Managing Articles

Introduction

Articles are the heart of a knowledge base. These are what your users will view to get the information they need. Each article can belong to one category, contain multiple attachments and related articles, and can contain the specific information you want your users to have access to. This document will describe the process of creating and managing articles.

Adding An Article

To add an article, click on the Add an Article link in the control panel interface. You can also click on the Manage Articles link to be taken to the article management interface, and from there you can press the Add an Article button to access the article creation page.

Once you are on the article creation page you will see a form that you will need to fill in. Each of the form fields is described below.

Category - This is the category that you would like this article to appear in
Topic - This is the topic of the article that gives a brief description of it
Article - This is the article itself. Note that this uses the software's built in editor, which is covered in a separate document.
Keywords - Use this field to enter keywords that users might search for when looking for this article
Notes - Use this field to enter notes that are only visible to other administrators
Visible - Select whether this article should be immediately visible in the knowledge base
Approved - If you are an administrator with article approval privileges, select whether this article should be immediately approved
Attachments - You can add files as attachments to your articles. More on this below...
Related - You can specify articles that are related to the one you are creating. More on this below...

Once you have filled in each of the form fields with appropriate values, press the Add Article Word button. AutoKB will add the new article to the database and you can now see that article through the article management interface. Depending on whether or not the article is visible and/or approved it may not yet be visible in the knowledge base. More information on approving and article visibility is contained further on in this document.

Important Notes If you are an administrator who does not have article approval privileges you will not be able to see the Approved field on the article creation form. Additionally, the button to add the article will have the caption "Submit Article For Approval".

More on Keywords

The keywords field allows you to enter words that do not appear in the article text or topic, but that your users might enter when searching for an article. They should be words that are related to the article so that users still get valid search results. You can enter each word separated by a space; it is not necessary to use commas. For example, if you are creating an article that discusses general SQL information but also want your users to see the article when they search for the terms "mysql", "mssql", "oracle", or "postgresql" you could enter those words as keywords. In that case you would enter them like this:

mysql mssql oracle postgresql

The search algorithm used by MySQL to pull relavent articles from the database requires that your keywords be 4 or more characters. Any keywords that you enter which are less than 4 characters long will be ignored by MySQL and will not return search results.

Viewing Your Articles

To see all of the articles that currently exist in the database, click on the Manage Articles link in the control panel interface. The page that comes up will show you all of the articles that have been created. From this interface you can edit, delete, and view information about each article. Each article will appear like this example:

1. This is the unique ID number assigned to the article
2. This section contains details about the article
   Topic - This shows the first 90 characters of the topic. This will be followed by a ... if the topic is longer than 90 characters
   Article - This shows the first 90 characters of the article. This will be followed by a ... if the article is longer than 90 characters
   Notes - This shows the first 90 characters of the article's notes. This will be followed by a ... if the notes are longer than 90 characters
   Category - This shows the category this article is in
   Created - This shows when and who created the article. In parenthesis is who last updated the article and when that was done.
   Rating - This shows the article's rating and how many users have rated it
   Views - This shows how many times the article has been viewed
   Related - This shows the articles that are related to this article, if any. You can click on each number to see a simple preview of that article
   
3. These are the actions that you can perform on the article.
   Click on the icon to approve the article. This icon means that the article has not yet been approved
   Click on the icon to view comments for the article.
   Click on the icon to make the article hidden. This icon means that the article is currently visible
   Click on the icon to make the article visible. This icon means that the article is currently hidden
   Click on the icon to view the article in the knowledge base.
   Click on the icon to view a simple preview of the article.
   Click on the icon to edit the article.
   Click on the icon to delete the article.

Searching The Articles

The articles can be searched, displayed by category, or displayed by their status. Below is an example of what you will see when you access the article management interface:

1. Use these checkboxes to select which articles you want to display
   Pending - This will show articles that have not yet been approved
   Approved - This will show articles that have been approved
   Hidden - This will show articles that are hidden
   Visible - This will show articles that are visible
   
2. If you know the ID number of the article you want to view, enter it here
3. Click this icon to view the previous page of search results
4. To search the articles or change how they are sorted, modify these options
   Category - This tells AutoKB which category to display or search within
   Search In - This tells AutoKB which field to search in
   Search Term - This is the term that you would like AutoKB to search for
   Sort By - This controls how the articles are sorted when they are displayed
   Per Page - This controls how many articles are displayed per page
   
5. Click this icon to view the next page of search results

When you search the articles by entering text in the Search Term field, the software will search both the topic and the article and return the results for you to view. When you enter a specific ID number, all of the other options will be ignored. If an article exists with that ID number it will be shown, otherwise you will get the no search results message.

