Portal Community

User Guide
Fall 2008 Release
Helpstream Software
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Fall 2008
Product Version: Fall 2008 Release
Document Version: 3.3d
Copyright

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iv Fall 2008 Release

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Get Started with the Portal 1

Use the Public Portal 1
Get Your Portal Login 2
Log In to the Portal 4
Are You Asked to Authorize Your Computer? 5
Log In with your Salesforce ID 5
Log In via Your Google Account 6
Tour the Portal Home Page 7
Manage Your Personal Profile 8
Your Community Reputation 10
Subscribe to Announcements 12
Troubleshoot Email Notifications 13
View All Portal Help Topics 14

Chapter 2: Browse and Subscribe 15

Browse Portal Resources 15
Types of Portal Content 16
Subscribe to New Content and Updates 17
Subscribe to Email Notifications 18
Subscribe to an RSS Feed 18
View and Remove Email Subscriptions 20
What’s Recent, Popular or Current 20

Chapter 3: Search the Portal 23

Search the Entire Portal 23
Search within a Category 24
Browse Web Results 25
Find Results by Date or Person 25
Full Text Search Tips 27

Chapter 4: View and Post Community Topics 31

About Community Topics 31
View a Topic Thread 31
Post a Reply 33
Update or Delete Your Reply 34
Vote on a Topic 34
Submit a New Topic 37
Manage a Topic You Submitted 38

Table of Contents v
 Manage All Your Community Posts 40

Chapter 5: Browser Configuration and Restrictions 41

Supported Browsers 41
Recommended Browser Configuration 41
Storage Space Restrictions 42

Index 43

vi Fall 2008 Release

 Chapter 1

Get Started with the Portal Chapter 1

Use the Public Portal

If your organization has set up a public Portal, you can search and browse public
solutions and resources as a Guest User, without having to log in. These
resources can include articles such as checklists and FAQs, as well as community
questions, ideas, or other topics.

As a Guest User you can:

• “Search the Portal” on page 23

• “Browse Portal Resources” on page 15

• “Submit a Case by Email” on page 17 (if this is enabled for your Portal)

To get here: From a standard Web browser, go to the URL for your service (looks
like https://pwxxxxxxxx.helpstream.biz where the X’s uniquely identify your
service). Bookmark this page in your browser so it’s easy to return to, later.

You must instead log in to the Portal to:

• View your organization’s private articles and community topics

• Submit a support case

• Use an Interactive Checklist in Tracking mode

• Contribute articles, post to community topics, or vote on topics

• Subscribe to be notified of new articles or posts

• Access your personal support items (cases, active checklists, email

subscriptions, and so on)

Get Started with the Portal 1

Get Your Portal Login
If your organization provides you with login access to the Self Service Portal,
you’ll either receive a Welcome email saying how to create your password and log
in. Or you might need to get your login, yourself.

I Received a Welcome Email

1. Click the link in the email to go to the Portal license agreement, and accept
the agreement.

2. Create your password. Also, note the Login URL to your service, which is
where you go to log in to the Portal.

3. Click the Save and Log In button to go to this page now and log in. Bookmark
this page so you can easily return to it later.

I Need to Get my Own Login

If you don’t receive a Welcome email, your organization might expect you to sign
up for service and get your login, yourself:

1. Go to the Portal Log In page - either its main signup page (https://
ondemand.helpstream.biz) or the URL for your service (looks like https://
pwxxxxxxxx.helpstream.biz where the X’s uniquely identify your service):

2. Depending on where you land, click the Get a login now button...

... or this Request to join link:

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3. If prompted, enter the email address of a Support agent at your organization,
(get the address from your Portal Administrator). Then click Search.

One or more Portal services should appear in a list below. Click the Request
to join button for your organization’s service:

4. Enter your First and Last name as you want it to appear to agents when you
submit support cases. Optionally enter a different Display Name to be used
for your community posts. Enter a valid Email address where you receive
mail. Click Submit when you’re done.

Important: This email address will be your login name for logging in to the
Portal. It must be an address where you receive mail, and belong to a domain
approved by your Administrator (such as your company address, rather than
a personal address). As you use the Portal, notifications are sent to this
address informing you of any new status on support cases you’ve submitted
and other events that occur in the Portal.

Address rejected? If a message tells you that getting a login is restricted to

other domains, that means the address you entered isn’t part of an approved
domain. See your Administrator for help.

Get Started with the Portal 3

 5. Accept the Portal license agreement, create your password, and bookmark
your Log In page, as described above for users who receive a Welcome
email.

Note: You might also be able to get your login by emailing your organization’s
support address.

Log In to the Portal

Enter the Email address and Password you used to join the Portal. If you don’t
have a login address, see “Get Your Portal Login” on page 2.

