Help Center

Odoo Helpdesk integrates with the Forum, eLearning, and Knowledge apps to create the Help Center. The Help Center is a centralized location where teams and customers can search for and share detailed information about products and services.

Overview of the settings page of a team emphasizing the Help Center features.

Configuration

To activate any Help Center features (Forums, eLearning, or Knowledge) on a Helpdesk team, go to Helpdesk app ‣ Configuration ‣ Helpdesk Teams and select a team, or create a new one. Verify the Visibility of the team is set to Invited portal users and all internal users (public) in the Visibility & Assignment section.

Additionally, the Website Form option on the Helpdesk team page must be enabled to activate any of the Help Center features. When one or more of the Help Center features is enabled, the Website Form is automatically enabled, as well.

Danger

Since all of the Help Center features require integration with other applications, enabling any of them may result in the installation of additional modules or applications.

Installing a new application on a One-App-Free database will trigger a 15-day trial. At the end of the trial, if a paid subscription has not been added to the database, it will no longer be active or accessible.

Knowledge

Odoo’s Knowledge application is a collaborative library, where users can store, edit, and share information. The Knowledge app is accessible throughout the database by clicking on the Knowledge (bookmark) icon.

View of a message in Helpdesk focusing on the Knowledge bookmark icon.

Enable Knowledge on a Helpdesk team

To enable the Knowledge feature on a Helpdesk team, go to Helpdesk app ‣ Configuration ‣ Helpdesk Teams and select a team, or create a new one.

When a team has been selected or created, Odoo displays that team’s detail form.

On the team’s detail form, scroll down to the Help Center section. Then, click the box next to Knowledge to activate the Knowledge feature. When clicked, a new field labeled, Article appears.

Clicking the Article field reveals a drop-down menu. At first, there is only one option in the drop-down menu titled Help, which Odoo provides by default. Select Help from the drop-down menu to choose this article.

Tip

To create a new article, go to the Knowledge app, then hover the cursor next to the Workspace section heading, located in the left sidebar. Moving the cursor there reveals a hidden ➕ (plus sign) icon.

Click the ➕ (plus sign) icon to create a new article in the Workspace. In the upper-right corner of the page, click the Share button, and slide the Share to Web toggle switch until it reads Article Published. It can then be added to a Helpdesk team.

Once an article has been created and assigned to a Helpdesk team, content can be added and organized through the Knowledge app.

Search articles from a Helpdesk ticket

When members of a Helpdesk team are trying to solve a ticket, they can search through the content in the Knowledge app for more information on the issue.

To search Knowledge articles, open a ticket — either from the Helpdesk app dashboard, or by going to Helpdesk app ‣ Tickets ‣ All Tickets, then select a ticket from the list.

When a ticket is selected, Odoo reveals that ticket’s detail form.

Click the Knowledge (bookmark) icon, located at the top-right of the page, to open a pop-up search window.

View of knowledge search window from a helpdesk ticket.

Tip

Knowledge articles can also be searched by pressing Ctrl + K to open the command palette, then typing ?, followed by the name of the desired article.

When Odoo reveals the desired article, click it, or highlight the Article title, and press Enter. This will open the article in the Knowledge application.

To open the article in a new tab, press Ctrl + Enter.

Tip

If a more in-depth search is required, press Alt + B. That reveals a separate page, in which a more detailed search can occur.

Share an article to the Help Center

To make a Knowledge article available to customers and website visitors, it must be published.

Important

Even though the Help article has been enabled on a team, Odoo does not share all the nested articles to the web. Individual articles intended for customers must be published for them to be viewable on the website.

To publish an article, navigate to the desired article, by following the above steps, and click the Share icon in the upper-right corner. This reveals a menu. Slide the toggle button labeled Share to Web to read Article Published.

View of a knowledge article focused on sharing and publishing options.

Solve tickets with a clipboard box

Clipboard boxes can be added to Knowledge articles to allow content to be reused, copied, sent as messages, or added to the description on a ticket. This allows teams to maintain consistency when answering customer tickets, and minimize the amount of time spent on responding to repeat questions.

Add clipboard boxes to articles

To create a clipboard box, go to Knowledge app ‣ Help. Click on an existing nested article or create a new one by clicking the ➕ (plus sign) icon next to Help.

Type / to open the powerbox, and view a drop-down list of commands. Select or type clipboard. A gray block is then added to the page. Add any necessary content to this block.

View of a clipboard in knowledge with focus on send and copy options.

Note

Clipboard boxes only display the Use as description or Send as Message options if they are accessed directly from the Helpdesk.

Use clipboard boxes in tickets

Clipboard boxes can be used to respond directly to a Helpdesk ticket as a message, or to add information to the ticket’s description.

To use clipboard boxes in a Helpdesk ticket, first, open a ticket, either from the Helpdesk dashboard or by going to Helpdesk app ‣ Tickets ‣ All Tickets and selecting a ticket from the list.

Click on the Knowledge (bookmark) icon in the top-right corner. This opens a search window. In this search window, select, or search, for the desired article. Doing so reveals that article page in the Odoo Knowledge application.

