Introduction
If you are reading this part of the AutoKB manual, you most likely just completed the installation or had it installed on your server. If that is the case,
there are a number of things you will want to do to get started. This document will cover the items you will most likely want to do right away, and it will also
point you to other parts of the manual where you can find more information about each specific step.
Important Notes
You may feel like snooping around your AutoKB installation with an FTP client to see what files have been installed, and that is fine. What you shouldn't do
is delete or modify any of the files or directories that have been installed. All of the changes that you will need to make are done through the control panel.
You should never try to manually edit any of the files that are located in the AutoKB installation directory or any of it's subdirectories. Doing so will most
likely end up with AutoKB no longer functioning properly. Unless you are specifically instructed by the tech support staff or the documentation to do
something with the files, you should avoid doing anything to them.
Logging Into The Control Panel
If you haven't already, go ahead and login to your AutoKB control panel. You may want to bookmark the control panel URL so you can quickly access it when
you need to.
The left hand side of the control panel contains the menu, which you will use to access the control panel's features. When you click a link in the
menu, AutoKB will load up the appropriate page in the main portion of the browser window. We recommend that you keep your browser window maximized at
all times when working in the control panel. It was designed for a screen resolution of 1024x768 or larger.
Securing the Control Panel
When the software is installed a very simple default username and password are used. It is highly recommdended that you immediately change at least
the password for the default account. A better solution is to create a new administrator account with all privileges and then delete the default account
completely.
Details on changing your control panel password can be found in the
Changing Administrator Password section of the
software manual, and details on adding and managing administrator accounts can be found in the
Managing Administrators
section of the software manual.
Setting Up Categories
Before you can start adding articles to the database you will need to setup at least one category. This is easy to do through the control panel, and you
can update, add, or delete categories at any time. The
Categories section of the manual covers managing your
categories in detail.
Creating Articles
The basic unit of information in your knowledge base is the article. At this point you will probably want to at least create one test article so you can
see how the articles will be displayed. This will assist you with editing the templates, as you will be able to see the changes as you make them. Details
on creating and managing articles can be found in the
Managing Articles section of the software manual.
From Here
The steps above cover the major things you will want to do to get started with AutoKB. Of course there are many other optional things you can do, but
this will get you off to a good start. There are many other sections of the manual which have not been covered in this document. It is highly recommended
that you read the entire manual. It may take some time to get through, but it will be worth it in the end.