Help Topics

help topics are content units designed to deliver embedded, context aware support directly within salesforce how it works help topics are created by help authors in the help portal, linked to specific salesforce objects (e g , fields, buttons), and displayed to users in different ways via qam help topics appear as in page callouts (with green question marks) when users interact with linked fields/buttons the qam also provides access to the help portal, where users can browse all topics via help portal users access the full content of help topics in the help portal via lightning utility bar to configure this feature, see lightning utility bar docid\ uepsw7kpduqdei7v cond help topics support multiple formats and options add rich media (images, videos) link to other topics or external resources organize content into trees or reading lists use tags for categorization add keywords for automatic cross linking embed topics at the field level with the autoform component gather user feedback via comments and votes help topics are stored as native salesforce records that can be manipulated like any other once you create a help topic, users can find it using salesforce search clicking on a search result takes the user to the improved help portal a default viewer for the topic and any related items more often, help authors, in partnership with system administrators, will decide to add help components to key areas of salesforce page layouts, so topics are displayed right where users need them a number of components are available the most important of these is the help topic viewer create help topics focus on one task per topic (e g , "adding a contact" vs "mastering contacts" ) 1\ creation & content definition open the help portal , which is accessible via qam open the qam on any lightning page it has been added to click the tools button and select help home to open the help portal unaric guide application navigate to the salesforce app launcher select the improved help app click the help topics tab once in the help portal , click the tools menu ( icon) and select new help topic to open the creation interface the creation interface includes several tabs for configuring the topic’s content and settings you need to save changes in each tab to finalize the topic defines the topic’s title and brief description for display name the name or title of the help topic as it appears in the help portal’s help topic panel the name does not need to be unique (there is an underlying salesforce record id for data management purposes) but a unique name makes life easier for all users when searching for help summary a mandatory brief summary of the help topic – a required (non unique) field that appears under the help topic name in the help portal and is used in all callout templates image properties this gives you the ability to embed images within the help you have added around your org the images are referenced to externally help files, which helps to reduce salesforce data usage image url the web address of the image, which should use the https protocol to prevent browsers throwing security alerts image title short title text that appears above the image in the help portal image caption short caption text that appears under the image in the help portal and callout templates that include images image alt text alternative text to support accessibility image width & height set the image’s size in the help portal (use just one dimension to scale proportionally without losing the original image’s aspect ratio) reset image button clears all image settings and empties the image placeholder in full & callout templates to prevent unexpected layout issues video settings you can embed useful videos which end users will find useful read more here video url the web address of the video, which should use the https protocol to prevent browsers throwing security alerts video title short title text that appears above the video player in the help portal video caption short caption text that appears under the video player in the help portal and callout templates that include videos video width & height sets video player size in the help portal (use just one dimension to scale proportionally without losing the original image’s aspect ratio) reset video button clears all video settings and empties the video placeholder in full & callout templates to prevent unexpected layout issues after finishing editing the help topic, copy the id at the bottom and click save ( icon) configures display settings for callouts and help portal salesforce help url an optional field used to set any salesforce help & training portal page url that is directly relevant to this help topic (where salesforce help pages are indirectly relevant to a specific help topic, they are better managed as external help resources, linked to specific help topics as a related help resource with contextual usage notes ) callout template sets the layout of the help topic when embedded help in a salesforce page – displayed in a help callout; callout height allows the help author to adjust the height of the callout to balance the help topic’s content and space used in the helped page if the callout template is changed, callout height changes to the default value for that callout template; callout media choice if a help topic has both image and video media, the help author can select which will be displayed in help callouts with one media slot per help topic (note that if a help topic is edited and the selected media removed, improved help will switch callout media choice to the remaining option ); preview callout link to save the need for help authors to flip between the help portal and helped pages to see the effect of callout parameter changes, clicking the preview callout link will launch a new window to preview the last (quick) saved callout and a placeholder