How to create public and private knowledge bases and training portals?
Creating a private knowledge base
A private knowledge base is a repository of information that is restricted and accessible only to a limited audience. It contains proprietary or confidential information that is not intended for public consumption. Private knowledge bases are commonly used within companies, research institutions, or other organizations to store and share internal knowledge, documents, procedures, and resources among authorized employees.
Who can access a private knowledge base in Zoho Learn?
Access to a private custom portal is granted only to users who have been invited by the administrator. Users cannot register for the portal on their own.
How to create a private knowledge base?
- Click the Settings icon to the left of your profile image with hub admin credentials, then click Settings.
- Select the Custom Portal tab.
- Click Create.
- Enter a name, description, and permalink for your portal, click Create.
- Go to the General tab and navigate to the Access section.
- Select Private.
How to invite users to a private knowledge base?
You can send customized invitations to the users you want to add to your portal. They can access the invitation from their mailboxes and accept it to join the portal. Users can sign in with their credentials to access the contents of the portal.
To invite users using their email address:
- Go to the Users tab, then click Invite in the top-right corner.
- Enter the email addresses and edit the email message, then click Send.
To import users from a CSV file:
- Navigate to the portal from the Custom Portal tab.
- Go to the Users tab, then click Invite in the top-right corner.
- Click Import CSV.
- Click Choose File and select a file from your device.
- Hover over the email addresses to edit or delete them.
- Click Proceed, then click Send.
The name of the column consisting of the email addresses in your CSV file should be "Email Address".
Here is a screenshot of a valid CSV file:
How to add manuals to a private knowledge base?
You can add manuals that you've created in your hub to the portal and share it with the users.
To add a manual to a private knowledge base:
- Navigate to the portal from the Custom Portal tab.
- Go to the Manuals tab and click Add Manuals.
- Select the manual you want to add, then click Add.
- Once you've added the manual to the portal, go the manual from the list of manuals, then click Manage.
- You can set one of the following access settings for the manual:
- Everyone in this portal: All users who have access to the portal can access the manual.
- Shared users: You have to share the manual with individual users on the portal. Only these users can access the manual from the portal.
- Click Save.
How to share a manual to specific users on the portal?
After setting "Shared users" access privilege for your manual, you need to add individual users to the manual.
To share a manual with individual users:
- Go to the manual from the list of manuals in your portal, then click the More Options icon.
- Click Add Users.
- Select the users from the list, then click Add.
Creating a public knowledge base
A public knowledge base is a collection of information that is openly available to the general public. Public knowledge bases can be brand awareness documents, educational guides, or user manuals. Public knowledge bases cater to users looking for information on a particular topic on the internet.
Who can access a public knowledge base in Zoho Learn?
Anyone with the URL to your public knowledge base can access and view it's contents.
How to create a public knowledge base?
- Click the Settings icon to the left of your profile image with hub admin credentials, then click Settings.
- Select the Custom Portal tab.
- Click Create.
- Enter a name, description, and permalink for your portal, click Create.
- Go to the General tab and navigate to the Access section.
- Select Public.
How to add manuals to a public knowledge base?
Once you've created a public portal, you can add manuals that you've created in your hub to the public portal.
To add a manual to a public knowledge base:
- Navigate to the portal from the Custom Portal tab.
- Go to the Manuals tab and click Add Manuals.
- Select the manual you want to add, then click Add.
- Once you've added the manual to the portal, go the manual from the list of manuals, then click Manage.
- Enable the Public Sharing option for the manual to be available as public.
- Click Save.
Creating branded training portals
Training portals in Zoho Learn can be used by organizations to deliver training exclusively to their stakeholders or to a general audience who are interested in a specific topic. You can create the portal with customized logo, banners, URL, and color theme to maintain your brand's identity.
Access settings in training portal
The hub admin can create two types of custom portals depending on the type of access that will be granted to the external users.
- Public: Any user with the link to the custom portal can access it. You can use a public portal to deliver training to a large group of audience on the internet. Users can access the portal with the URL and sign up to cosume the course materials.
- Private: Only users invited by the admin of the custom portal can access it. Users cannot sign up for the portal on their own. You can use a private portal to deliver training that should be restricted to a group of users.
How to create a training portal?
- Click the Settings icon to the left of your profile image with hub admin credentials, then click Settings.
- Select the Custom Portal tab.
- Click Create.
- Enter a name, description, and permalink for your portal, click Create.
- Go to the General tab and navigate to the Access section.
- Select Private or Public depending on what type of portal you want to create.
How to invite users to a private training portal?
If you've created a portal with private access settings, you can send customized invitations to the users you want to add to your portal. They can access the invitation from their mailboxes and accept it to join the portal. Users can sign in with their credentials to access the contents of the portal.
To invite users using their email address:
- Go to the Users tab, then click Invite in the top-right corner.
- Enter the email addresses and edit the email message, then click Send.
To import users from a CSV file:
- Navigate to the portal from the Custom Portal tab.
- Go to the Users tab, then click Invite in the top-right corner.
- Click Import CSV.
- Click Choose File and select a file from your device.
- Hover over the email addresses to edit or delete them.
- Click Proceed, then click Send.
The name of the column consisting of the email addresses in your CSV file should be "Email Address".
Here is a screenshot of a valid CSV file:
How to add courses to a portal?
Once you've created a training portal, you can add courses that you've created in your hub to the portal. You can specify one of the following access conditions depending on the course you want to deliver:
- Invited users only: You can invite specific users using their email address to access the course from the portal. These users will be auto-enrolled.
- Everyone in this portal: All users who have access to the portal can access the course and enroll themselves. If you want these users to be approved by the admin, you can use the "Need admin approval" option.
To add a course to a private training portal:
- Navigate to the portal from the Custom Portal tab.
- Go to the Courses tab and click Add Courses.
- Select the courses you want to add, then click Add.
- Once you've added the course to the portal, go to the course from the list of courses, then click the More Options icon.
- Click Manage.
- Enable Invited users only or Everyone in this portal. If you want to restrict the enrollment with the "Need admin approval" option, set the button ON.
- If you want to enable course preview for anyone on the web for public portals, enable Public Preview option.
- Click Save.
How to invite specific users to a course?
After setting "Invited users only" access privilege for your course, you need to add individual users to access the course.
To add users to the course:
- Go to the course from the list of courses in your portal, then click the More Options icon.
- Click Add Users.
- Select the users from the list, then click Add.
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