Help Center

How to set up a Help Center?

You can easily create a self-service portal for your customers to access articles and information. In this guide, we take you through the steps to set up a Help Center, including creating a portal and adding articles. You can set up your Help Center in three parts, as explained below. I. Creating a portal Step 1. Click the Help Center icon from your sidebar, and click the "New Portal" button. Step 2. You will see a basic settings page. Start filling in the fields. These fields are explained below: 1. Logo Upload your organization's logo. 2. Name Name your portal to refer to it internally. 3. Slug This will be auto-generated. 4. Custom Domain (optional) You can add the domain you want to serve your portal on a custom domain. For example, if your website is yourdomain.com and you want your portal accessible at docs.yourdomain.com, type that in this field. Click "Create portal basic settings". Your portal is ready. You can start adding categories and articles within these categories. II. Creating categories Categories exist to structure your portal and organize your articles. Follow these steps: Step 1. Click the + sign alongside the Category section on the secondary sidebar to create a new category. Step 2. A modal will open up. Fill up the fields. These fields are described below. 1. Name Name your category. This name will be used on the public portal. 2. Slug This will be auto-generated. 3. Description (optional) Describe your category. Click the "Create category" button. III. Creating articles Finally, start writing your articles. Follow the steps below. Step 1. You can find the "New Article" button on almost every page. Click it. Step 2. Use the text editor to write your article. Use the sidebar to select your article's category and author and update the meta content. Here is an example: You can use the "Preview" button to see how your article turns out. Once ready, click "Publish". Your live article will look like this:

How to setup an SSL certificate for your Help Center's custom domain?

Using your own domain, like docs.your-company.com, makes your help center feel more trustworthy and on-brand. Chatwoot allows you to use your own custom domain and would help you to secure your site with SSL certificates so that it's safe for your visitors. This guide walks you through setting up a custom domain for your Help Center portal in Chatwoot. Note: This guide is for Chatwoot Cloud users. If you're using the self-hosted version, you'll need to set up and manage the SSL certificate on your own. TLDR: Add your custom domain in Chatwoot portal settings, update your DNS with the CNAME Chatwoot provides, and we will issue the SSL certificate. Once it's ready, your Help Center will be live and accessible to your customers. Step 1: Set up your custom domain in portal settings Log in to your Chatwoot dashboard and go to the Help Center you want to connect with your custom domain. Click on Settings, then scroll to the Custom Domain section. Click the Add custom domain button to begin the setup. You'll now see a prompt asking for your custom domain. Enter the domain where you want your Help Center to be available (e.g., docs.yourdomain.com). This is the website address your customers will visit to access your documentation. Next, you'll be shown the DNS settings you need to add so we can confirm that the domain is yours and connect it to your Help Center. You’ll need to copy this information and update your DNS provider accordingly. If you’re not sure how to do it, you can use the option on the screen to email these details to your developer. Step 2: Update your DNS with the CNAME record You must point your custom domain to Chatwoot by creating a CNAME record. Host: docs Type: CNAME Value: chatwoot.help Instructions vary by DNS provider: Using Cloudflare: You can find the setting under the "DNS" tab. Note: Make sure that the SSL encryption mode is set to Full in Cloudflare (You can view this under SSL/TLS -> Overview). Using AWS Route 53: You can find the setting under the "Route53" service. If you're using a different DNS provider, the steps are generally the same. Look for the DNS settings section and add a CNAME record as described. If you’re unsure how to do this, just search for instructions specific to your provider using a phrase like How to add a CNAME record on [Your DNS Provider]. This step links your domain to Chatwoot’s servers. Once it’s done, we’ll have everything we need, your portal details and the domain configuration to issue the SSL certificate and make your Help Center live. Step 3: Getting an SSL certificate​ Chatwoot provides SSL certificates for all cloud customers on paid plans who set up a custom domain for their Help Center portal. This step happens automatically. Once you add the CNAME record to your DNS, our server will verify the domain and begin issuing the SSL certificate. This usually takes just a few minutes, but in some cases, depending on your DNS provider and how long they take to update records, it may take up to 24–48 hours. You can track the status of your SSL certificate right from the Chatwoot dashboard. Initially, you’ll see the status as Awaiting Verification. This means we’re still confirming your domain setup before the certificate is issued. If there are any issues during the SSL verification process like an incorrect CNAME record or DNS propagation delays, you’ll see an error message next to the status on your dashboard. Hover over the status indicator to view more details about what went wrong and what you need to fix. This helps you quickly identify and resolve any problems in the setup process. Once the verification is successful and the SSL certificate is issued, the status will change to 'Live' on your dashboard. This means your Help Center is now securely available at your custom domain. Your customers can visit the URL and browse the content.

Embedding videos in Help Center

Chatwoot's Help Center supports automatic embedding of videos from multiple platforms. When you paste supported video URLs on their own lines (surrounded by empty lines), they will be automatically converted to embedded video players. Supported Video Platforms | Platform | URL Format | How to Get the URL | |----------|------------|---------------------| | YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID or https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID | Copy URL from browser address bar or use "Share" button | | Vimeo | https://vimeo.com/VIDEO_ID | Copy URL from browser address bar or use "Share" button | | Loom | https://loom.com/share/VIDEO_ID | Use "Share" button after recording or from video library | | Wistia | https://SUBDOMAIN.wistia.com/medias/VIDEO_ID | Copy URL from browser or use "Share & Embed" option | | Arcade | https://app.arcade.software/share/VIDEO_ID | Use "Share" button from your demo library | | Bunny CDN | https://iframe.mediadelivery.net/play/LIBRARY_ID/VIDEO_ID | Get iframe URL from Bunny CDN dashboard | | Direct MP4 | Any URL ending in .mp4 | Use direct link to MP4 file from any hosting service | Important Requirements 1. Empty Lines: Video URLs must be surrounded by empty lines (blank lines above and below) 2. Standalone Links: The URL must be on its own line, not embedded in other text 3. Must be a Link: The URL must be formatted as a clickable link in markdown (not plain text) 4. Exact Format: URLs must match the exact patterns shown above The video embedding system automatically detects these patterns and replaces the URLs with responsive video players that work across all devices.