Managing Help Center Permissions

Managing Help Center Permissions

When you set up the Help Center, you must determine who should have access to it. You may allow anyone to access the Help Center or only those who have registered for it. Providing an open Help Center is less of an effort for your legitimate customers who may only choose to read through your articles or community posts. However, it may lead to receiving spam or irrelevant tickets in your Zoho Desk.

On the other hand, customers will stand to benefit when they register for your Help Center. It allows your customers to:
  • Track the status of their tickets.
  • Submit their tickets without being asked for their email address (pre-filled).
  • View their most recent Help Center activities under the My Area section.
  • Complete their user profile including other modes of contact (like Facebook, Twitter, etc.,) so that future correspondence from these channels will stay in sync with their Help Center account.


Setting Help Center Access Permissions

There are 2 types of permissions that can be granted to your Help Center. One is whether you want your customers to register to access the Help Center, and another is whether they need to be signed in to submit their tickets. These permissions are mutually exclusive in that you can either mandate customers to register for access or require them to sign in to submit a ticket.

To set access permission:
  1. Click the Setup icon (  ) in the top bar.
  2. Click Help Center under the Channels menu.
  3. Select the Help Center for which you want to set access permissions.
  4. Click Access Settings under the Help Center sub-menu.
  5. On the Access Settings page, enable Customers must register to access the Help Center option under Permissions.
    Note: Enabling this option will direct your customers to the login page where they need to sign in or register to access your Help Center.
  6. Alternatively, you can enable Customers must sign in to your Help Center to submit Tickets option.
    Note: Enabling this option provides for an open Help Center; however, customers must sign in to submit their tickets.
  7. The changes will be saved instantly.

Notes:
  • An open Help Center allows customers to submit tickets and search for solutions in the knowledge base or community. However, they must log in to track the status of their tickets.
  • Only administrators can modify Help Center permissions.



Other Permissions

Creating a successful community forum can be a difficult task for any business. It needs dedication and resources to maintain a lively and resourceful community. Keeping this in mind, Zoho Desk allows you to display or hide the Community from your customers in the Help Center. 

To hide the community:
  1. Click the Setup icon (  ) in the top bar.
  2. Click Help Center under the Channels menu.
  3. Select the Help Center for which you want to set access permissions.
  4. Click Access Settings under the Help Center sub-menu.
  5. On the Access Settings page, disable Display Community in the Help Center option under Permissions.
    The changes will be saved instantly.

It is quite common for users of an organization (Ex. account) to view tickets submitted by others from the same organization. You can enable this option for your Help Center so that users can see all tickets of their company rather than just the ones created from their own email address. 

To allow users to view all tickets:
  1. Click the Setup icon (  ) in the top bar.
  2. Click Help Center under the Channels menu.
  3. Select the Help Center for which you want to set access permissions.
  4. Click Access Settings under the Help Center sub-menu.
  5. On the Access Settings page, enable Customers can view tickets of other users in their account option under Permissions.
    The changes will be saved instantly.

If you have configured private departments for internal ticket management, you can choose to show or hide tickets from those departments to your end users on the help center. If you have more than one department, you can display your department catalog when users submit a ticket from the help center. Users can click on a department to create their ticket in it. When this option is disabled, users can select their preferred department from inside the ticket form.

To show tickets from private departments:
  1. Click the Setup icon (  ) in the top bar.
  2. Click Help Center under the Channels menu.
  3. Select the Help Center for which you want to set access permissions.
  4. Click Access Settings under the Help Center sub-menu.
  5. On the Access Settings page, enable Display tickets from private departments in the help center option under Permissions.
    The changes will be saved instantly.

If you have more than one department, you can display your department catalog when users submit a ticket from the help center. Users can click on a department to create their ticket in it. When this option is disabled, users can select their preferred department from inside the ticket form.

To show departments:
  1. Click the Setup icon (  ) in the top bar.
  2. Click Help Center under the Channels menu.
  3. Select the Help Center for which you want to set access permissions.
  4. Click Access Settings under the Help Center sub-menu.
  5. On the Access Settings page, enable Show departments list page on choosing to submit a ticket option under Permissions.
    The changes will be saved instantly.

Cross-site scripting Attacks
Cross-site scripting is a security exploit in which attackers trick your help center into storing malicious client-side code (generally in the form of a browser side script) and later insert them into web pages when other users request them. These attacks can happen through numerous injection points, such as search field, feedback form, and forum posts. And when they happen, it can cause a variety of problems for your end users, ranging in severity from an annoyance to complete account compromise.

Defending against Cross-Site Scripting
Zoho Desk enables you to defend your help center from cross-site scripting attacks by restricting user input to a specific whitelist. This is achieved by defining where resources can be loaded from and preventing browsers from loading data from other locations. It only takes turning on a toggle to provide this extra protection for your help center.

To defend your help center against cross-site scripting:
  1. Click the Setup icon (  ) in the top bar.
  2. Click Help Center under the Channels menu.
  3. Select the Help Center for which you want to enable defence against cross-site scripting.
  4. Click Access Settings under the Help Center sub-menu.
  5. On the Access Settings page, enable Defend your help center against Cross-site Scripting (XSS) (Recommended) option under Permissions.
    The changes will be saved instantly.

Note:
  1. Customers must access their help center on the latest three versions of popular browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari, and Opera to mitigate cross-site scripting attacks.

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