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[usit-rt.git] / docs / customizing / articles_introduction.pod

=head1 Articles

Articles are a way of managing stock answers or frequently asked
questions.  Articles are a collection of custom fields whose values can
be easily inserted into ticket replies or searched and browsed within
RT.  They are organized into classes and topics.

=head2 UI

The user interface to Articles is available from the Tools -> Articles
menu.  Admin functionality can be found under Tools -> Configuration ->
Articles.  Once configured, articles will become available for searching
on the Reply/Comment page on tickets.  There are L</"Configuration Options">
to make Articles available on ticket creation.

=head2 Basics

You will need to make some decisions about how to organize your
articles.  Articles will be organized into one Class and multiple
Topics.  They will use Custom Fields to store their article data.
These Custom Fields can be configured on a Class by Class basis.
Classes can be made available globally or on a per-Queue basis.

=head2 Organization

=head3 Classes

Classes are equivalent to RT's queues.  They can be created by going
to Tools -> Configuration -> Articles -> Classes -> New Class.  Articles
are assigned to one Class.  When you create Custom Fields for use with
Articles, they will be applied Globally or to a Class, like Custom
Fields are applied to a Queue in RT.

A common use for Articles is to store frequently
used replies for requestors, like troubleshooting steps or how to sign
up for a new account. When you insert Article text, you may or may not
want to include the Article name and summary, in addition to the content,
when inserting the Article in a reply. You can control this behavior on
the Class configuration page.

Classes need to be Applied, just like a Custom Field, by using the
Applies To link on the Modify Class page (Tools -> Configuration ->
Articles -> Classes, select the class to modify).  You can apply
them globally or on a queue-by-queue basis.

=head3 Topics

You can also use Topics to organize your Articles.  While editing a
Class, there is a Topics tab for Class-specific Topics.  You can create
global Topics from the Global tab under Tools -> Configuration.

When editing Topics, type the name (and optionally description) of the
Topic, and then click the button at the appropriate location in the
Topic hierarchy. This should allow you to build a tree of Topics. This
tree of Topics should show up when creating or modifying articles in
the class. These can be arbitrarily nested.

Global Topics will be available for all Articles, regardless of their
Class.  Articles can belong to both global and Class-specific Topics.

Article topics can be set from the Modify screen for the article --
simply select as many topics as you desire from the list at the bottom
of the screen.

=head2 Custom Fields

Articles don't have a single "body" section for each
article. Everything is a custom field (except for name, summary and
some other basic metadata). So to put information on an
Article, you need to create some custom fields to hold the Article
body and other data.  When you create these new Custom Fields, set
the Applies To field to Articles.

Once you've created your Custom Fields, go into your Classes, click
on Custom Fields, and add the Custom Fields you want to each Class.
Alternatively, use the Applies To link from each Custom Field.

=head2 Creating Articles

You can create an Article from scratch by going to Tools -> Articles ->
New Article and then picking which Class to create the Article under.
You must have a Class to assign the new Article to.
The Summary, Description and Custom Fields will all be searchable when
including an Article and you can control what Custom Fields end up in
your Ticket from the Class configuration page.

=head3 Extracting an Article

You can extract the body of a ticket into an article. Within RT, you
should now see an "Extract to article" button in the upper right hand
corner of RT's UI when working with tickets. When you click that
button, RT will ask you which Class to create your new Article in.
Once you click on a Class name, the Ticket's transactions will be
displayed, along with a set of select boxes. For each transaction, you
can pick which Custom Field that transaction should be extracted to.
From there on in, it's just regular Article creation.

=head2 Including an Article

When replying to or commenting on tickets or creating tickets, there
is a UI widget that lets you search for and include Articles in
your reply.  (They're editable, of course).  

Articles can be included by searching for them, knowing the Id of the
article, using the Article Hotlist and using the Queue-specific
dropdown.

=head2 Queue-Specific List of Articles 

You can use Topics to organize a set of Queue-specific Articles.
Simply create a global Topic called 'Queues' and then create Topics
under Queues named after each of your Queues.  Within each Queue-named
Topic, create some Topics and then assign Articles to those
sub-topics.  This creates a hierarchy like this:

Queues
\-> General
    \-> Topic 1
    \-> Topic 2

If you are replying to a Ticket in the General Queue you will be
offered a choice of Topic 1 and Topic 2 along with the searching.
After choosing Topic 1 or Topic 2, you will be given a list of
relevant articles to choose.

Alternately, you can now implement this by applying a single Class to
your Queue and using the L</"Article Hotlist"> feature described below.

=head2 Article Hotlist

The Modify Class page has a checkbox labelled "All Articles in this
class should be listed in a dropdown of the ticket reply page".
If you select this for a Class, a dropdown will be available on the
Ticket Create or Update page which allows users to quickly include
Articles in this Class.

The Class needs to be set up and Applied for the dropdown to appear
(see L</"Classes">).

=head2 SelfService Interface

If you grant the Unprivileged user group the right ShowArticle, they
will get a Search box at the top of their interface.  This allows users
to look through your Articles for answers to questions before creating
a Ticket.

=head1 Configuration Options

=head2 ArticleOnTicketCreate

Set this to a true value to display the Article include interface on the
Ticket Create page in addition to the Reply/Comment page (Create.html
in addition to Update.html).

=head2 HideArticleSearchOnReplyCreate

On Ticket Reply (and Create if you set the above config var)
RT's Article system normally displays a search box and an include box
(for inputting an article id) and configurable dropdowns
of Articles.  These can be configured using Global Topics or
on the Class page.

If you set this to a true value, RT will only display
dropdowns and hide the search boxes.

=cut