The importance of quality documentation cannot be overstated; equally important is a knowledge base that's intuitive to use. The purpose of this article is to highlight some of the most important features of our knowledge base.

NOTE: Our new knowledge base is built with a different back end software. While we were able to keep the same base URL (support.higherlogic.com), articles will have different URLs than before. Because of this, you'll need to update bookmarks to favorite articles.

Home page

Let's start with the Home page's layout and features.

Create a Case

For convenience, the ability to create a case is available directly from the knowledge base. To do so, however, you'll need to create an account and be signed in. Once you are, click the Create a Case button at the top right or at the bottom of the page.

These two buttons are available on every page, ensuring you can easily submit a ticket.

Useful links

Below the search field are four links:

• Community links to the Higher Logic User Group (HUG), a vibrant community resource you and your peers can use to share their insights and experiences.
• Training links to the Higher Logic Academy, which provides access to monthly webinars, regional in-person events, and our E-Learning portal.
• What's New provides access to product-specific articles about upcoming features in Online Community and our Communications products.
• Support takes you to the Support Resources landing page, which serves as a launching off point several Support resources. 

Knowledge base structure

We've reorganized our knowledge base into a more refined, product-based approach to make manually navigating to articles faster and more logical. Much of the complexity and hierarchical depth has been removed, requiring significantly less navigational "drilling" than in the past. The foundation of our content is based on primary categories (shown below), which provide a more intuitive launch pad to access topic-specific sections, sub-sections, and articles.

The new design made it easier for us to surface these access points which, in turn, make it easier for you to find information about:

• Standard product offerings
• Add-on products and secondary offerings
• Product-based integrations

After accessing a category, its associated sections are presented as expandable dropdowns. In the example below, we've expanded the Tools & Features section, which includes several articles and two sub-sections. This layout makes it easy to quickly parse areas of interest and their associated articles.

Home page widgets

Below the categories are two widgets we think you'll find useful:

• Promoted Articles - This is where we'll highlight the articles we think deserve special attention. Keep an eye on this list from time to time, as we'll be updating it with new, important articles.
• Recently Viewed - Like a built-in favorites list, this dynamic widget tracks the last handful of articles that you have viewed, making it easy to jump back to them at any time.

Search

You can search for articles from every knowledge base page.

Use the search field to pinpoint your article search to a topic of interest, such as discussions or templates. When you type your search word or phrase and press Enter, you're taken to the Search results page with a list of matching articles and a page navigation below the list.

TIP: See How to Search Our Knowledge Base to learn about key features and search tips to make searching our knowledge base as easy and efficient as possible.

Article pages

Our article pages have some great new features that will improve your "information gathering" experience.

• A new Global Navigation menu appears at the article level. It remains as long as you're viewing a knowledge base article, and automatically refreshes to reflect your location as you navigate (your current article is highlighted orange). You can expand and collapse categories and sections to quickly access any article in the knowledge base. This structure replaces the old top-down navigation structure that required too much time and effort to drill-down to the content being sought.

• Most articles now include an article-specific table of contents menu, which lists their main topics. Not only can they be clicked to quickly jump to areas of interest, they’re highlighted with an orange bar as you scroll, noting your location on the page.

• The breadcrumbs remain above an article so that you can see "where you are" and easily backtrack if necessary.