Knowledge bases
Hostware's knowledge base system helps your customers find answers before they open a support ticket. When a customer starts creating a ticket, Hostware recommends relevant articles from your internal knowledge bases. You can also connect an external knowledge base to extend these recommendations.
What are knowledge bases?
A knowledge base in Hostware is a structured collection of help articles organized by topic. The system has three layers:
Knowledge base types — the top-level collections that group related content
Categories — sub-topics within each knowledge base
Articles (entries) — the actual help content that customers see
How recommendations work
When a customer creates a support ticket in the storefront, Hostware analyzes the ticket subject and suggests up to 3 matching articles from your internal knowledge bases.
If you have also connected an external knowledge base, up to 5 matching articles from that source are included in the suggestions.
Manage knowledge bases
As an admin, you can create, edit, and delete knowledge base types in the knowledge base settings. The list shows each knowledge base's name and slug, and a Ticket-Empfehlungen aktiv badge when ticket recommendations are enabled for that knowledge base.
Click Wissensdatenbank erstellen to add a new knowledge base, or click Bearbeiten to edit an existing one.
The edit form lets you set the knowledge base name, description, and slug.
Manage articles and categories
Knowledge base content is managed separately from the knowledge base types themselves. In the content area, you can manage articles and categories through two tabs:
Einträge — articles and help content
Kategorien — topic categories
Click Eintrag erstellen to add a new article to the knowledge base.
Connect an external knowledge base
You can extend ticket recommendations to include articles from an external knowledge base. Hostware currently supports GitBook.
Go to Settings > KnowledgeBases > External knowledge base search and fill in the credentials:
Username — for GitBook, enter your Space-ID
Password / API Key — for GitBook, enter your API Key
Enable the external search to start including up to 5 matching articles from your external knowledge base in ticket recommendations.