How does the eDesk Knowledge Base work?

Reduce customer queries by up to 30% by publishing help articles to your website that enable customers to self-serve.

Then attach your Knowledge Base to your Content hub to enhance your AI responses in your Chatbot.

This help file will guide you through setting up a Knowledge Base on your website with eDesk.

Before you start

You’ll need to have access to Knowledge Base in your Settings. If you don’t have access, you can request it from an Admin user within your business.

01 What is the Knowledge Base?

The Knowledge Base allows you to publish a library of reliable help articles to your website that enables your customers to self-serve and quickly find answers to their questions. Using the eDesk Knowledge Base will put your content library at your fingertips so that you can reply even faster.

Now, when you are answering tickets in your eDesk mailbox, you will be able to search through your Knowledge Base content library and embed or link any article from it into a reply with a single keystroke, using the shortcut $. With Support Agents working from a single source of truth, your customers will receive a consistent, high-quality service.

If you are using our Chatbot or the Smart Reply in AI Assit, you will also be able to point your Content hub to your Knowledge Base for more informed AI responses.

02 How can I get the Knowledge Base?

The Knowledge Base is available on all plans that have our Ava Chatbot or AI Assist features enabled. For more on pricing, click here.

03 Setting up the Knowledge Base

To access the Knowledge Base, go to the Knowledge Base section on the left-hand side.
The following instructions can guide you in setting up your Knowledge Base.

Step 1: Create a Layout

Create a layout to customize your Knowledge Base display. To do this, select the Layout and Design section on the left-hand bar. We have predefined themes available that you can clone and then restyle for your own Knowledge Base.

Once you have chosen your theme, you can customize it further by selecting the layout and amending the following settings.

Logo: The Logo of your choice for the Knowledge Base.
Brand main colour: The main colour of the library.
Secondary colour: The colour used on the buttons/ nav bars etc.
Background colour: The Background colour of the library.
Default text colour: The main colour of the text in the library.
Link colour: The colour of any links.
Default font size: The size of the font the library will display.
Font type: The type of font the library will display.
Custom CSS: To personally customize the style of the HTML elements on the webpage.
HTML Elements: Can be used to personalise the Library with your own HTML input.

Please observe the preview on the right-hand side of the above settings, which will show you how the Library will look depending on the customizations you choose.

Step 2: Create a Library

In the Knowledge Base page click ‘Libraries’ on the right-hand sidebar, then choose “+ New Library” in the top right corner.

Fill out the provided required fields that are explained below.

Library title: The title of the library within eDesk.
Library address: The name that will appear in the URL.
Library Name: The name of the library within eDesk.
Language: The language in which the articles will be created. Please note, there is currently no translate tool within the Knowledge Base.
Layout: Select the layout you have just created (or choose one you created previously). This determines the UI or design of your Knowledge Base.
Linked channels: Select a channel to allow the library articles to be used when responding to tickets via the $ shortcut.
Default click action on snippet: When selecting article in the Reply box, either insert a link to the article or insert the body of the article into your reply.
Password protection: If you add a password to your library, this will be required by any agent or customer in order to view the Knowledge Base. You can disable password protection at any time by ticking 'Disable' and clicking 'Save changes'.

Creating a library will generate a URL. This URL can be used as a stand-alone link or can be added to your own website. The URL for your library will look like this:
https://edesk-support.com/library_name/article_name

Once the library has been created, you can access it in the Library list. Clicking the title of the library will bring you into it and you can create and view articles. You can add your first article at this point, or you can edit the library further to add some categories to it.

To edit the library, click the ‘more options’ button on the right-hand side.

View offline shows a preview of the unpublished libraries.
Edit Library Settings allows you to update the settings after the library has been created.
View categories allows you to create new categories and view the existing list of categories in your library.
Clone library allows you to clone the library for use on another site.

Step 3: Create a Category

Once the library has been created, select View categories from the more options button. Here, you will see the default category.

Select + New Category to create a new one.

Fill out the required fields that are explained below.

Title: Category name.
Description: Description of the category you have just created.
URI: Used to customize the text that appears in the URL.
Order: Used to customize the order in which categories appear in the menu.
Library: The library to which the category belongs.
Parent Category: Make this the parent category or select another previously created one.

Step 4: Create a Sub-category

Once the category has been created, select View categories from the more options button.

Select + New Category and select the previously created category in the Parent Category section. This will then create a new sub-category and you will be able to add articles to it.

Step 5: Create an Article

Select the library and click + New Article.

Fill out the required fields explained below.

Title: The name of the article.
Content: Body of the article.
Category: Choose from the categories you have created.
Keywords: Used for searching the Knowledge Base. Note: AI is used for the Knowledge Base search terms, so even if your customer doesn't use the exact keywords you write here, all content will be scanned for relevance.
Associated Tags: Tags are searchable in the eDesk mailbox, and allow agents to embed articles in tickets when replying to customers (see Section 4 below).
Status: Draft/Published.

Uploading Media

Select the image icon and add a publicly hosted URL or upload an image to generate a publicly hosted URL. Please note, the media that is uploaded has a size restriction of 10MB.
To upload an image, click the Upload tab and choose a file from your computer.

For publicly hosted images, add the URL in the Image info tab. You can change the size, position and alignment of any upload in the Image Info tab.

04 Sending articles directly to your customers

When creating an article, there is an option to associate a tag with it. This tag relates to your eDesk tags.

If a tag is associated with an article, it means that the article is available to use in your outgoing messages on any ticket in your eDesk mailbox.

To use the article, type $ to display a list of associated articles.

Selecting the article will either add a link to the article or insert the article content into the reply box. This action is based on your library settings under Default click action on snippet.

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