To use a clipboard box to respond to a ticket, click Send as message in the upper-right corner of the clipboard box, located in the body of the article.

Doing so opens a Compose Email pop-up window. In this window, select the recipients, make any necessary additions or edits to the clipboard content, then click Send.

Tip

To use a clipboard box to add information to a ticket’s description, click Use as description in the upper-right corner of the clipboard box, located in the body of the article. Doing so does not replace the existing text in a ticket’s description. The content from the clipboard box is added as additional text.

Community Forum

A Community Forum provides a space for customers to answer each other’s questions and share information. By integrating a forum with a Helpdesk team, tickets submitted by customers can be converted to posts and shared.

Enable forums on a Helpdesk team

To enable Community Forums on a Helpdesk team, start by navigating to Helpdesk app ‣ Configuration ‣ Helpdesk Teams and select a team, or create a new one.

Selecting or creating a team reveals that team’s detail form. Scroll down to the Help Center section of features, and enable Community Forum, by checking the box beside it.

When activated, a new field labeled Forums appears beneath.

Click the empty Forums field to reveal a drop-down menu. By default, there is only one option to begin with, labeled Help. That is the option Odoo automatically created when the Community Forums feature was enabled. Select Help from the drop-down menu to enable that forum.

To create a new forum, type a name into the blank Forums field, then click the Create and Edit option. Multiple forums can be selected in this field.

Create a forum post from a Helpdesk ticket

When a Helpdesk team has a Forum enabled, tickets submitted to that team can be converted to forum posts.

To do that, select a ticket, either from a team’s pipeline or from Tickets ‣ All Tickets in the Helpdesk application.

At the top of the ticket detail form, click the Share on Forum button.

Overview of the Forums page of a website to show the available ones in Odoo Helpdesk.

When clicked, a pop-up window appears. Here, the Forum post and Title can be edited to correct any typos, or modified to remove any proprietary or client information.

Tags can also be added to help organize the post in the forum, making it easier for users to locate during a search. When all adjustments have been made, click Create and View Post.

eLearning

Odoo eLearning courses offer customers additional training and content in the form of videos, presentations, and certifications/quizzes. Providing additional training enables customers to work through issues and find solutions on their own. They can also develop a deeper understanding of the services and products they are using.

Enable eLearning courses on a Helpdesk team

To enable eLearning courses on a Helpdesk team, go to Helpdesk app ‣ Configuration ‣ Helpdesk Teams and select a team, or create a new one.

On the team’s settings page, scroll to the Help Center section, and check the box next to eLearning. A new field appears below, labeled Courses.

Click the empty field next to Courses beneath the eLearning feature to reveal a drop-down menu. Select an available course from the drop-down menu, or type a title into the field, and click Create and edit to create a new course from this page. Multiple courses can be assigned to a single team.

Create an eLearning course

A new eLearning course can be created from the Helpdesk team’s settings page, as in the step above, or from the eLearning app.

To create a course directly through the eLearning application, navigate to eLearning ‣ New. This reveals a blank course template that can be customized and modified as needed.

On the course template page, add a Course Title, and below that, Tags.

Click on the Options tab.

Under Access Rights, select which users are able to view and enroll in the course.

The Show Course To field defines who can access the courses. The Enroll Policy field specifies how they can register for the course.

Under Display, choose the preferred course Type.

Add content to an eLearning course

To add content to a course, click the Content tab and select Add Content. Choose the Content Type from the drop-down menu and upload the file, or paste the link, where instructed. Click Save when finished. Click Add Section to organize the course in sections.

View of a course being published for Odoo Helpdesk.

Note

In order to add a certification to a course, go to eLearning ‣ Configuration ‣ Settings, check the box labeled Certifications, and Save to activate the setting.

Publish an eLearning course

To allow customers to enroll in a course, both the course and the contents must be published.

Tip

If the course is published, but the contents of the course are not published, customers can enroll in the course on the website, but they are not able to view any of the course content. Knowing this, it may be beneficial to publish the course first, if the course contents are intended to be released over time, such as classes with a weekly schedule.

To make the entire course available at once, each piece of course content must be published first, then the course can be published.

To publish a course, choose a course from the eLearning dashboard. On the course template page, click the Go to Website smart button.

This will reveal the front end of the course’s web page. At the top of the course web page, move the Unpublished toggle switch to Published.

Publish eLearning course contents from the back-end

To publish eLearning course content from the back-end, choose a course from the eLearning dashboard. On the course template page, click the Published Contents smart button.

Doing so reveals a separate page displaying all the published content related to that course. Remove the default Published filter from the search bar in the upper-right corner, to reveal all the content related to the course - even the non-published content.

Click the ≣ (bars) icon in the upper-right corner, directly beneath the search bar to switch to list view.

While in list view, there is a checkbox on the far-left of the screen, above the listed courses, to the left of the Title column title. When that checkbox is clicked, all the course contents are selected at once.

With all the course content selected, click any of the boxes in the Is Published column. This reveals a pop-up window, asking for confirmation that all selected records are intended to be published. Click Confirm to automatically publish all course content.

View of a course contents being published in Odoo Helpdesk back-end.