Multiproduct Knowledge Base Setup

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This guide will describe the process of setting up the multiproduct knowledge base with MinervaKB using top-level topics.

If you need a quick demo of how multiproduct knowledge base looks and works, you can check it on our multiproduct demo. This is a simplified example, of course, you can create much more advanced layouts.

Overview

While MinervaKB does not currently provide a feature to create multiple separate knowledge bases, it allows you to achieve a similar result with flexible top-level topic options.

When the product mode is activated for top-level topics, all KB widgets and modules within these topics and their children behave differently and become “scoped” to the current product.

For example, when you’re reading the “Installation Guide” article in Product 1 / Getting Started section and use the search module – it will only show results for topics and articles inside Product 1.

Because of this, customers who are interested in information for Product 1 will not get irrelevant information. On the other hand, they can always visit the KB home and read guides for other products.

Content structure

The basic structure of the multiproduct knowledge base looks like this.

First, you need to create top-level topics for each of your products, let’s call them Product 1, Product 2, and Product 3. For these topics, you need to enable the product switch inside the topic edit screen.

Product switch inside a top-level topic
Product switch inside a top-level topic

Next, for each of your product topics, you can create an unlimited number of child topics using the parent topic selector.

Adding product topics using the Parent category option
Adding product topics using the Parent category option

Of course, each of these topics can have children of their own.

Note, that while you can use same names for topics and articles, their slugs must be unique across a single WP site. This means that WordPress will add postfies to new topics, like /getting-started-1 for new Getting Started topic. You can always edit these slugs to be more meaningful, like /iphone-getting-started or /getting-started-p1.

Product topic pages

While top-level topics are technically taxonomy term pages and use category templates in WordPress by default, we provide flexible options to modify their content. Typically you’ll want to add additional content related to products on topic level pages.

Please note, that advanced topic display options work only when plugin topic template is selected in settings, as we do not have the ability to modify theme category templates from within a plugin.

The best way to do this is to use page content for such topics. You can achieve this using the “Display page content instead of topic” option.

Using page content as a topic template
Using page content as a topic template

Note, that you can also disable standard topic page elements for this topic, like breadcrumbs, title, search, etc. You can always add them using KB shortcodes inside the page you’ve selected as topic content.

To prevent the product topic page from displaying on you site you can keep it as a draft, there’s no need to publish it.

Selecting page content as a topic source allows you to create almost unlimited layouts using the page builders blocks or shortcodes you prefer.

More info on templating options can be found in this topic layout guide.

Home page setup

All top-level topics (products) can be displayed on the home page using page-builder blocks or shortcodes. You can use any page structure you prefer and add global KB modules, like KB Search. You can also add general information related to all products or FAQ.

The simplest way to add product topics on the home page is using the KB Topics module/shortcode, but you can use any combination of text/image blocks you prefer. It doesn’t matter, as long as it points to the product topic page in one way or another. You can always copy the product topic link inside the KB Topics admin menu.

Multiproduct Knowledge Base demo
Multiproduct Knowledge Base demo

Note, that search and other widgets on the home page are global, so when a site visitor uses the KB search on home page, he gets results for all the products.

KB modules inside the product

When the site visitor is reading an article that belongs to a specific product, the KB modules become scoped to this product.

Search only searches within the current product and displays a product label so that customer always knows where he is.

Scoped KB search inside the multiproduct knowledge base product pages
Scoped KB search inside the multiproduct knowledge base product pages

The sidebar KB widgets also follow this pattern and display topics/articles inside the current product.

Scoped KB widgets
Scoped KB widgets

Note, that site visitors can always open the global knowledgebase home using the first link in breadcrumbs and read articles about other products.

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