User Guide Cancel

Publish to Zendesk Help Center

  1. RoboHelp User Guide
  2. Introduction
    1. Get to know RoboHelp workspace
    2. What's new in RoboHelp 2022 release
      1. What's new in Update 5
      2. What's new in Update 4
      3. What's new in Update 3
      4. What's new in Update 2
      5. What's new in Update 1
    3. Fixed Issues in RoboHelp
    4. RoboHelp System Requirements
    5. Download RoboHelp on Windows and macOS
    6. Download and install Adobe app
    7. RoboHelp FAQs
    8. What's new in RoboHelp 2020 release
      1. What's new in Update 8
      2. What's new in Update 7
      3. What's new in Update 6
      4. What's new in Update 5
      5. What's new in Update 4
      6. What's new in Update 3
      7. What's new in Update 2
      8. What's new in Update 1
  3. Projects
    1. Plan your RoboHelp project
    2. Create a project
    3. Manage projects
    4. Work with topics and folders
    5. Generate reports
    6. Work with context-sensitive help
    7. Manage References
    8. Set preferences in RoboHelp
  4. Collaborate with authors
    1. Collaborate using Git
    2. Collaborate using SharePoint Online
    3. Collaborate using Azure DevOps (Team Foundation Server)
  5. PDF Layout
    1. PDF templates
    2. Design a page layout
    3. Publish PDF output
    4. Work with the common content styles
    5. Components of a PDF template
    6. Support for language variables
    7. Customize PDFs
  6. Editing and formatting
    1. Format your content
    2. Create and manage cross-references
    3. Create and manage links
    4. Single-source with snippets
    5. Work with images and multimedia
    6. Create and use variables for easy updates
    7. Work with Variable Sets
    8. Use Find and Replace
    9. Auto save your content
    10. Side-by-side editing in Split View
    11. Use the Spell Check feature
    12. Create and Edit Bookmarks
    13. Insert and update fields
    14. Switch between multiple views
    15. Autonumbering in CSS
  7. Import and linking
    1. Import Markdown files into a project
    2. Import Word documents into a project
    3. Import FrameMaker documents into a project
  8. TOCs, indexes, glossaries, and citations
    1. Create and manage a Table of Contents
    2. Create and manage an index
    3. Create and manage a glossary
    4. Create and manage citations
    5. Create and manage browse sequences
    6. Work with See Also and Related Topics
  9. Conditional content
    1. What is conditional content
    2. Create and apply condition tags
    3. Configure output presets for conditional content
    4. Optimize and manage conditional content
  10. Microcontent
    1. Microcontent
  11. Review and Collaboration
    1. Review and Collaboration
  12. Translation
    1. Translating content to multiple languages
    2. Configure a translation framework for a service provider
  13. Generating output
    1. Generate output
    2. Generate Frameless output
    3. Generate Knowledge Base output
    4. Generate PDF output
    5. Generate Responsive HTML5 output
    6. Generate Word Document output
    7. Generate Content Only output
    8. Generate eBook output
    9. Generate Microsoft HTML Help output
    10. Generate Mobile App output
  14. Publish output
    1. Publish to a RoboHelp Server
    2. Publish to an FTP server, a Secure FTP server, or a File System
    3. Publish to SharePoint Online
    4. Publish to Zendesk Help Center
    5. Publish to Salesforce Knowledge Base
    6. Publish to ServiceNow Knowledge Base
    7. Publish to Zoho Knowledge Base
    8. Publish to Adobe Experience Manager
    9. Publish to Atlassian Confluence Knowledge Base
  15. Appendix
    1. Adobe RoboHelp Scripting Reference
    2. RoboHelp keyboard shortcuts

Learn how to publish your content directly to Zendesk Help Center.

Master pages used in the PDF or Word output template have been renamed as Page Layout.

Master pages used for topic templates or for online outputs have been renamed as Topic Layouts.

For more information, see Templates in Adobe RoboHelp.

Adobe RoboHelp extends the capabilities of its publishing feature, giving you the option to publish Knowledge Base output, directly to Zendesk Help Center.

Pre-requisites

To create a connection with Zendesk Help Center, you must set up your account to get started. For more details, see Getting Started with Zendesk.

