Overview
Pendo’s knowledge base integration allows you to deliver contextual and on-demand help to your users from within the guide center.
Supported Providers
The following knowledge base providers are currently supported:
- Zendesk
- Wordpress (Supports Wordpress engine hosted only)
- HelpDocs
- Helpscout
- Swiftype
- Algolia
If you use a provider that is not supported, we’d love to explore the possibility of supporting it. Please reach our to your sales rep or customer success manager to learn more!
Provider specific features
Depending on your provider, we support different levels of functionality related to article rendering inside of the guide center. Unfortunately this is not by choice - if we could fully support every provider we certainly would! Since our integrations rely heavily on the provider’s API, we provide as much functionality as they allow us.
Full article rendering
- Zendesk
- Wordpress
For the above providers, we support full article rendering inside of guide center.
Partial article rendering
- HelpDocs
- Helpscout
- Swiftype
For the above providers, we support partial article rendering inside of guide center. Partial article rendering means that we present a preview snippet of the article and then add a "Read full article" button that links out to the web version of that article.
*We are currently unable to support any sort of article rendering for Algolia. Search results always open the web version of the content in a new browser tab.
Getting started
The knowledge base integration can be configured here on our integrations page. Clicking on any of the tiles will reveal a configuration window with configuration options.
Adding the integration for the first time
After configuring, clicking Add integration and subsequently clicking Yes, confirm will enable the integration in your staging environment.
Publishing staging configuration to production environment
After successfully adding or saving, you will be presented with the option of publishing the integration to your production environment. Clicking publish to production will enable the integration in your production environment.
Disabling the integration
If you need to disable the integration for whatever reason, you can do so by toggling the "On - Off" switch in the top right corner of the configuration window.
Configuration options
Contextual help
One super important part of any knowledge base is making sure the content presented to the user is contextual. Pendo’s knowledge base integration allows you to do just that!
Suggested article path
The number configured here corresponds to a section of the url for the page a user is on. We use the value in that section of the url when generating suggested results. A few examples will like help explain this better:
Examples:
Suggested article path: 1
URL: https://acmecorp.com/foo/bar/abc
Result: we use the word "foo" when retrieving suggested articles
Suggested article path: 2
URL: https://acmecorp.com/foo/bar/abc
Result: we use the word "bar" when retrieving suggested articles
Suggested article path: 3
URL: https://acmecorp.com/foo/bar/abc
Result: we use the word "abc" when retrieving suggested articles
Combine paths
If checked, we will combine all available url sections up to, and including, the suggested article path configured above.
Examples:
Suggested article path: 2
URL: https://acmecorp.com/foo/bar/abc
Result: we use the word "foo" and "bar" when retrieving suggested articles
Suggested article path: 3
URL: https://acmecorp.com/foo/bar/abc
Result: we use the word "foo" and "bar" and "abc" when retrieving suggested articles
Popular topics string
In the event that the search term used for the suggested articles does not return any matches, you can optionally display a message to the end user. Whatever you input into this configuration box will be shown to the end user.
Advanced options
Bearer Tokens (Zendesk)
If you have a protected knowledge base (users need to log in to access help documentation), you will need to provide a bearer token in order for users to search the content. If your knowledge base is not behind a login, you do not need to configure this option.
Take a look at Zendesk’s documentation on how to setup this up.
Custom classes
If you have an extremely customized guide center and need to leverage these, please reach out to help@pendo.io for instructions to ensure the integration functions as intended.
Styles
Looking to customize the styles you see inside of the knowledge base integration? You can do so by uploading a stylesheet at the very bottom of the advanced options section. Click here to access a starter css file with all of the classes used in the integration. Add your custom styles to these classes, upload it, and that’s it!
Analytics
Through the use of our parameterized url feature, Pendo is able to capture and display the following metrics: which visitors and accounts are searching for content, the keywords used to search for content that yields results, keywords that yield no results, and which articles are viewed. To configure these analytics, follow the instructions below:
Enable parameterized urls
If you are unsure if this feature is enabled for your subscription, please reach out to help@pendo.io.
Create page rules
Listed below are the four page rules needed to collect analytics.
Name: Suggested Results
//*/search/suggested-results/*parameter*
Name: Search Results
//*/search/results/*parameter*
Name: No Results
//*/search/no-results/*parameter*
Name: Articles
//*/article/*parameter*
FAQ
Can I combine the knowledge base search with Pendo guide search?
No, not at this time
Are there other methods for determining suggested article queries other than leveraging a part of the url?
The url is the only supported method for determining suggested articles.
How come knowledge base images aren’t loading (Zendesk)?
The most common reason for image load failures is due to how the image is added to a help center article and whether or not authentication is required to view said image. If the Help Center is restricted, or if you have Help Center authentication set up through your own Single Sign-On (SSO) solution, you may find that these images will appear broken.
If you are encountering broken images in the Pendo Zendesk knowledge base integration, chances are that the image is hosted behind a login wall. If you are unsure whether this is the cause of the issue, open your browser’s console and check for a Failed to load resource error. If you see this, this is the cause of the broken images.
A workaround for the broken images is to host your Zendesk help center article assets (images) somewhere other than Zendesk, and link to those resources from within your articles.