KB User's Guide - Documents Tab - How to Create and Publish a Document
-
In the KB Admin Tools, click on the Documents tab.
-
Click New Doc link.
- You will be presented with the document editor, which will be blank. This is where you will begin creating your KB document. For more information on using the document editor, please see KB User's Guide - Documents Tab - Guide to TinyMCE Editor Buttons.
-
Before you can save your new document, you must enter a Title, Keywords, Summary, and Body. These four fields represent the absolute minimum of information that must be present in a KB document. For more information about these fields (and the other fields on this page), please see KB User's Guide - Documents Tab - Overview of Fields in Document editor.
If you have created document templates, you can populate these fields by using the template dropdown above the title field. See KB User's Guide - Documents Tab - Creating and Using Templates for more information on creating and using template
-
As you are working, click the Save change button periodically to save changes. If you do not save changes periodically and you lose your network connection or your computer shuts down unexpectedly, you will lose all content since the last time you saved. The KB does not automatically save, so be sure to save periodically.
-
As you are entering content in the body field, you can reference several KB documents for additional guidance:
-
When you are finished adding content to your document, you should check spelling and preview the document to make sure it looks as you expect it to. You may view your document without saving by hovering over Preview located at the lower left part of the Body text field and selecting either Internal site or External site:
-
Internal site - Internally restricted content view loads the appropriate site-level CSS, subsequently viewing how the document would be styled once published.
-
External site - Externally restricted content view loads the appropriate site-level CSS, subsequently viewing how the document would be styled once published.
-
Note: JavaScript other than the Table of Contents plug-in will not load in the Preview window. This is due to the fact that the preview window only shows content that appears "on load", which does not include dynamically generated content from JS.
-
-
There are additional options below the body of the document that you should review. These options are used to provide more information about the document. For example, Topics are defined by your KB Admin and can be used to group similar types of documents together so that visitors to your KB site can find your documentation more easily. Other fields specify who owns the document and who can access the document. You can click on the field names in the editor for a detailed explanation of what that field does.
Review these fields to ensure that all necessary options are selected.
-
When you are finished with your document, you need to set the Status in order to either notify your KB Admin that the doc is ready to be published or to publish it yourself (if you have Publish rights). Only the Active status will make the current draft of the KB document available on your KB Site. The process of making the document available is generally called "publishing the document", "activating the document", or "making the document live".
Note: When you are first creating a new document you will need to save the document at least once before you can set the document to Active status. Use of the In Review status varies from group to group. Some groups use 'In Review' as a holding bin for documents that are ready to be reviewed by another person before being activated for the KB Site.