FAQ Manual - ((OTRS)) Community Edition

FAQ

Manuals > AddOns > FAQ

Module Overview

Free AddOn developed by ((OTRS)) Community Edition group, which allows the creation of a Knowledge Base with the following functionalities:

  • Multi language;
  • Organisation of Articles in Categories;
  • Article Tagging;
  • Internal and External Access Control;
  • Flow of approval of Articles of Knowledge before being published;
  • Suggestion of articles to the customer during the creation of a ticket on the customer.pl interface;
  • Public interface of knowledge articles for users not registered in the system (public.pl).

Of the functionality mentioned earlier, it is worth highlighting the latest of them that is the suggestion of articles for the customer, at the time when it registers your request, as it is possible to check below:

Module Installation

This AddOn can be easily installed via the ((OTRS)) Community Edition Package Manager:

In the menu bar, access Admin, and then, Package Manager:

Select the Repository "((OTRS)) Community Edition free features" and click "Refresh Repository Information" (1), then after the page update, click "Install" (2):

Follow the installation step by step, clicking on "continue" when necessary.

AddOn Setup

Permissioning

The installation of this AddOn adds the following groups in an installation of the ((OTRS)) Community Edition:

  • faq
    • Agents with RO in this group, they see the FAQ menu, but they will not necessarily be able to view all the knowledge articles created;
    • Agents with RW in this group will be able to create knowledge articles from the FAQ.
  • faq_admin
    • Agents with RW in this group can perform the management of Knowledge base categories and languages. They may also invalidate and have full control over the articles created.
  • faq_approval
    • Agents with RW in this group will be able to approve the knowledge articles created by other attendants, if the approval functionality is enabled (by default is not enabled).

Configure the permissioning of the roles of your agents, according to the need for your knowledge management process.

Language Setup

By default, after installation, the ((OTRS)) Community Edition has enabled the German (DE), English (EN) languages and the standard language of the tool, if it is neither German nor English.

You can add or remove the FAQ's languages through the menu FAQ -> Language Management:

Categories

The Knowledge Base administrator can create several categorization levels for the articles. You can, for example, create a category for each area of your company that uses the ((OTRS)) Community Edition and up to category sublevels for departments and services of these areas. For example:

  • IT
    • Infra-structure
    • Systems
      • SAP
      • ((OTRS)) Community Edition
  • Management
    • Human Resources
    • Accounting

This management can be accomplished through the menu FAQ -> Categorie Management.

When you create a new category, the Knowledge Base administrator can determine which groups of agents may have access to the content, through the "permissions" attribute, which allows the selection of more than one group:

See also, that you can organize each category within other categories through the "subcategory" attribute.

Creating a FAQ

The creation of a new article in the Knowledge Base can be made through the menu FAQ -> New. When clicking this menu, the following registration screen will be shown:

Description of each field:

  1. Title: FAQ Title;
  2. Keywords: the main function today is the view of the article for client, when it is creating a ticket through the client interface. When typing a keyword in this article, the system will display this ticket as a suggestion for the client;
  3. Category: category which the ticket will be placed;
  4. State:
    Internal: Available only for agents, depending on the category and group of the agent;
    External: Available for agents and customers;
    Public: Available through public interface;
  5. Validity: Allows you to disable the article and remove it from preview;
  6. Language: Article Registration language;
  7. Attachment: Allows you to send attachments that will be made available to readers;
  8. Symptom, problem, solution, Comment: Articles text fields.

 

Advanced Configurations

Enabling FAQs Approval Process

As mentioned earlier, you can enable a native FAQs approval process before they are effectively displayed. This process by default is disabled.

This is the workflow:

  1. An agent registers an FAQ (article);
  2. The system sends a ticket to the FAQs approval queue, with a link to the FAQ to be approved;
  3. The agent with approval permission of the FAQ then accesses the ticket, clicks the FAQ link and displays the article to be approved;
  4. This same agent edits the FAQ and changes the "OK" field to "Yes";
  5. The ticket is made available in the system for consultation.

To configure this flow, access Admin -> Sysconfig -> FAQ -> Core::Approval.

Change the parameter "FAQ:: ApprovalRequired" to "Yes"

Check in the same screen the parameter "FAQ:: ApprovalQueue". It determines for which queue will be forwarded the ticket request approval of the FAQs.

Edit the parameters FAQ::ApprovalTicketSubject and FAQ::ApprovalTicketBody if you wish.

Changing fields of FAQ

The FAQ brings the rich text fields by default: Symptoms, solution, problem, and comments. These fields can be changed, as well as some additional rich text fields can be configured.

You can also hide certain fields from the customer. For example, we can display the "Problem" field for agents, but hide it from customers.

This setting can be accomplished through Admin -> Sysconfig -> FAQ -> Core::Item:

If you want to hide the "problem" field of your clients, change the parameter "show" from the Parameter "FAQ:: Item:: Field2" to internal.

Dynamic Fields

The FAQ also allows you to expand your attributes through dynamic fields.

You can create dynamic fields easily through system administration and enable them for creating, editing, and viewing FAQs in Admin -> Sysconfig -> FAQ, changing the parameter "DynamicFields" in the following sub-groups of parameters:

  • Frontend::Agent::FAQ::ViewAdd
  • Frontend::Agent::FAQ::ViewEdit
  • Frontend::Agent::FAQ::ViewZoom
  • Frontend::Customer::FAQ::ViewZoom
  • Frontend::Public::FAQ::ViewZoom

Hints

In some critical environments, we may require the agent to link a FAQ to the ticket to close it. Use our free AddOn CloseAfterFAQ to apply this solution in your environment.

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