In addition, ensure that the option Enable API authentication using an agent's email address and password is enabled in the Settings tab in Zendesk API on Zendesk side.

Set up the workflow

Following are the steps to configure Zendesk Help Center prior to publishing your output.

Create an output preset

To create an output preset in RoboHelp, follow these steps:

  1. In an open project, do one of the following:

    • Click the Output tab at the left side of the Standard toolbar.
    • Click Quick Generate  in the upper-right corner of the Standard toolbar and click the Edit Settings icon .

    The Output view opens.

  2. In the Output toolbar, click Output Presets. The Output Presets panel opens.

  3. In the Output Presets panel, click .

  4. In the New Preset dialog box, specify the following:

    Type Use the drop-down list to select Knowledge Base preset type. 

    Name Specify a name for the output preset.

    Target From the target drop-down, choose Zendesk Help Center.

  5. Click Done.

    You can access the output preset from the Output Presets panel in the Output toolbar. Alternatively, you can access the output preset in the Quick Generate dialog box of the authoring window.

Configure a Zendesk output preset

You can use the following settings to configure the Knowledge Base output preset:

General

Title: Specify the title for the generated output.

Output Path: Specify a location for the output.

Ensure that the output path is NOT located inside the project folder. If the output path is inside the project folder, the output generation fails. Also the folder you select should NOT have any content that you need. RoboHelp deletes the contents of the folder before generating the output.

Save output path as relative to project: If enabled and you browse to the output path., the path to the output will now be a relative instead of absolute.

Language: Use the drop-down list to select the language for the output.

Note: The language in Zendesk must match the language that you will select in RoboHelp. For example, if you have selected French (France) in RoboHelp, then you must select French (France) in Zendesk, not French, or not French (Canada), but strictly French(France). The language in both the places must match, or else, there will be errors in publishing.

Encoding: From the drop-down list, select the encoding to be used for the output. Specify the type of character encoding format to be used for your content.

Post Generation Script: To run your custom script after output generation, select the script file from the drop-down list.

General

Use the following options to specify basic output settings, such as title, target, output path, encoding, and more:

Title Specify the title for the generated output.

You can use variables in the title. To do so, type Ctrl+1 and select a variable from the drop-down list, and then press Enter. Note that if you have provided a variable set in the Content tab > Variable Set field, during output generation, the value of the selected variable is picked from the variable set.

Target Use the drop-down to specify the target to generate the selected output in Knowledge Base preset.

Output Path Specify a location for the output. To select a location, click  . 

Ensure that the output path is NOT located inside the project folder. If the output path is inside the project folder, the output generation fails. Also the folder you select should NOT have any content that you need. RoboHelp deletes the contents of the folder before generating the output.

Save output path as relative to project: If enabled and you browse to the output path., the path to the output will now be a relative instead of absolute.  

Encoding Use the drop-down list to specify the type of character encoding format to be used for your content.

Post Generation Script To run your custom script after output generation, select the script .js file from the drop-down list.

Content

Use the following options to specify content-related output settings, such as the settings for Table of Contents, condition expression, variable set, and including expanding and drop-down text.

Table Of Contents Use the drop-down list to select a Table of Contents to be included in the output. This drop-down list displays the Tables of Contents available in your project. The first Table of Contents in this drop-down list is selected by default.

The set of files and their references present in the selected Table of Contents appear in the generated output.

Note:

It is important to understand how to map your publication to the categories and sections in Zendesk. To learn more about mapping, see Configure the TOC for Zendesk.

Condition Expression Use the drop-down list to specify the condition expression for your output. This setting allows you to easily include or exclude content depending on the desired type of output or user base. Click  to edit the selected condition expression. You can also select None in the drop-down list to not specify any condition expression.

Variable Set Use the drop-down list to specify the variable set to use in this output. In the drop-down list, you can select <Default Variable Set> to use the project's default variable set. Variable sets allow you to implement output-specific use of variables. For example, you can have different variable sets for generating output for customers and internal users.

Include Expanding Text Select this option to include Expanding Text in your Knowledge Base output; otherwise, only the Expanding Title goes into the output. However, the Expanding Text will be shown in the expanded form in the output.