To get to the Log In page: Go to https://ondemand.helpstream.biz or to the URL

for your service (looks like https://pwxxxxxxxx.helpstream.biz where the X’s
identify your service). If you arrive at your service’s public Portal, click the guest
user’s Log In button (top-right of Portal):

Salesforce.com or Google login: If either of the following controls is in the Log

In window, you can log in to the Portal using an existing Salesforce or Google
account:

For details, see:

• “Log In with your Salesforce ID” on page 5

• “Log In via Your Google Account” on page 6

Remember my email: Check this box to avoid entering your email address every
time you log in. The next time you open the same Web browser to the Portal’s Log
In page, your email address will already be entered.

You can have multiple logins to the Portal using the same login address. However,
each login must have a different password.

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Are You Asked to Authorize Your Computer?
If you receive a message saying that you must first authorize access from your
computer before you can log in, check your email for a message from the Portal (it
might take a few minutes for the message to arrive). Then click Authorize
Computer in the email to log in.

This message appears only if your Administrator has enabled device authorization
for your service. As long as you continue to log in from the same computer and
Web browser, you won’t have to respond to the email again. However, if you
access the Portal from another device or browser (or if you delete cookies from
your browser), you’ll be prompted to authorize your computer, again.

Log In with your Salesforce ID

If your Log In window has a Salesforce.com button and you have an existing
Salesforce.com account, you can log in to the Portal using your Salesforce user
name and password instead of your Portal login. That way you only have to
remember one login name and password for accessing either the Portal or your
Salesforce account.

To make this work, you must first link the Portal with your existing Salesforce
account:

1. Log in to the Portal using your Portal login address and password.

2. Click your name or avatar (top right of Portal) to go to your Profile page:

Get Started with the Portal 5

 3. Under Personal Information, enter the following information (click Save
when you’re done):

Salesforce.com: Your Salesforce.com user name.

Salesforce.com security token: Your Salesforce security token. Get this by

logging in to your Salesforce.com account and resetting your security token
(under Setup > My Personal Information in Salesforce).

From now on, you can log in to the Portal by entering your Salesforce user name
and password in the Portal’s Log In window, and clicking the SalesForce.com
button. Your Salesforce Administrator might also set things up so you can log in to
the Portal from the Salesforce.com workspace, as well (ask your Administrator for
details).

Log In via Your Google Account

If your Log In window has a Google logo and you have an existing Google
account, you can log in to the Portal using your Google user name and password,
instead of your Portal login. Or if you’re already logged in to Google, you can enter
the Portal just by clicking the Google logo, without logging in at all.

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 To make this work, you first have to link the Portal with your existing Google
account:

1. Log in to the Portal using your Portal login address and password.

2. Click your name or avatar (top-right of Portal) to go to your Profile page:

3. Under Personal Information, enter your Google account login name, which
is also your Google email address (click Save when you’re done).

From now on, you can log in to the Portal by clicking the Google link. If you’re
already logged in to Google, you enter the Portal right away. Otherwise, you go to
the Google login page, where you enter your Google credentials to then enter the
Portal.

Tour the Portal Home Page

When you first enter the Self Service Portal you arrive at the Portal Home page
where you can:

• Search for solutions or answers by typing in the search bar (see “Search
the Portal” on page 23):

• Browse featured content flagged as important by your Administrator,

organized under your Portal’s top-level categories. This can include articles,
questions, discussions, and other community topics.

• Browse new or popular content, that’s been recently added or updated,

viewed most often, or voted with a thumbs up by other users:

Get Started with the Portal 7

 • Open your personal profile, for example to change your password or
customize your community avatar (see “Manage Your Personal Profile” on
page 8).

• View your own support items. These can include community topics you’ve
initiated, active checklists you’re working on, or support cases you’ve
submitted. Click a topic to see its replies, a checklist to continue working
where you last left off, or a case to check its status.

• View and subscribe to announcements, which if there are any, appear

under your support items (see “Subscribe to Announcements” on page 12).

Manage Your Personal Profile

Open your personal profile to change your password, email address, community
avatar, and other personal settings. Just click your name or avatar at the top-right
of the page (not available for Guest Users):

Note: If your name or avatar aren’t clickable, then you must manage your profile
at your organization’s Web site. See your Administrator for help.

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From your My Profile page, you can:

Modify your contact information, including the First Name and Last Name that
represents you in cases you submit or manage.

Select your local time zone, which ensures that automatic email notifications from
the Portal that contain any time/date references are accurate for your location.

(Agents, only) Choose an image to represent you in the in Agent view, for
example, where cases are assigned. (See below for details on choosing a
picture.)

Specify a Google login (if enabled for your service). See “Log In via Your Google
Account” on page 6

Specify a Salesforce.com login address (if enabled for your service). See “Log In
with your Salesforce ID” on page 5.

