. As drafts, they can be reviewed and revised as needed before you publish them for your
customers.</p>
<div class="p">
<div class="note">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> On Enterprise plans, you can mark an article as ready for review and optionally assign
a team member as the reviewer. This is a feature of <a class="xref" href="https://www.zendesk.com/guide/features/team-publishing/" target="_blank">Team Publishing</a> and you can read more about it in <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408824595354-Creating-new-content-for-review-Guide-Enterprise-" target="_blank">Creating new content for review</a>. Also on
Enterprise plans, you can schedule a specific time and date for an article to be
published. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408820403226" target="_blank">Scheduling articles for publishing and
unpublishing</a>.</div>
</div>
<p class="p">If you’re using an external authoring tool such as Google Docs, you should review and
finalize the content before bringing it into Knowledge admin as new articles. </p>
<p class="p">Don’t forget to include a review period into your schedules and it’s always best to give
your reviewers a deadline date to help ensure that the reviews are completed on time.</p>
<div class="note tip">
<span class="tiptitle">Tip:</span>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_gyf_k4j_x4b__ul_ykx_jrq_cpb">
<li class="li">Review your articles before publishing them. This is important to ensure accuracy and
consistency.</li>
<li class="li">Add time into your schedules for reviewing your content.</li>
<li class="li">Create draft articles that can be reviewed there before publishing.</li>
<li class="li">If you’re using an external authoring tool such as Google Docs, create a process for
sharing and reviewing the content before creating a new article.</li>
<li class="li">On Enterprise, you can assign specific people to review articles and also set a
specific time and date for the articles to be automatically published.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title5" class="topic nested1" id="topic_q2h_t4j_x4b">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title5">Using Knowledge to create articles</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Another approach to creating articles, especially if members of your Support team have been
tasked with creating articles, is to use the Knowledge section of the context panel.
Depending on your settings, agents can create help center articles from a blank article or
any pre-defined templates that are available. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408835161114" target="_blank">Creating and requesting articles in Knowledge</a>. </p>
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