---
schema_version: "1"
id: 66eb8fae8f95fa3efcb7c73ce5778eae56002d055f98b10c4fd83165197623c8
title: Create a Help Center
collection: admin
version: current
locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/experience/264-0-0/networks_help_center_create.md
canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=experience.networks_help_center_create.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5
source_site: help.salesforce.com
content_type: documentation
content_hash: 7049126d9b9c39c54206ac1067c40d9a13395a6d702457a4337c8ec4946b866a
description: Set up a help center to give guest users access to the knowledge articles that you choose. Help users find solutions, and give them a way to contact you when the answer isn’t available. This topic is for you if your org uses Classic Knowledge.
products:
  - Experiences
release: "264"
---
# Create a Help Center

Set up a help center to give guest users access to the knowledge articles that you choose. Help users find solutions, and give them a way to contact you when the answer isn’t available. This topic is for you if your org uses Classic Knowledge.

### Required Editions

<table class="slds-table slds-table_bordered slds-max-medium-table_stacked slds-m-bottom_small edition"><colgroup><col></colgroup><tbody><tr class=""><td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Available in: <strong>Essentials</strong>, <strong>Enterprise</strong>, <strong>Performance</strong>, <strong>Unlimited</strong>, and <strong>Developer</strong> editions</td></tr></tbody></table>

<table class="slds-table slds-table_bordered slds-max-medium-table_stacked slds-m-bottom_small permission">
        <colgroup>
          <col style="width:50%">
          <col style="width:50%">
        </colgroup>
        <thead class="slds-text-title_caps ">
          <tr class="">
            <th scope="colgroup" class="slds-cell-wrap" colspan="2" style="text-align:center;vertical-align:top;" id="d73777e67">User Permissions Needed</th>
          </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="User Permissions Needed" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d73777e67 ">To create a help center</td>

            <td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d73777e67 ">
              <ul>
                <li>Create and Set Up Experiences <p>AND</p> Customize Application <p>AND</p> View
                  Setup and Configuration</li>

              </ul>
            </td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="User Permissions Needed" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d73777e67 ">To work with topics in the site's content management system (CMS)</td>

            <td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d73777e67 ">
              <ul>
                <li>Create Topics</li>

                <li>Merge Topics</li>

                <li>Delete Topics</li>

                <li>Edit Topics</li>

              </ul>
            </td>

          </tr>
        </tbody>
      </table>

Before you begin, review the topic, [“Introducing Help Center”](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=experience.networks_help_center_intro.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "A help center is a public-access, self-service site that makes it easy for people to find answers for themselves. Instead of filing cases through customer support, visitors find the information they need from the articles that you make available from your knowledge base. You reduce the load on your customer support team, and folks get the satisfaction of finding their own solutions."), and take the advance steps it discusses.

This topic steps you through help center creation when your org uses Classic Knowledge. Generally, you create your help center site using the Help Center template, and then configure it using a guided setup.

1. In your org, go to **Setup** | **All Sites** and click **New**.
2. Click the **Help Center** tile, and then click **Get Started**.
3. Enter a name for your help center, and then complete the help center URL.
4. Click **Create**.
5. Go to your help center’s Experience Workspaces, and click the **Guided Setup** tile. Then click the **Help Center** guided setup tile.
6. On the **Help Center** guided setup tile, click the Guided Setup link.
    
    This step launches the guided setup. The setup steps you through configuring your help center. Each step includes a link to the location in the help center user interface where you can do the configuration described in the step. Guided setup steps include:
    
    - Creating topics and assigning featured topics
    - Mapping topics to data categories
    - Setting up a Customer Support page
    - Setting up your Home page
    - Configuring search
    - Configuring any other pages you want to include in your help center
    - Doing some final configuration in the help center’s Workspaces
    - Previewing and publishing your help center
7. Create topics and assign featured topics.
    
    Topics are the fundamental unit of organization in your help center. Ask your customer support team about the situations they get called about most. Use their ideas to create topics that are of great interest to customers seeking solutions. Have 250 x 250 pixel images on hand for each featured topic. These images add to the look and feel of your help center. Create an FAQ topic that you can use as a default topic. Create an FAQ article for your help center with useful, general information.
    
    1. Go to Experience Workspaces, and click the Content Management tile.
    2. Click the **Topics** tab, and then click **Topic Management**.
    3. Add topics to your help center.
        