Specify a Display Name and image to appear in your community posts (click
Save when you’re done). Select an image from a list of sample avatars, or upload
your own image. For best results, the uploaded image should be square with the
dimensions 80 x 80 pixels (smaller or larger images are scaled to these
dimensions):

View your Special Title (added by an agent) is shown in community posts, for
example, to identify you as a trusted member of the user community. (Agents can
edit their own Special Titles.)

Get Started with the Portal 9

 See your total number of Posts (increments when you either initiate or reply to a
community question, discussion, or idea), and how many of your replies to
questions have been selected as the best answer.

View your Reputation (if enabled for your service): Shows your current point
ranking within the community for collaboration (based on your frequency of posts)
and expertise (based on their usefulness to the community). For details, see “Your
Community Reputation” on page 10.

Change your Portal login address. This must be a valid address where you
receive mail, as this is where you receive all Portal notifications, including case
status updates and questions from agents. The Portal sends a confirmation email
to the new address with instructions on completing the address change.

Find out how to put the Portal on your email whitelist so you’re sure to receive all
notifications (see “Troubleshoot Email Notifications” on page 13).

Enter a new password for logging in to the Portal.

Your Community Reputation

If Reputation Points are enabled for your service, the Portal tracks and displays
your community reputation, based on how often you submit articles or community
posts, and how useful your submissions are to others. As you post and reply to
community topics, you earn points either for collaboration (such as when you ask
a question or post a reply), and for expertise (such as when your reply is voted up
or selected as a best answer).

You earn points when contributing articles, posting a new community topic
(question, discussion, or idea), or replying to a topic. You can also lose points for
submitting an inappropriate post. Your current ranking is displayed for other
community members to see, next to each of your posts:

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Where Points Come From
In general, you earn collaboration points by contributing or interacting within the
community, and expertise points if you also indicate that you know something,
have learned something, or your post is rated highly. To see exactly what gets
rewarded and where your points come from, open your personal profile, scroll
down to Community Profile, and click the View point detail link:

From your Reputation Point Detail page, you can see:

Get Started with the Portal 11

 • How points are earned: Look under each Value column (one each for
expertise and collaboration ) for each action that earns points. Actions
are shown for:

• Your Items: Applies to all community topics and articles you contribute.
Points are awarded when you post a new question or other topic, if you
select someone else’s reply as a best answer to your question, if you
publish an article, if your topic is voted up or receives a reply.
• Other People’s Items: Applies to your actions in topics other people
post. Points are awarded if you vote or reply to someone else’s topic, or if
someone else chooses your reply as a best answer.
• Other Actions: Points are also awarded for viewing an article or topic,
performing a search, or completing a checklist.

• Where your points came from: The Earned column shows the total
occurrences of each action that has earned you points. Each Total column
shows the total points you’ve earned from those occurrences (Earned x Value
= Total).

• Point requirement for each level: Scroll down to see the point requirements
to reach each Expertise or Collaboration level, to get an idea of when you
might advance to the next level. For example, Cassy, who is at level 2 with
115 Expertise points, will need 200 points to reach level 3.

Subscribe to Announcements
If RSS feeds are enabled for your service, you can keep informed of new
announcements. without having to visit the Portal, by subscribing to an RSS feed.
This enters a link in your Web browser’s RSS reader that you can periodically
check for new announcements:

1. On the Portal Home page, click the announcement’s RSS icon (if available).

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 2. A page appears with general information about RSS feeds that also lists any
current announcements. Exactly what this page looks like depends on your
Web browser. But it should have a link (or button) for subscribing to the feed.
Click the link and follow your browser’s instructions to subscribe to the feed.

3. To later see if there are any new announcements, come back to your
browser’s RSS reader and click the announcement’s RSS feed.

Administrators: Subscribing to RSS feeds requires that your public Self Service
Portal is enabled. For details, see the Portal’s Setup and Administration Guide.

Troubleshoot Email Notifications

If you’re not receiving email notifications from the Portal, they might be getting
stopped by your junk-mail filter. To test if this is happening and fix the problem:

Open your My profile page, scroll down to Email, and click the Email Test link.

Type the secret word and submit it to have the Portal send a test email from each
of its servers to your login address. If you don’t receive the mail, it might be caught
by your junk-mail filter. In that case, enter each server name or IP address
shown here in your email white list to allow all email from the Portal.

Agents and Administrators can also enter other email addresses here to test
notifications for another Portal user.

Get Started with the Portal 13

View All Portal Help Topics
Get help at any time by opening the Portal’s online help.

1. Click the question mark icon that appears at the top right of many pages and
next to some sets of controls. This opens help for the current page or area of
the page you’re looking at.

2. In any Help window, click this button at the top left of the window to open a
menu where you can browse all help topics, perform searches, and search
the index.

