# Help Centre
| Item | Details |
|—|—|
| Who it is for | Administrators configure it; anyone with permission can author in the back office |
| Menu location | Left sidebar **Help Centre** |
| Plan dependency | Requires Help Center. Portal count and published article count count against quota |
Help Centre is the **public knowledge site** for customers: categories + articles, optional custom domain, with Chatips live chat and analytics pixels on the pages.
The default back-office URL looks like: `https://workspace.chatips.com/hc/your-portal-slug`. After a custom domain is live, customers use your address (for example `https://help.yourcompany.com`).
—
## 1. Structure
| Object | Description |
|—|—|
| Portal | One knowledge site. Has name, slug, brand colour, languages, domain |
| Locale | One portal can hold Chinese, English, and more; set a default language and draft languages |
| Category | Article groups; can be nested and cross-linked |
| Article | Draft / Published / Archived |
Create the portal first, then locales and categories, then articles.
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## 2. Creating a portal
1. Open **Help Centre**. If there is no portal yet, follow the prompts.
2. Enter name, slug (URL path, for example `help`), and default language.
3. Upload logo, brand colour, home title, etc. (Settings → General).
4. Grant authoring rights to colleagues (administrators can manage by default; knowledge permissions depend on custom roles).
Portal count is limited by the `portals` quota. Archive or delete unused portals so they do not consume quota (confirm no live custom domain still depends on them).
—
## 3. Categories and articles
### 3.1 Categories
– Create categories for the current language under **Categories**.
– Slugs must be unique within the same portal and language.
– You can set parent categories, sort order and related categories for browsing.
### 3.2 Articles
1. **Articles → New**.
2. Choose language, category and author.
3. Write the body (common rich text is supported).
4. Status:
– **Draft**: back office only; unfinished locales can be marked as draft languages.
– **Published**: customers can search and open it. Counts toward `published_articles` quota.
– **Archived**: removed from the public site but kept in the back office.
5. SEO: keep title, meta description and slug stable; changing the slug changes the public URL.
When quota is exhausted you cannot publish more; archive old articles or upgrade.
### 3.3 Multiple languages
– Add locales on the **Languages** page.
– Default language is used on first visit and when the browser language does not match.
– Remove unused locales from the allow-list carefully if articles already exist.
—
## 4. Portal settings
Settings usually cover: General, Configuration (domain), Appearance, Integrations.
### 4.1 Custom domain (Chatips Cloud)
When customers should use `docs.yourdomain.com` instead of the Chatips default:
1. The domain must include a **subdomain** (for example `help.acme.com`). **Apex** `acme.com` is **not** supported.
2. Enter the custom domain in settings and save.
3. At your DNS provider add:
– **CNAME**: hostname → the target Chatips shows (typically a help-centre host such as `help.chatips.com`)
– **TXT**: ownership verification (hostname and value shown in the UI)
4. After saving DNS, verification and go-live usually complete within **about 10 minutes**. Status must be Live before it is public.
5. If it stays pending: check CNAME/TXT match exactly, then click **Refresh**. The system retries a limited number of times; if it still fails, read the status message and refresh again.
6. Before verification finishes, opening that domain shows a “coming soon” style page, not a 404.
7. Use “Send instructions” to email DNS steps to a colleague.
Do not put Chatips’ own `help.chatips.com` or `workspace.chatips.com` in “custom domain”. Those are platform hosts, not your customer domain.
### 4.2 Integrations
| Item | Purpose |
|—|—|
| Use Chatips live chat | Pick a **website widget** inbox; public help pages embed the same chat |
| GTM / GA4 / Hotjar / Plausible / Amplitude / Clarity / Meta Pixel | Paste IDs (administrators only). Scripts inject on public pages; back-office article previews are **not** counted |
These are analytics pixels, not WhatsApp channels. Channels stay under Settings → Inboxes.
Enabling both GTM and GA4 can double-count; keep one.
Plausible uses the official `plausible.io` script; self-hosted Plausible cannot change the script URL.
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## 5. How customers visit
– No custom domain: `/hc/{slug}/…`
– Live custom domain: root path is the portal
– Search, category browse, language switch, light/dark (theme-dependent)
– Sitemap can be generated for search engines
Put links in the site footer, the widget “Help” entry, and email signatures.
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## 6. Working with Captain and the widget
– The widget can offer an “Open Help Centre” style entry (per inbox settings).
– Captain can retrieve published articles if vector search is enabled. Even without it, keeping the same FAQ set in Captain keeps auto-reply wording aligned.
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## 7. Frequently asked questions
**Publish button greyed out / quota error?** Published articles or portals are at the limit.
**Domain stuck on “waiting for verification”?** DNS not live, A record used instead of CNAME, TXT name missing a prefix, or apex domain entered. Fix, then refresh.
**Chat widget missing?** No website inbox selected under Integrations, or the portal is using a preview-only layout.
**Brand colour changed but customers still see the old one?** Browser cache; on a custom domain also check CDN cache.
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## Related articles
– [Channels and inboxes](./12-channels-and-inboxes)
– [Captain assistant](./7-captain-assistant)
– [Billing and usage](./26-billing-and-usage)