Include Drop-down Text Select this option to include Drop-down Text in your Knowledge Base output; otherwise, only the Drop-down Title goes into the output. However, the Drop-down text will be displayed in the output.

Layout

Use the option to configure the appearance of your output.

Zendesk

Use the following options to specify Zendesk publish settings, such as Publish Profile, Visible to, Managed by, and more:

Publish Profile Use the drop-down to select among your Zendesk connection profile. To learn how to create publish profile, see Configure a publish profile.

Visible to Click the drop-down to select a group of users to control the visibility settings of your published content. The view permissions are set on the Zendesk server depending on your Zendesk account.

Managed by Click the drop-down arrow and then select management permissions to determine who can have editing and publishing rights. These management permissions are pre-generated on the Zendesk server depending on your Zendesk account. 

Publish all articles in the same category Select this option to publish all the topics of the TOC to a single category and section on Zendesk site. For more details about categories and sections, visit Organizing knowledge base content in categories and sections.

Convert all styles to inline styles Select this option to ensure that your styling used in RoboHelp is maintained when you publish your output to Zendesk.

Upload images Select this option if you want any images in topics to be included in the published output.

Upload linked documents Select this option if you want documents like PPT, PPTX, DOC, DOCX, and PDF linked in topics to be included in the published output. 

Include Javascript Select this option to include JavaScript in your output to show expanding text, drop-down text, pop-ups, and thumbnails. If unselected, the content will appear as a plain text if published to the site.

Note:

Zendesk, by default, doesn’t allow any JavaScript content in articles. However, you can enable it in Zendesk by navigating to Guide Settings -> Security -> Enable “Display unsafe content”.

Configure a publish profile

You must create and configure a publish profile before publishing your output to Zendesk. To create and configure a profile:

  1. Choose Edit > Publish Profiles.

    The Publish Settings dialog box opens. 

  2. Click  to create a profile.

  3. In the Server Type field, select Zendesk Help Center.

  4. For the Zendesk Help Center server type, do the following:

    • Name Shows the default profile name. Modify the name if required.
    • Site URL Add a site name to complete the site URL. The beginning of the URL includes your organization’s domain.
                   For example: https://companyname.zendesk.com/
    •  User ID Specify the user ID. 
    • Password Specify the password for this user.
  5. Click Save.

    RoboHelp saves the profile and displays the profile name under the Profiles column. To edit a profile, click the profile name and edit its fields. To delete a profile, click  against it.

Configure the TOC structure for Zendesk Help Center

The last step prior to publishing is to check that your TOC is organized to publish your content into categories and sections, keeping the following guidelines in mind:

  • The top-level of the TOC is converted to categories and second-level to sections; therefore, it is recommended to create a two-level TOC.
  • Published articles that do not fall in this structure are rearranged into categories and sections.
Two-level TOC
An illustration of how the two-level TOC looks

Publish to Zendesk Help Center

You can configure Knowledge Base output preset to link to Zendesk, and then publish your content to Zendesk Help Center.

  1. Click the Output tab in the standard toolbar. Output Presets is the default selection in the Output toolbar. 

  2. In the Output Presets panel, double-click an output preset to edit it. 

  3. In the output preset editor, click the Publish tab to view the profile selected in Zendesk tab configuration.

    You can also edit server information in the Publish Profiles dialog box, which you can launch by clicking 

  4. Select the profiles (servers) to which you want to publish content.

  5. Click the Generate Preset icon  in the Output Presets panel. 

    You can then view a progress bar next to the selected output preset in the Output Presets panel. Once the output generation is complete, a Success dialog box is visible at the lower-right corner of the screen. 

    After the output generation is complete, click  in the Output Presets panel to view the output.

  6. To publish to the selected profiles (servers), click the output preset, and then click  in the standard toolbar. Or, right-click the output preset and click Publish.

  7. RoboHelp pushes the content to Zendesk. After the publishing is completed, Robohelp displays a report of the published content.

  8. To view the published output, click the  icon to take you to the landing page of the Zendesk Help Center, where you can browse to your article.

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