3. In the Help menu, open the book shown below to browse topics on using the
Self Service Portal:

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 Chapter 2

Browse and Subscribe Chapter 2

Browse Portal Resources

Go to your Portal’s Home section to look for solutions or information posted by

agents, Administrators, and other members of your community. Search or browse
articles and documents, as well as community questions, discussions, and other
topic threads (see “Types of Portal Content” on page 16).

From here you can:

• Search for solutions or information: Type a search word or phrase in a

search bar on the Portal Home page or top-right of any other page, to find
matching articles, community topics, and even results from the Web. See
“Search the Portal” on page 23.

• Browse content by categories, which can contain subcategories down to

any number of levels. Open top-level categories from the navigation bar (if
available):

Or click large icons, starting from the Portal Home page:

Browse and Subscribe 15

 • Subscribe to new content: Receive email notifications when articles are
added or edited in the current category (see “Subscribe to Email Notifications”
on page 18).

Subscribe

• Receive RSS notifications when articles are added or edited in the current
category (see “Subscribe to an RSS Feed” on page 18).

• Find recent or popular content or list topics that are OPEN or CLOSED
(see “What’s Recent, Popular or Current” on page 20).

Agents can also send articles to users, or link articles to support cases. For
details, see the Portal’s Support Agent Guide.

Content Administrators can create categories and otherwise manage Portal

content. For details, see the Portal’s Setup and Administration Guide.

Types of Portal Content

When you search or browse your Portal, you can find information from a variety of
sources, including articles published by agents and other Portal users, and topic
threads posted by members of your Portal community. Depending on what’s
enabled for your service, here’s what you might find:

Articles
• Interactive Checklist: An article authored in the Portal’s Web editor
where you can check off steps and keep track of your progress (see “Use
Interactive Checklists” on page 45).

• Solution/FAQ: An article authored in the Web editor that can contain

attachments and links to other articles.

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 • Uploaded article: A document in any format (Word, PDF, Flash, and so
on) that’s been uploaded to the Portal. Click the article to see details about the
file or to upload a replacement (see also “View an Uploaded Article” on
page 33). (Click the to open the file directly in its native application.)

Community Topics
• Question: A problem someone would like answered by the community.
Click the question to see if there’s a best answer (chosen by the asker) or to
answer the question yourself:

• Idea: An idea someone has posted to the community for review. Click to
view responses, voice your own opinion, or vote if you like the idea.

• Discussion: A topic someone has opened up for general discussion

within the community. Click to view the discussion thread and participate.

Listing Content
Browsing a category or performing a search initially lists all content types together
(shown below under All). You can then filter out just a single type, such as
Articles or Q&A topics.

Subscribe to New Content and Updates

You can stay apprised of new articles or community posts in the Portal by
subscribing to an article, community topic, or category. Subscribe to article to be
notified whenever a new revision is published. Subscribe to a topic to be notified
of new replies. Or subscribe to a category to be notified whenever anyone
publishes or posts to the category.

You can be notified of updates either by email, or by subscribing to an RSS feed.

Browse and Subscribe 17

 Subscribe to Email Notifications
You can receive an email notification whenever a new version of an article is
published, when someone replies to a community topic (for example, by
answering a community question), or when someone publishes or posts to a
particular category. Do this by subscribing to the article, topic, or category (not
available from the public Portal).

Open the article or topic, or navigate to the category you want to subscribe to.
Then click its Subscribe link at the right of the page:

Subscribe

You can also choose Subscribe from an article or topic’s Actions menu, when
available.

Remove a Subscription
To no longer receive emails about changes to a particular article, community topic,
or category, you can remove that subscription. Just go to the article, topic, or
category and click its Unsubscribe link (or action, in its Actions menu).

Unsubscribe

Tip: To remove several email subscriptions at once, see “View and Remove Email
Subscriptions” on page 20.

Subscribe to an RSS Feed

You can also be notified of new article revisions or community posts by
subscribing to an RSS feed. This enters a link to an article, topic, or category in
your Web browser’s RSS reader. You can then check the reader at your
convenience to see a list of new content, and click an article or topic to open it in
the Portal.

Administrators: Subscribing to RSS feeds requires that public access is enabled

to the article or category. For details, see the Portal’s Setup and Administration
Guide.

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1. Open the article or topic, or navigate to the category you want to subscribe
to, and click its RSS icon at the top of the page.

You can also choose View RSS feed from an article’s Actions menu, when
available.

2. A page appears with general information about RSS feeds that also lists
whatever content you’re subscribing to. Depending on your Web browser,
there should be a link or button that you can click to subscribe to the feed. In
Internet Explorer, for example, the page looks like this

3. Later, come back to your browser’s RSS reader and click the RSS feed to see
if any new revisions, replies, or other content has been posted.

• For a category, you can see up to 10 new articles or topics.

• All entries include links for conveniently posting to the popular social
networking sites del.icio.us and Digg.

