Introducing the Groove KB 2.0
Our focus this year has been to consolidate all of the different pieces of Groove (Inbox, Knowledge Base, Reporting) into one cohesive experience across the entire application. In parallel to the Groove 2.0 Inbox, our KB team has been hard at work rebuilding the Groove Knowledge Base from the ground up. We’re talking everything — new backend CMS for creating and managing your KB design and content, fresh new themes that make it easy for your customers to find exactly what they need, and helpful stats so you can always be improving your content to get the most out of your KB.
Creating a kick-ass, branded, mobile-ready, SEO-optimized knowledge base has never been easier and we’re excited to show you a preview of the brand spankin’ new Groove Knowledge Base 2.0.
Managing Articles & Categories
There’s no sugarcoating it — the original knowledge base was dated, clunky, and difficult to manage. When we started this overhaul we looked at years worth of customer feedback, as well as usage stats on how users were actually utilizing the KB, so that we built something optimized to our customer’s needs. Our goal was to give everything a refresh and clean up the experience so that creating and managing your KB feels fresh, fun, and groovy.
On the backend this means that we have a new way to manage and create your articles and categories.
Instead of a tiny modal window, you now have a proper CMS for managing your content. You can browse through your articles by state (published, unpublished, draft, trash) and within those lists you can filter by things like category, author, and keyword to find just what you need.
In the article overview screen, you can also see stats at a glance and identify which articles are performing well and which ones may need some attention.
Also (we know this will make some of you very happy) you can now edit articles without stressing out that you may click the delete button by mistake. Hallelujah! 🙌
Managing categories now shares a similar UI to managing articles, with a more intuitive way of managing articles within the category, and making for a much more consistent experience overall.
New Article & Category Editors
With a more modern editor that now feels like it’s from this century, you have more fine-tuned control over both the content and settings of the articles and categories in your KB.
Some of the more notable article editing improvements include:
New Rich Text WYSIWYG — Easily add formatting to your text and insert images, videos, and codeblocks into your articles.
Automatic Cloud Saving — Changes are saved automatically so you never have to worry about losing your work.
Add Search Tags — Tag your articles with additional words or phrases that people may use when searching for articles.
SEO Settings — All SEO meta data is easy to setup & configure (author, title, description, language, etc.) and you now have the option to decide whether you want your article crawled or displayed on Search engines.
Open Graph Settings — All open graph meta data is setup (author, pagetype, language, etc.) and you can choose the title, description, and image that is shown when sharing your articles on social media and instant messaging platforms.
The new category editor also gives you more control over your categories and makes adding and ordering articles a smooth, simple process.
Category Descriptions — Set a description for each of your categories so your customers know exactly what’s included.
SEO Settings — Just like with articles, you can configure meta titles and descriptions, as well as deciding whether you want your category crawled or displayed on search engines.
Open Graph Settings — Set open graph titles, descriptions, and images that are shown when sharing your categories on social media and instant messaging platforms.
Shiny New Themes
Not a web designer? Not a problem! With the new knowledge base you have the option to select from three different themes, allowing you to have a great looking KB right out-of-the-box.
Being an entirely remote team, we chose to name these themes after the locations of some of our team members, and each one offers a slightly different look and feel that can also be further customized to suit your needs.
Over the next couple months we will be expanding the selection to suit just about any business, big or small.
Header Image — Add a bit of flare to your knowledge base by using one of our, or one of your very own header images.
Navigation Links — Add in your own navigation items at the top of your KB to help users navigate back to & around your site.
Logo & Favicon — Put your brand front and center with your own logo and favicon.
Custom Colors — Maintain your brand’s aesthetic by using your own color palette.
Custom Fonts — Choose from the very best of fonts from both Adobe Typekit & Google Fonts.
All themes are highly optimized for knowledge base content, with high levels of usability and navigating around with ease. The themes have also been optimized for mobile use, so your customers can have the same, seamless experience regardless of the device that they’re on.
Multiple Knowledge Bases
Oh yes, you read that correctly. This was our #1 feature request from customers and we are thrilled to say that with the new knowledge base you will have the option to add multiple KBs to your Groove account.
No more signing up for multiple Groove accounts just so you can manage separate KBs. Simply add a new KB from your dashboard and click between them in your left sidebar to manage them.
KB Reporting
With a refresh of the KB also comes a refresh of the reporting. While still a work in progress (and the topic of our next blog post, so unfortunately no screenshots just yet), you can expect the following for the new KB:
Failed Searches — See what searches aren’t returning articles for your customers and adjust accordingly.
Most Frequent Searches — See what the top searches are and spot trends before they turn into bigger issues.
Top & Worst Performing Articles — See which articles are A-OK and which ones may need a little love.
Pageviews — See the articles that are getting the most and least traffic in your KB.
What’s Next
KB 2.0 Beta
Your feedback is super important to us and in the near future we will be opening up the new knowledge base to beta testers. Sign up now for early access to check it out!
Inbox 2.0 Redesign
As we teased last month, we have a newly polished design coming for the Groove Inbox 2.0. Expect to see more details on when you can take the new inbox for a spin early next month.
Parsing 2.0
We continue to work on parsing improvements so that your incoming emails look just as pretty as the rest of the app. These improvements include things like collapsing quoted content for new messages, improved email threading, major improvements for HTML rendering, and lots of little fixes that end up making a big difference in the readability of your conversations.
Reporting 2.0
With the new reporting backend in place, we are now working on building a fresh new reporting UI with great visuals and all new ways to dig into your data.
As you can see, we have a lot of cool things coming soon to a computer near you. Thank you so much for your feedback and support, we are incredibly excited to release these updates to all of our customers later this summer. 😄
