Knowledge Base Access Levels

This feature is available in CRMdesk Professional Edition only.

Usage

CRMdesk Knowledge Base access levels allow restricting customers’ access to certain groups of questions. This may be useful in cases certain FAQs, forum topics or ideas in the Knowledge Base are not intended for general public access. An example can be a situation when technical details of your products are to be disclosed only to qualified personnel of your partner companies according to the ranges of products they service.

Access restriction is achieved via two kinds of assignments:

• FAQ, forum and idea exchange access level assignment: one access level is assigned to each question, topic or idea in the Knowledge Base;

• Customer access level assignment: one or more Knowledge Base access levels is assigned to each customer.

By matching a question’s level with the level(s) assigned to the customer, the system decides whether the customer is allowed to access the record or not. If access is denied, i.e. the customer has not been assigned the level to which the question belongs, the latter does not even appear in the search in browse lists. In addition, if a customer without proper access level assignment attempts to access a question directly using a URL (by typing it in the browser address line), the system will display a public FAQ, forum topics or ideas list without showing a restricted records.

Initially, the system contains three levels that cannot be modified. The use logic of these levels is somewhat different than that of the custom levels described above. These levels are:

• Private – makes a question visible to your support staff in the Support Desk interface only; no customers have access to Knowledge Base records that are marked ‘Private’. This level can be used to form an internal staff-only Knowledge Base or hide questions from customers without deleting them. This level may not be assinged to customers.

• Public – makes a question accessible to every visitor of your Customer Desk web site regardless of the registration; this status is automatically assigned to all customers.

• Registered – makes a question accessible for all of your registered customers who are logged in; the question is not accessible without registration and login; this status is automatically assigned to all registered customers.

Path

Setup tab – Support Desk Setup – Knowledge Base Access Levels

Procedure

Enter new custom levels in available empty fields or rename existing ones. When access levels are renamed, all corresponding question and customer assignments are renamed automatically.

To delete a custom level, erase the level title in the corresponding field. In this case, the level of all FAQs, forum topics or ideas to which this level is assigned is automatically changed to Public, and all corresponding customer assignments are cancelled.

To save your changes, click the Submit button.

Note:

Initially, the system offers only 10 empty Access Level fields along with three fixed levels. To enter more custom levels, fill the first 10, save, and then enter the area again. More empty fields for other custom access levels will appear.

Tips

Access levels can be based on existing attributes such as products, or refer to a completely different access restriction model specific for your business. To prevent inconsistencies, before any assignments are made, make sure all the users responsible for FAQs, forum topics, ideas and customers management have a clear understanding of the Knowledge Base access model.

Next: Workflow Settings