4. From the RSS feed, click any article or topic to open it in the Portal, as shown
here in Internet Explorer:

Browse and Subscribe 19

 View and Remove Email Subscriptions
If you’ve subscribed to receive email notifications informing you of new article
revisions or community posts, you can see your email subscriptions and
unsubscribe to any of them, on your Subscriptions page.

Click Subscriptions at the right of the Portal:

This displays all your current email subscriptions. Click the Unsubscribe link for a
subscription you want to remove, and you’ll no longer receive email from that
subscription.

Administrators can also remove subscriptions from a user’s profile on the

Administration > People > Portal Users page.

What’s Recent, Popular or Current

While browsing or searching Portal content, click links at the right of Portal to
easily find recently added content, popular content that’s frequently viewed or
voted up by other users, or community topics based on whether they’re ongoing
(OPEN) or CLOSED.

Specifically, you can see the following:

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• Recently Updated Items: Recently revised articles, or community topics with
new replies.

• Recently Added Items: Recently published articles or newly-posted

community topics.

• Top Viewed Items: Articles and community topics that have been viewed the
most number of times by community members.

• Top Rated Items (appears only if voting is available for your service): Articles
and community topics that have received the most number of votes from the
community. Note that the total displayed for a community topic or article
includes only votes made on the topic or article itself, not votes on replies or
article comments.

• Open topics: Community questions that haven’t yet been answered, and
ideas that have status OPEN.

• Closed topics: Questions that have been ANSWERED or CLOSED without

being answered, and ideas that have been CLOSED.

Recent and popular content is also featured on the Portal Home page.

Browse and Subscribe 21

22 Fall 2008 Release
 Chapter 3

Search the Portal Chapter 3

Search the Entire Portal

Quickly search all Portal resources for a solution or answer to a question, by
typing a search word or phrase in the search bar on the Portal Home page, or at
the top right of other pages:

Tip: Entering multiple words performs an “OR” search. Enclosing a phrase in

quotes (as in “die bonder”) finds only exact matches for the phrase. (Common
English works like “the” and “is” are ignored.) For other searching techniques, see
“Full Text Search Tips” on page 27.

Depending on your service, the Portal searches a number of sources, including

articles, community topics posted by other users, and even the Web (see “Types
of Portal Content” on page 16). Results can be viewed in a single list of all content
types (shown below under All). Or you can filter the view by a single content type,
such as Articles, Q&A topics, and so on:

For details, see topics below:

Search the Portal 23

Search within a Category
To restrict your search to a particular category in the Portal, browse to that
category and type your search text in the category’s search bar. (Enter search text
and browse results the same as described at “Search the Entire Portal” on
page 23.) The Portal searches that category and its subcategories, displaying
matching results below. The content count for each subcategory also changes to
reflect only results in the subcategory, instead of its total number of items.

As long as your search text remains in the category’s search bar, only
matching content is listed below and within subcategories if you drill down. Click
the Clear link to remove the search text and see all content, again.

24 Fall 2008 Release

Browse Web Results
Click the Web Search tab in Portal search results to show matching Web and
Blog pages from the Internet (click the or to expand or contract results),
where you can also type new text to revise your Web search.

Tip: Click one of these icons to view one, several, or all results.

Find Results by Date or Person

After performing a search, you can display options for narrowing down results
even further by clicking either Show more search options on the Portal Home
page...

... or Search options on the Search Results page:

Search the Portal 25

 Find Results by Date
Find articles or community topics based on when they were submitted or updated.
Click a to open a calendar for selecting a date, and click the go button by the
search bar to run the search

Date Last Modified: Finds articles that were last revised within the date range
specified, and community topics that were last replied to during that time.

Date Submitted: Finds articles that were first published within the date range
specified, and community topics that were first submitted during that time.

Find Results by Person

Find articles and community topics associated with a particular user based on the
person’s Display Name (appears next to their posts):

Type the Display Name (or first part of the name) in the Find by Person field. Be
sure to delete any text from the search bar (unless you want to find only results
containing that text). Click the go button to run the search. Results include articles
the person authored, or community topics the person submitted or replied to.

26 Fall 2008 Release

Full Text Search Tips
The Portal uses a high-performance Full Text Search engine that can quickly find
articles and community topics based on very specific criteria, such as whether the
result is in a checklist prerequisite but not a step, whether a result contains an
exact or close match to your search string, or some combination of criteria.

Agents: Techniques described here also apply when searching for cases from
your Cases > Search page, and when performing a search from the left sidebar.

Here’s what you can do:

Target Specific Content Areas

When searching for articles, the Portal normally searches the article name,
description, and contents, including the text content of uploaded files, or article
attachments. Results are returned in order of relevance, where a match in the
article name is weighted the highest, the description next, and finally (for
checklists) prerequisites, steps, and any attachments.