        Topics can be hierarchical, so you can add both topics and subtopics.
    4. Still in the Topics area of Content Management, click **Featured Topics** and [Set Up Featured Topics](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=experience.networks_topics_featured.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Featured topics highlight current, popular conversations in your Experience Cloud site. Change them regularly to keep members up-to-date and engaged.").
8. Map topics to data categories using [Automatic Topic Assignment](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=experience.networks_topics_automatic_topic_assignment.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Transport all your hard work of organizing Salesforce Knowledge in your Experience Cloud site, and boost SEO for your Knowledge articles, by mapping topics to data categories. All articles published with a specific data category are tagged with the topics you specify. Articles added to the data category in the future are also tagged. All articles with assigned topics are included in search results.").
    
    To make your articles visible in the help center, use data categories to automatically assign multiple topics to articles. This step is crucial. Salesforce Knowledge uses data categories to classify articles and make them discoverable. When you map topics to a data category, any article that uses the category also uses the topics that are mapped to it. Check the box for **Assign this Topic to all existing articles**. This step adds help center topics to existing articles and automates publishing to the help center.
9. In Experience Builder, open the Contact Support page, and set up the Contact Support and Case Deflection components.
    
    Your help center offers a Contact Support page that you set up in Experience Builder. The page comes with Contact Support and Case Deflection components. Case Deflection brings up articles and other resources that are related to the information a guest enters in the contact support form. For the Case Deflection component, set the default topic for “No Content” to your new FAQ topic. When guests come across a topic with no articles, they see your FAQ topic. Assign the FAQ topic to at least one article that contains lots of useful general information.
10. In Experience Builder, configure your home page.
    
    Get your image and HTML files ready to upload. The images are for your help center's logo, login page background, and page header. The header can be a GIF, JPG, or PNG file with a maximum file size of 20 KB. The HTML file is for your page footer.
    
    ![Note](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-experience-communities-264-0-0-production-enus/bf7df212-91a1-4fa3-a007-4d6f3e3b470b/images/icon_note.png)
    
    Note Your default view of the help center includes the footer: Powered by Salesforce. You can easily delete it or replace it with your own footer content.
    
    1. Go to **Settings** | **General**, and give your [guest user profile read access to your Help Center data categories](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.rss_config_guest_user_profile.htm&type=5&language=en_US).
    2. Click ![The Theme icon in Experience Builder](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-experience-communities-264-0-0-production-enus/bf7df212-91a1-4fa3-a007-4d6f3e3b470b/communities/images/theme.png) the Theme icon, and configure your theme. Add a logo and login background image, select colors and fonts, and tweak Theme Settings.
    3. Configure page components to apply your company’s brand to your help center. For example, in the default theme, add images to the Hero Header and Hero Background components.
11. In Experience Builder, open the Home page, click the Global Search for Peer-to-Peer Sites component, and [configure its properties](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=experience.rss_peer_to_peer_search.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Global Search for Peer-to-Peer Communities lets your users search for articles, discussions, and any object available to your site members and made searchable. The component is separate and distinct from the overall header, making it easy to customize to a site’s needs.").
    
    Under Autocomplete Search, select **Limit autocomplete search results to Discussions and Articles**.
12. Set up the other pages in your help center to look the way you want.
    
    Check out these useful help center pages: Topic Detail, Contact Us, and Article Detail. For the Knowledge Article component, clear the **Allow Voting** property. The votes of public users aren’t counted.
13. In the Administration Workspace, click **Preferences**, and select **Give access to public API requests on Chatter**.
14. Preview, publish, and activate your help center.
15. Publicize your new help center. For example, share your help center URL with visitors to your company website.

#### See Also

- [Help Center Set Up Tasks](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=experience.networks_help_center_tasks.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Help Center is designed with self-service in mind. The Help Center template comes with components and pages that you can use as-is or customize to suit your needs.")
- [Change from Help Center to a New Template](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=experience.networks_help_center_change_template.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Changing from a help center template to another template type is a simple process in itself. But the complexity increases with the things you must consider and actions you must take before you make the change. The complexity of a template change varies according to how much original help center content and configuration you want to preserve in the new template. Keep in mind that Salesforce partners have considerable experience with making template changes and can assist you with this process.")