The Knowledge Base (KB) module in the Zoho Desk is the information center that acts as a self-service repository for your customers. Customers can refer to the articles in the KB and solve product-related issues on their own.  

Knowledge base profile permissions

Help desk administrators and agents with respective profile permissions can view, create, or edit articles in your knowledge base. Please note that only administrators have the privilege to define the knowledge base profile permissions. 

To enable/disable profile permissions

1. Go to Setup > User Management > Profiles.
   Select the desired profile.
2. In Module Permissions, enable or disable the Knowledge Base option accordingly.
   
   
   

Article Views

In KB, articles are grouped under the following four views. 

1. Published
2. Drafts
3. Expired
4. Unpublished 

Articles in the above-mentioned views are listed for each of the categories, sections, and sub-sections in your knowledge base. 

To access article views

1. Click the Knowledge Base (KB) module.  
2. In the Category Home page, select the required view from the top of the page.
   
   
   

Note:

1. By default, the system will display the published articles.
2. The system will display the Views only when there are articles available underneath them. You can further drill down and select a sub-section to view the draft articles or those that are pending review underneath it.  

Published

Published articles are those that have been completed and are visible to your other agents or customers in their help center. You can later edit a published article when required. You can also send the articles for review to the respective reviewers before publishing.

The Review Articles option can be enabled category-wise (department-wise). Once the Review Articles option is enabled for a category, all the articles associated with that category will be published only by the respective reviewers after the review.  

To enable the review articles option

1. In the Knowledge Base module, click Manage KB.
2. Click Organize Categories.
3. Select the desired category and hover over the Edit icon.
   
   
   
   
4. In the Edit Category page, toggle the Review Articles to ON.
5. Click Add and select the respective reviewers from the list.
6. Click Save.
   
   
   

Drafts 

Drafts consist of knowledge base articles that haven't been published yet. You can select Save as Draft on the Edit Article page to continue working on it later. A draft article can then be sent for review or published directly. 

 All the draft articles will be listed in the ALL DRAFT view.

Note:

1. The All Drafts view is exclusive to the administrators, and it will list the drafts saved by all of your agents in your help desk. This is to ensure that the articles created by your agents don't go away with them when they leave your company.
2. By default, KB autosaves all your drafts. You can see the version history on the right side of the Edit Article page.
   
   
   

Expired

Knowledge base articles can be set with an expiration date during article creation. When articles expire, they will not appear on your help center until they are reviewed and republished. You can track all such expired articles under the ALL EXPIRED tab.

 To set an expiry date for an article

1. Open the desired article from the Knowledge Base module.
2. Click the Edit icon on the top-right area of the page.
   
   
   
   
3. Under the Article Expiry section in the right pane, select the desired date and time.
   
   
   
   
4. Click Publish.

Unpublished

If you want your published article to be unpublished in your help center after a certain period of time, then you can use the Unpublish option. All the unpublished articles will be listed permanently under the ALL UNPUBLISHED tab.

To unpublish an article

1. In the Knowledge Base module, select the desired Published article.
2. Select Unpublish from More (…) option.
   
   
   
   
3. Click Continue to confirm the selection.
   The selected article will be moved to the All Unpublished tab.
   
   
   

 You can re-publish the unpublished article. All the contents and edits made to the article will remain unchanged.