For community topics, the Portal searches the topic title, its description, and any
replies. Results are returned in order of relevance, where a match in the title is
weighted the highest.

You can instead limit a search to only a certain area, such as “search only the
article’s name field,” or search only for text in a question’s “reply.” Just specify the
area, followed by a colon, followed the value you’re searching on. The areas you
can specify are listed below.

Search the Portal 27

 Important: Enter each area’s name exactly as shown below, as lowercase rather
than uppercase (for example, use name not Name).

Articles:

• name:
• description:
• prerequisites:
• steps:
• attachments:

So to search for the text “backup” in an article’s name, type name:backup.

Community topics (questions, ideas, discussions):

• title:
• content: (the topic’s description)
• reply: (text of all replies)
• attachments:

Searching for cases (agents, only):

• displayId: (searches the case #)

• summary:
• description:
• history:
• attachments:
• custom_field_name: Any custom case field created by your Administrator,
as long as Full Text search is enabled for it. See the Setup and
Administration documentation for details.

Use Wildcards and Special Symbols

• Enter a plus sign (+) before the word to return only documents that contain
that word. For example, entering the search +restore +data returns articles
that contain both words. However, searching on the phrase restore data
would perform an “OR” search, returning any article that contains the word
“restore” or that contains the word “data”.

• Enter a minus sign (–) before the word to exclude any article containing the
word. For example, entering the search cisco -vpn will return all articles
containing the word “cisco” as long as they do not also contain the word “vpn”.

• Use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard to match 0 or more letters. Searching for

key*, for example, finds “key”, “keyboard”, and so on.

• Use a question mark (?) to match one letter. For example, entering the search
gr?y would return articles that contain the word “gray” or “grey”.

28 Fall 2008 Release

• Adding a tilde (~) to the end of the word matches words that are likely
misspellings. For example, searching for sandwich~ would match an article
that contains the misspelled word “sandwitch”. This “near-word” match is
powerful. For example, searching on domains will not match the word
“domain”, but searching on domains~ will. Similarly, searching colour~ would
also match “color.”

Use Advanced Syntax

Use advanced searching syntax to match a combination of criteria, such as
consecutive words, words near each other in the document, negation, words with
similar spelling, and matches in specific sections of the document.

For example:

+(name:((Cisco OR Extreme) AND router)) +steps:putty –

prerequisites:Windows

The above search finds all articles that have a name including either the word
“Cisco” or “Extreme” and the word “router”, that also have the word “putty” in any
step, and that does not have the word “Windows” in prerequisites.

Search within Attachments

When you perform a search, the Portal also searches the contents of attachments
associated with a checklist, Solution/FAQ, or community topic. These include
PDFs (all text is stripped out of the document and indexed), Office 2000/2003,
Word, Excel, and Power Point documents. By default, matches in attachments are
weighted the least, meaning they might be listed further down in the results.

To search exclusively on attachments, specify the attachments section as part of

the search criteria. For example, searching on attachments:”Expense Report
Form” will match any article or question with an attachment containing that exact
phrase.

Search the Portal 29

30 Fall 2008 Release
 Chapter 4

View and Post Community Topics Chapter 4

About Community Topics

Portal users can share solutions, hold discussions, and suggest ideas by
submitting and replying to community topics. Depending on your service,
community topics can include:

• Question: A problem someone would like answered by the community.

Click the question to see if there’s a best answer (chosen by the asker) or to
answer the question yourself:

• Discussion: A topic someone opens up for general discussion within the

community. Click to view the discussion thread and participate in the
discussion.

• Idea: An idea someone posts to the community for review. Click to view
responses, voice your own opinion, or vote if you like the idea.

You can submit and reply to topics if you have Poster rights. And depending on
your service, you might also be able to vote on people’s posts, to help identify
popular ideas or Posters with good reputations.

For details, see topics below.

View a Topic Thread

When you view a question thread, discussion, or other community topic, you can:

• Post a reply (requires Poster rights). See “Post a Reply” on page 33.

• Vote on the topic or one of its replies to endorse the post, voice support, or
enhance the Poster’s community reputation (see “Vote on a Topic” on
page 34).

• View the best answer (question, only), if one has been selected by the
asker:

View and Post Community Topics 31

 • Rate the question’s usefulness (question, only), which helps support agents
identify useful content in the Portal.

• Report an inappropriate post to a Moderator, who can then hide or edit the
post:

• View a poster’s profile (click her image):

• View a poster’s Collaboration and Expertise ranking, which indicate how

frequently the person uses and contributes to Portal resources, and how
useful their posts are to other community members. For details, see “Your
Community Reputation” on page 10.

• Subscribe to receive email or RSS notifications when a reply is posted to

this topic (see “Subscribe to New Content and Updates” on page 17).

