Using sample articles for the Employee Services Suite

Every new Employee Services Suite account comes with a set of sample data intended to help you get started with the employee services, including a sample help center. The sample help center is restricted to signed in users, is configured to allow users to submit requests from the help center, and includes basic articles and a help center hierarchy built around HR and IT use cases.

You can use the sample articles and section structure to get started creating a help center that is tailored to your needs. Once you learn how to work with basic article settings and the article editor, you can easily and quickly update sample article content, place the article in sections within your help center, and preview and publish your articles.

After you are up and running with your help center, you can also explore additional features to enhance your articles and streamline your content development workflow.

This article contains the following topics:

Understanding the sample help center content for employee services

Moving articles between sections

Updating article content with the article editor

Using advanced features for knowledge management

Understanding the sample help center content for employee services

In addition to some of the standard example content provided for all new Zendesk accounts, the following sample content is included in Employee Service Suite plans:

Sections and articles

Announcements

Benefits

[SAMPLE] Understanding your healthcare benefits (AMER employees)

[SAMPLE] Retirement plans

IT

[SAMPLE] Locked out of your computer

[SAMPLE] Reporting an IT issue

[SAMPLE] Requesting access to software

Payroll

[SAMPLE] Understanding payroll deductions

[SAMPLE] Annual payroll schedule (all regions)

Time off

[SAMPLE] Parental leave / medical leave of absence

[SAMPLE] Vacation / paid time off

Training

[SAMPLE] Your first day. You belong here.

[SAMPLE] How to onboard a new hire

Moving articles between sections

Within your help center, sample articles are placed into sections, which are then arranged into categories. Together, these elements make up your content hierarchy. You can change the section in which an article appears by selecting a new placement within article settings.

Additionally, you can create, edit, reorganize, or delete sections and categories as needed.

To move articles between sections

In help center, navigate to the article you want to edit, then click Edit article in the top menu bar.

If the Article settings panel is not displayed in the sidebar, click the Article settings icon () to expand the panel.

Under Placement, click the arrow to expand the Placement settings.

Under Section, click Manage sections.

Select a new section, then click Ok.

At the bottom of the Placement panel, click Update settings.

Updating article content with the article editor

Sample articles provided for Employee Service Suite plans can be used as-is or with minimal adjustments, such as removing the [SAMPLE] label from the title and linking to your policies. If you want to use the articles as-is, you can simply preview and publish your articles. To add, remove, or change the article content, you can use the article editor to make updates, then save your article prior to publishing.

You can also create new articles as needed.

To update article content

In help center, navigate to the article you want to edit, then click Edit article in the top menu bar.

Use the article editor to add or edit the article content. You can:

Use the article editor's toolbar for formatting options or to add links, images, or tables.

For information, see the Help center article editor toolbar reference. See also Inserting links, Inserting images in articles and content blocks, and Inserting videos.

Edit the HTML source by clicking the Source Code button at the end of the editor's toolbar.

Note: To keep your help center secure and provide the best experience for your end users, Zendesk limits the HTML you can use in articles. For information, see Allowing unsafe HTML in articles.

When you are finished working on your article, do one of the following:

To save your new article as a draft or work in progress to publish later, click Save.
Click Preview to view the article in your help center.

When you're ready to publish your article, click the drop-down arrow on the Save button, then select Publish.

Using advanced features for knowledge management

Once you're familiar with the basic article editing functions, you may want to explore some of the more advanced article editing and knowledge management features. Explore the following articles to learn how you can enhance and expand your help center by using reusable content, localization, generative AI, and more.
Note: To browse all articles, see Using Guide in the Zendesk help center.

Viewing article revisions and restoring a previous version

Organizing knowledge base content into categories and sections

Using generative AI to expand and expand help center content

Creating and inserting reusable information with content blocks

Adding content tags to group related articles

Localizing help center content

Editing the source code of help center articles