Approving Articles

If there are some administrators that do not have the article approval privilege you will need to login to the control panel from time to time to see if there are any new articles to be approved. You can quickly see pending articles by clicking on the View Pending Articles link in the control panel menu. Each pending article will have a icon that you can click on to approve it. If you do not want to approve the article you can click on the icon to delete it.

Making an Article Visible or Hidden

With AutoKB it is possible to have both visible and hidden articles. Visible articles will be displayed to the users viewing your knowledge base, while hidden articles will not. You can change the visibility of an article at any time through the article management interface. If an article is displaying the icon, it means that it is currently visible. You can click on this icon to make it hidden. If an article is displaying the icon, it means that it is currently hidden. You can click on this icon to make it visible.

Editing an Article

To edit one of the articles, click on it's icon. AutoKB will load a page where you can edit most of the article details. Once you have made the changes that you want, press the Update Article button to save the changes. A message will be displayed indicating that the changes have been saved and the article management interface page will be reloaded so that you can see the changes.

Deleting an Article

To delete one of the articles, click on it's icon. A javascript confirmation window will pop-up asking you if you are sure that you want to delete the article. Press the ok button to confirm that you want to delete the article. AutoKB will remove the article and it will no longer be visible in the knowledge base. Any comments that the article had will also be deleted when the article is deleted.

Adding and Removing Attachments

When an article is created or edited you can add and remove attachments. An attachment is a separate downloadable file that will be linked to from the article's page in the knowledge base. Each article can have an unlimited number of attachments.

To add an attachment, click on the [Add] link in the Attachments field when you are creating or editing an article. This will cause a separate window to pop up where you can choose an existing attachment or upload a new one. If you are uploading a new attachment, select the file from your hard drive by clicking on the Browse... button. You will also need to fill in the MIME type field indicating what type of file this is. Once you have done that, click on the Add Attachment button to upload the file. This may take a few minutes depending on your connection speed. Once the file has been uploaded the window will automatically close and you will see the new attached file listed in the Attachments field.

To attach an already existing attachment, select it from the Select an Attachment field in the pop up window and then press the Add Attachment button. The window will automatically close and you will see the new attached file listed in the Attachments field.

For each attached file you will see a [Remove] link next to it. You can click this link at any time to remove the attachment from the article. You will be prompted by a javascript window to confirm that you want to remove the attachment. If you click Ok, the attachment will be removed from the Attachments field.

Once you are done adding or removing attachments, press the Add Article or Update Article button (depending on if you are creating a new article or editing an existing article). This will save the changes in the database, and the changes will be effective in the knowledge base immediately.

Adding and Removing Related Articles

When an article is created or edited you can add and remove related articles. A related article is one that contains additional information or complementary information to the article you are working with. On each article's page in the knowledge base there will be a section of related articles that will link to each of the articles that is related to the article that is being viewed. Each article can have an unlimited number of related articles.

To add a related article, click on the [Add] link in the Related field when you are creating or editing an article. This will cause a separate window to pop up where you can search the existing articles to find ones that you may want to relate to the one you are working on. Enter a term to search for and then press the Search button. This will bring up a list of search results displaying each article's topic, category, and the article itself. You can click on the [+] link to see more of the article if it has been shortened. Once you find an article that you want to relate, click on it's topic. You will be asked to confirm that you want to relate this article with the one you are working on. If you click the Ok button that article will be added to the list of related articles in the Related field.

For each related article you will see a [Remove] link next to it. You can click this link at any time to remove the related article from the article. You will be prompted by a javascript window to confirm that you want to remove the relation. If you click Ok, the relation will be removed from the Related field. Note that this does not remove the article itself, it simply removes the relation between the two articles.

Once you are done adding or removing related articles, press the Add Article or Update Article button (depending on if you are creating a new article or editing an existing article). This will save the changes in the database, and the changes will be effective in the knowledge base immediately.