container to show how the callout will sit in the helped page full template sets the default template for displaying the full help topic in the help portal’s help topic panel see enterprise help portal help topic panel for more details on full template types height before scrolling help authors can adjust the height at which help topics start to scroll when viewed in the help portal – to balance visibility of help topic content and the related help resources panel, which sits below the help topic panel provides the ability to create custom styles, add sentiments and make the help topic active and inactive active? sets whether the help topic is visible to helped users help authors and administrators can see topics regardless of this setting show read more link? sets whether the help topic, when displayed in its callout, has a link to read all topic details in the help portal show referring topics controls visibility of topics that reference this one in the related help topics listing help topics always include links to related help where authors have chosen to define these relationships global settings can be used to control whether or not to include related help listings for topics from which the current topic is referenced this check box can be used to override global settings, ensuring that any referring topics are always shown for the current topic help topic status where required, the help topic status field provides a default set of milestones to manage help topic’s life cycle this is useful for organisations seeking to formalise authoring processes with salesforce workflows and/or approvals the default picklist values may be overridden at system administrator level visibility tag that can be used with data sharing rules (see help domains ) to control topic availability the visibility field is not used by improved help itself, but organisations can choose to create data sharing rules based on the setting of the visibility field to filter the records seen by different groups of users custom style where defined in global settings, some examples are packaged, also allows a custom style to be applied to a help topic the custom style field can be used to finesse the appearance of individual help topics to extend these options help administrators must define custom styles in the customer css file help administrators then reference these styles on the branding tab of the global settings page authors are then able to select from the list of custom styles for their topics vote set allow you to capture users sentiment as they engage with your content see the below section (adding feedback and sentiment) for more information this is the main tab for adding the vital help which you would like to share with your end users help topic description is a rich text field, which can be edited using the standard features provided by the salesforce rich text editor you can also paste rich text or html into this field though be aware that, upon saving, salesforce will automatically remove or ‘escape’ some html elements for security reasons keywords set a keyword for any help topic use help topics individually to define business terminology or definitions /abbreviations used by your business to create a knowledge base of such topics ensure each definition help topic has a keyword set, then any other help topics using the keywords will automatically link to them, like wiki links / wikipedia this tab is only relevant if you are using this specific help topic as part of a guide see help guides docid\ tipcua4cbw8sp8mdqtf64 2\ link help topics to fields and buttons a system administrator must first add the autoform lightning component to the page layout where you want to add embedded help the autoform is a replacement for the standard record detail view that enables field level help to learn how to add this component, see embedded help setup docid 4fdylq4xcjoiu 3cokhm6 copy the salesforce id of the help topic and navigate to the page of the target object click the tools menu button and select help enable the page will switch to help enable mode in help enable mode, any field that can be help enabled will be highlighted in yellow click on any highlighted field label or button to mark it for help enablement when finished, use the quick access menu to return to view mode you’ll be prompted to review your selections de select any mistakenly chosen fields or buttons link help topics to the newly selected elements use the salesforce id of the help topic (in case you didn't copy it, it is found in the url of the topic’s page) and paste it into the help topic id field for the selected element green question mark icons next to field labels, which indicates recent help enablement hyperlinks displaying newly added help topic details pending , which you can use to add content after completing the configuration, your help enabled elements will display select fields in a logical order that matches your users' workflow lifecycle help topics follow a lifecycle status to track their progress this is especially useful for organizations that employ formal salesforce workflows or approvals in their authoring processes track content from draft to archival using status fields draft initial creation or editing phase in review awaiting validation from designated approvers published visible to end users archived retired but preserved for reference set up lifecycle status you can configure custom status values in global settings to match your workflow navigate to improved help settings > global settings under "help topic status" , add/edit picklist values (e g , "pending legal review" ) make a topic active to make a help topic visible to users go to the status tab of the help topic set active? to checked save the record you can also use the show read more link? setting to control whether users can view the full help topic in the help portal