If you submitted the topic (or are a Moderator), you’ll see other links, too, for
changing the topic’s status, choosing a question’s best answer, and more. For
details, see “Manage a Topic You Submitted” on page 38.

32 Fall 2008 Release

Post a Reply
To reply to a community topic, just open the question, discussion, or idea scroll
down to its replies, and click the Post Reply button (available only if you have
Poster privileges).

In the pop-up window, type your Reply, which you can format with the Editor
Palette.

Optionally click Add Attachment or Screenshot to upload a file, or (in Internet

Explorer only) attach a screenshot from your Clipboard.

If you’re answering your own question, select the Mark my reply as the Best
Answer box to make this reply the Best Answer (available only for questions if
you are the asker and there’s no current Best Answer).

Tip: Customize your name and picture in community posts (see “Manage Your
Personal Profile” on page 8).

View and Post Community Topics 33

Update or Delete Your Reply
After replying to a community topic, you can:

• Edit your reply (link appears only for your own posts). Enter your update...

...which appears below the original comment.

• Delete your post: Click its Delete link (appears only for your own posts):

Vote on a Topic
If you like a community topic or one of its replies, you can vote on it. Your vote is
tallied along with other community members’ votes and displayed for each post.
Just click Vote now above the topic or reply. (If this link isn’t available, voting isn’t
enabled for your service.):

Then rate both the accuracy of the post, and the helpfulness or style with which
it’s written.

34 Fall 2008 Release

You can only vote once on a topic or reply, and you can’t vote on your own post.
You can also retract your vote later, if you change your mind (just view the post
and click your vote’s Undo link).

You can’t vote negatively. However, if you think a post is inappropriate, you can
report it to a Moderator (click its Report abuse link).

Voting and Top Rated Content

While browsing categories, you can see a topic’s total number of votes. This total
includes votes on the topic itself, but not on any of its replies (so you know the
votes reflect positively on the topic, and aren’t for replies that might be negative).
You can see topics with the most votes on the Portal Home page (under Top
Rated), and on the Top Rated page, which you can open while browsing Portal
categories (see “What’s Recent, Popular or Current” on page 20):

Voting and Reputation Points

If Reputation Points are enabled for your service, voting on a topic or post adds
Collaboration points to your own community reputation (shown next to your
posts). It also adds Expertise points to the Poster’s reputation. For details, see
“Your Community Reputation” on page 10.

View and Post Community Topics 35

 Idea Storming
If your Portal has a category consisting mainly of idea community topics, say, for
brainstorming the best way to design a product or plan an event, you can easily
rank and vote on people’s ideas to determine which are most popular. Just filter
the category’s view to display only ideas. Topics are then ranked by their number
of votes, along with icons for casting your own vote. (If the category contains only
ideas, this view is shown automatically):

Easily scan each idea, see how they’re ranked against each other, and vote on
the ones you like with a single click.

Of course, you can’t vote for your own idea, and the vote counts for the idea itself,
not for any of its replies.

36 Fall 2008 Release

Submit a New Topic
If you have a question, idea, or opinion you’d like to share with other members of
your community, submit a community topic (requires having Poster privileges).
Depending on which types of topics are enabled for your service, you can:

• Ask a question to find information or help solve a problem Other community

members can post answers or voice related issues. After others respond, you
can select a Best Answer, which other users with the same question can
easily find.

• Start a discussion to share an insight or opinion that others can respond to

and help develop.

• Submit an idea, such as for a product enhancement or new company policy.

Other community members can post opinions and also vote to track the idea’s
popularity.

Just click Create New question, idea, or discussion at the right of the Portal
(depending on which of these topics are available for your service).

In the pop-up window, type a one-line title that people see when browsing topics,
and Additional Details they see when they open the topic (format your details
with the Editor Palette).

After typing, check out any Matching Items that appear at the bottom of the
window, for example, to see if someone else has already posted a related topic. If
they haven’t and you want to continue with your submission, select one or more
Categories to place the topic in (click a category to select or deselect it). If you
can’t select a particular category, you either don’t have permission to post to that
category, or the category doesn’t allow the type of topic you’re submitting.

Check Subscribe me to replies... to receive an email whenever anyone posts a

reply (see “Subscribe to New Content and Updates” on page 17). Then submit
your topic.

View and Post Community Topics 37

 To check back later for answers or replies, look under Recent Topics in your My
Support box (right of any Portal page).

Tip: You can customize your name and picture that appear in your Community
posts (see “Manage Your Personal Profile” on page 8).

Manage a Topic You Submitted

When you open a community topic that you submitted, you see additional links for
doing the following:

• Change the topic’s categories: Click the link at the top of the topic. Then in
the pop-up window, select one or more categories to place the topic in (click a
category to select or deselect it). If you can’t select a particular category, you
either don’t have permission to post to that category, or the category doesn’t
allow this type of topic:

38 Fall 2008 Release

• Choose a reply as best answer (question, only). This sorts the reply to the
top where other people can easily find it. It also marks the question as
ANSWERED. You can later remove the best answer if a better one comes
along, which returns it to the list of replies and resets the question’s status to
OPEN QUESTION.

