The Knowledge Base Following feature allows all users to:
- Follow knowledge bases, allowing them to choose whether to receive
- in-app and/or email notifications regarding new content in those knowledge bases.
Following your favorite knowledge bases allows you to easily know when new articles are available via notifications, like product release notes or how-to guides covering a process you need to learn. Even if you don't want to receive notifications, all followed knowledge bases are listed on the Knowledge Bases tab of your Followed Content page, providing easy access to them.
Before we begin…
The ability to Follow knowledge bases is limited to communities using Custom Knowledge Base Layouts.
- The Follow button is available, by default, on the Help Center Home Page and the Guide Article Page layouts.
- You're free to edit these layouts and move the Follow button to a different location on the page.
- In addition, the Knowledge Bases List widget can be configured to include the Follow button (bell icon) when configured with the List Display Type. You can add the Knowledge Bases List widget to any knowledge base layout you want (and even non-knowledge base layouts), if this is an important aspect of your community experience.
Follow a knowledge base
When viewing a Help Center or Guide type knowledge base, click the Follow button to follow it and choose which notifications to receive from it (if any).
- At this point, you're free to update what notifications you want to receive from this knowledge base, if any (more on this in the Set notification preferences section below).
- This action also adds the knowledge base to your profile's Followed Content page. Refer to the Followed Content page section below to learn more.
Set notification preferences
Upon following a knowledge base, or when managing your followed knowledge bases on the Followed Content page, you can decide whether to receive notifications about its content via its Follow button (bell icon).
Let's review the notification options (reference the image above):
- Notify me of new articles: Check this to receive notifications when new articles are added to the knowledge base.
- Notify me of updated articles: Check this to receive notifications any time articles are updated in the knowledge base.
- Unfollow Knowledge Base: If you’re already following a knowledge base, you can click this button at any time to disable all notifications and remove it from your list of followed knowledge bases.
Notification types
When setting your preferences, you can control the type of notification received via the bell and/or email boxes.
- Check the bell icon boxes to receive near real-time popups directly in the app (at the bottom left of the screen) AND messages in your Notifications Panel.
- Check the email icon boxes to have emails sent to your personal inbox. Keep in mind this option sends a separate email for each new post/comment, which can result in numerous emails, so it's generally only recommended for knowledge bases in which you're very interested.
✔️ TIP: In your personal inbox, these emails may end up in your Spam folder, so be sure to check there if you don't see them.
Send notification after updating articles
After making updates to an article, the author will be prompted whether they want to send notifications to users who are following the associated knowledge base.
- Sending notifications is generally recommended when making important updates that readers should be aware of.
- Conversely, making small or inconsequential updates do not typically warrant sending a notification.
Note about multi-lingual knowledge bases
If you have a multi-lingual Knowledge Base, users can follow it in the language of their choice by navigating to it in their preferred language and then following it.
Followed Content page
Any knowledge bases you've followed are added to your profile’s Followed Content page, on the Manage Knowledge Bases tab, making it easy to:
- See which knowledge bases you're currently following
- Update their notification options at any time using the bell icons
- Unfollow knowledge bases you're no longer interested in
Set your default notification preferences
You can set default notification preferences that will automatically be selected when following a knowledge base; while you're still free to update these defaults at the time of following, this is a time-saving measure you can take, if desired.
To set your default preferences:
- Navigate to your profile.
- On the right side of the page, in the list of links, click Notification Preferences.
- Scroll down to the Knowledge Bases section to access two preferences:
- Notify me of new articles controls whether you receive notifications any time a new article is added to one of your followed knowledge bases.
- Notify me of updated articles controls whether you receive notifications any time an existing article is updated in one of your followed knowledge bases.
Set default Followed knowledge bases for your users
Are there specific knowledge bases you'd like all new users to automatically Follow by default, guaranteeing important community content is on their radar? If so, you can configure one or more default Followed knowledge bases for your community.
📝 NOTES
- "New user" equates to users who have created an account and have logged in at least once.
- These default Followed knowledge bases may also apply to existing users: if an existing user has 0 Followed knowledge bases, they will inherit these defaults upon their next login; if an existing user has Followed at least one knowledge base, they will not inherit these defaults.
Set your default Followed knowledge bases
1. Access the Dashboard.
2. Navigate to Settings > Membership > User Preferences.
3. Click Edit Default Knowledge Bases.
4. To add one or more knowledge bases, click the dropdown and select them from the list. To remove a knowledge base, click its trashcan icon.
5. For each of your default knowledge bases, decide whether to also set default notification preferences for them. This will determine whether users receive notifications, and what type. Users are free to update these default preferences at any time.
📝 NOTE: Refer to the Notification preferences section of the article to learn more about these two options and the bell and email notification types.
6. Click Save to apply your changes.
Customize Follow button location
The Follow button is available, by default, on the Help Center Home Page and the Guide Article Page layouts, and cannot be removed.
You're free to edit these layouts and move the button to a different location on the page, however. To do so:
- Edit one of the aforementioned layouts.
- Click to select the Follow Knowledge Base widget.
- Drag and drop it to the desired location on the page.
- Save your layout.
✔️ TIP: You can also edit this widget to set which user Roles can view it.
Users' Unsubscribe option
By default, all notification emails have an Unsubscribe link at the bottom. Users can click it to be automatically unsubscribed from that notification.
A user who clicks the link is:
- immediately unsubscribed from the notification and
- taken to the Unsubscribe page.
The Unsubscribe page confirms for the user their unsubscribe action.
✔️ TIP: On the page, the user can undo the action to reverse the unsubscribe and continue receiving the notifications.
📝 NOTE: Unsubscribing is unique to the notification type (e.g., new articles) that contained the link. Unsubscribing from one notification type from a knowledge base does not affect other notification types in the same knowledge base or notifications from any other knowledge bases.
✔️ TIP: Users can also click either Manage All Notifications (upper right) or the text, notification preferences page, to access the Notification Preferences page in their profile.