You can easily restrict access to any or all parts of your knowledge base using the advanced access settings in Zoho Desk. Support managers and agents can restrict access to the knowledge base at 5 different levels:
- Article Level
- End-user Level
- Parent-child Section Level
- Category Level
- Knowledge Base Level
Article Level
When you create an article, you can choose to display it only to other agents in your help desk. These articles will be marked 'Private' and will only be visible to your agents.
To mark an article as private:
- Navigate to an article you want to mark as private, then open the Article Details page.
- Click the Edit icon ( ) in the upper-right side of the page.
- Under the Display Permission section, check the Agents option.
- Click Publish.
The article will be set as private. This particular article will not be available for your customers.
End-user Level
Customers who haven't registered for your Help Center can be restricted from accessing certain articles.
To make an article only accessible to your registered users:
- Navigate to an article you want to change permissions for, and open the Article Details page.
- Click the Edit icon ( ) in the upper-right side of the page.
- Under the Display Permission section, check the Regd. users option.
- Click Publish.
The article will now be available only for registered customers.
Parent-child Section Level
A category can have sections and sub-sections, known as a parent-child relationship. You can choose to hide articles under any of those sections or sub-sections in the Help Center.
To hide sections and sub-sections:
- Click the Knowledge Base (KB) module.
- Click Manage KB from the left panel.
- Click Organize Category under the Manage KB sub-menu.
- Click on a category to navigate to the section you want to hide.
- Hover your mouse pointer over the section, then toggle the 'Hide from Help Center' option to OFF.
The section will now be hidden from your customers in the Help Center. You can change it back at any time.
Category Level
Some categories are meant for your team only. If needed, you can simply hide the entire category from your customers.
To hide a category:
- Click the Knowledge Base (KB) module.
- Click Manage KB from the left panel.
- Click Organize Category under the Manage KB sub-menu.
- Toggle the 'Hide from Help Center' option corresponding to the category to OFF.
The category will now be hidden from your customers in the Help Center. When you hide a category, the sections underneath it will also be hidden. You can change the display permissions back at any time.
Knowledge Base Level
If you don't intend to add articles to your knowledge base, but would like to use the Help Center for other purposes, you can remove the knowledge base tab.
To remove the knowledge base tab from the Help Center:
- Click the Knowledge Base (KB) module.
- Click Manage KB from the left panel.
- Turn off the Display your KB in your Help Center option.
The knowledge base tab will now be hidden from your Help Center. Only help desk administrators can perform this operation.