Also click links beneath the topic or at the right of the page to:

• Edit your topic description: Your edits are appended to the original post.

• Delete the topic: If the topic has replies, you’re prompted to submit a request
to your Community Moderator, who can delete the topic for you.

• Close the topic: This keeps the topic around but marks it as CLOSED (or
UNANSWERED for a question), indicating you’re no longer looking for
replies:

• Reopen a topic (CLOSED or UNANSWERED topics, only): This marks a

closed topic OPEN, indicating that you’re still looking for replies, after all.

View and Post Community Topics 39

Manage All Your Community Posts

To see all community topics or replies you’ve posted to the Portal, go to your My
Content page. From here you can:

Open a topic you submitted to see its replies or choose a Best Answer (see
“Manage a Topic You Submitted” on page 38):

Open a topic you replied to to see the original thread and edit or delete your
reply (see “Post a Reply” on page 33).

View topic status:

• OPEN or OPEN QUESTION: The submitter is still awaiting replies. For a

question, this also means no best answer is chosen.

• ANSWERED (questions, only): The asker has chosen a best answer.

• UNANSWERED or CLOSED: The submitter is no longer looking for answers

or replies. For a question, this also means no best answer is chosen.

Topic status can also be set by a community Moderator.

40 Fall 2008 Release

 Chapter 5

Browser Configuration and Restrictions Chapter 5

Supported Browsers

Browser Support
• Internet Explorer 6.0.2900 with IE Service Pack 2 on Windows

• Internet Explorer 7.0 on Windows.

• Firefox 1.5 and 2.0 on Windows, Linux, and Macintosh clients

Checklist Web Editor

• The Web Editor tool, used to create Interactive Checklists, can be used on
any supported browser.

Recommended Browser Configuration

Following are the recommended browser configuration settings:

• Allow pop-ups for the Helpstream server specifically. Most popup blockers
have a setting for “Always allow pop-ups from ….”. If all pop-up blockers are
not disabled for Helpstream, you will see several oddly phrased errors/error
responses.

• For Internet Explorer users, we recommend, but do not require, that “Script
ActiveX controls marked safe for scripting” is enabled for the appropriate zone
(by default, Helpstream will be in the Internet Zone, but you can move it to
Trusted Sites if you don’t want to change your Internet Zone settings. On IE 6,
this is found under tools > internet options > security > custom level. This is
necessary if you wish to attach images directly from your clipboard without
saving them to your file system first.

Browser Configuration and Restrictions 41

 • For Internet Explorer users, be sure the “Do not save encrypted pages to disk”
option is not selected. (Uncheck this option in the Internet Options dialog, on
the Advanced tab, under Security.)

• Enable JavaScript - this is required.

• Enable cookies.

• Add www.helpstream.biz to “Trusted Sites” in your browser settings.

Storage Space Restrictions

Customers using the free version of the Portal are restricted to 300 MB of space
on Portal servers, for storing articles, community topics, case management data,
and all other data. This should be plenty of space for most organizations.

If you need more space, however, please contact your Portal sales representative.

42 Fall 2008 Release

 Index

A remove 18, 20
announcements to Portal content 18
view 8 view 20
article
subscribe to email notifications 18 F
subscribe to RSS feed 18 Firefox 41
articles full text search 27
types of 16
view most recent 20 G
Google
B link login with 6
best answer 39
browser H
recommended configuration 41 help, online 14
supported 41
I
C idea 17
category submit 37
browse 15 view your own 40
search 24 Internet Explorer 41
subscribe to RSS feed 18
community topic L
delete post 34 log in to Portal 4
submit 37 login page
subscribe to email notifications 18 URL 2, 4
subscribe to RSS feed 18
view 31 O
view your own 40 online help 14
community topics
P
browse by category 15
password
types of 17
change 10
copyright information iii
pop-up blocker 41
D Portal
discussion 17 browse 15
start 37 Portal Home 7
view your own 40 Portal user
profile 8
E profile
email notifications Portal user 8
test 13 public Portal 1
time zone in 9 capabilities 1
email subscriptions using 1

Index 43
Q
question 17
ask 37
choose best answer 39
view 31
view your own 40

R
reputation
voting 35
RSS feed, subscribing
to new Portal content 18

S
Salesforce.com
link login with 5
Self Service Portal
get a login 2
public 1
URL 2, 4
URL to public Portal 1
subscriptions, email
remove 18, 20
to Portal content 18
view 20

T
time zone
in email notifications 9

U
URL to Helpstream 2, 4
public Portal 1

W
Web Editor
supported browsers 41

44 Fall 2008 Release