Import from Zendesk
You can import your Zendesk articles directly into Paligo. As part of the import, Paligo creates new topics to match your articles. You can then map the topics back to the articles, so that you can make updates in Paligo and publish the changes to Zendesk.
You can import content directly from your Zendesk Guide help center into Paligo if you have this in your plan. When you import, Paligo will analyze the Zendesk sections and articles and create matching versions in Paligo. Those versions are marked up to be structured content, using Paligo XML.
But it's important to understand that when you do an import, there is no connection between your Zendesk content and the matching content in Paligo. After the import, the Zendesk articles and their matching Paligo topics exist as separate content. To be able to edit the Paligo topics and get the changes to appear in the matching Zendesk articles, you need to establish relationships between the topics and the articles. This is called "mapping" and you can set it up by using Paligo's Zendesk Preflight feature.
Note
The Paligo import does not support the Zendesk enterprise multi-section architecture. If you need to import multi-section architecture, please contact customer support for advice.
The following video shows the process for importing from Zendesk and then setting up mapping for the first time.
Note
You cannot update topics in Zendesk and then use import to update the same topics in Paligo. If try to do this, the import will create an entirely new publication and topics. The import feature is only for migrating content from Zendesk to Paligo.
The prerequisites for importing from Zendesk are:
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You need to have a plan that includes Zendesk integration.
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The Zendesk integration must be set up, and the default category will be used for importing content.
To find out about setting up the integration, see Connect Paligo to Zendesk.
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If you have the Zendesk multibrand feature, put the Zendesk account you want to import from at the top of the multibrand list. Paligo will import from the first account in the multibrand list. To change the order in the list, see Connect Paligo to Zendesk.
You can import content directly from Zendesk into Paligo. When you import, Paligo gets the content from your articles and adds it to new, automatically generated topics. But there is no relationship between the imported content and the articles at this stage. The import only creates a Paligo version of your Zendesk articles.
To use the imported topics for publishing updates back into Zendesk, you need to Customize Paligo-to-Zendesk Mapping. You do that by using the Preflight settings, which are designed for "mapping" topics to articles. You create the relationship by Map Imported Content to Zendesk Articles.
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Create a .zip file of the Zendesk content.
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Use the Import Wizard to import Zendesk .zip file. Select the Zendesk format.
When you have import content from Zendesk, Paligo creates topics to match the sections and articles. To use these topics to update the matching articles in Zendesk, you need to set up the topic-to-article relationships. This is called "mapping" and you set it up by using the Zendesk Preflight feature, which is part of the publishing settings.
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Select the options menu ( ... ) for the publication that Paligo created when you imported content from Zendesk. Then select Publish.
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On the Publish Document dialog, select HTML.
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Choose a Zendesk layout from the dropdown list below the buttons for the output types.
When you select a Zendesk layout, the Publish Document dialog changes to show Zendesk-specific settings, such as Zendesk category and Managed by. Also, the Zendesk Preflight tab appears at the top.
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Apply any Languages, Profiling attributes, Variables, and Optional Parameters that you want the publication to use.
These are common publishing settings and you can find out about them in Publish Content, Filtering / Profiling, and Variables.
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Select the Zendesk Preflight tab.
The Zendesk Preflight tab shows you what will happen in Zendesk when you publish. There is a hierarchical list, that shows the categories, sections, and articles that will be created, updated, or deleted. Those that are marked with a plus icon are going to be added to your Zendesk instance.
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In Paligo, you create different levels in a publication's structure by adding topics and organizing them in a hierarchy. So where Zendesk has a section and then articles in it, Paligo has a top-level topic, with other topics at a lower level. As the top-level topic can contain content, Paligo automatically creates an extra article for it when publishing to Zendesk. If you prefer, you can use the Zendesk Layouts to stop Paligo from creating extra articles for top-level topics.
As the import topics do not have any relationship with the articles in Zendesk, Paligo sees them as completely new content. So when you publish to Zendesk, Paligo will create new categories, sections, and articles.
Below the new sections and articles, there are sections and articles that are gray and do not have any icons. These represent the sections and articles that already exist in Zendesk.
There is no update icon for these, as Paligo is not going to do anything to them. It knows they exist in Zendesk, but they are not mapped to any topics.
With a new import, you most likely do not want the import topics to create new sections and articles. Instead, you probably want them to update the existing sections and articles instead. So the next step is to set up that mapping.
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Select the cog icon for a section that Paligo is going to add to Zendesk. The mapping dialog appears.
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Select the Mapping dropdown list.
You now have the option to create a new section in Zendesk (the option with the plus icon). Or you can map the section topic in Paligo to any existing, unmapped section or article (the options with the update icons).
After an import, you will most likely want to map the section topics to existing sections in Zendesk, and the article topics to existing articles in Zendesk.
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Set the section to map to an existing, unmapped section in Zendesk and then select Confirm.
When you confirm, the list refreshes to show the new mapping. You should see that the section now has an update icon instead of a plus icon, as you have set the section topic to update an existing section in Zendesk. If you expand the section in the list, you should see that it now contains the existing articles in that section (grayed out) and also the new articles that Paligo will create in that section (plus icons).
You most likely do not want this mapping. Instead, you want Paligo to map the content to the existing articles. So the next step is to map the new articles (plus icons) to the existing articles (grayed out).
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Select the cog icon for one of the new articles to display the mapping dialog.
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Select the Mapping dropdown and set the article to update the existing article (update icon), instead of creating a new article (plus icon). Select Confirm when you have set the mapping.
You can set the article to map to any existing, unmapped article in Zendesk, but it's most likely that you want to map to the existing article of the same name.
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You can also set the status of the article, who can manage it in Zendesk, and who will be able to view it in Zendesk.
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Repeat steps 6-10 inclusive for each new section and new article. As you map the new sections and articles to the existing sections and articles, you will see that the list shows less content. Because the topics that were generated as a result of the import are now mapped to the existing sections and articles, rather than creating new ones in addition to the existing ones.
Typically, after an import, you will set the Paligo content to map to the existing sections and articles, so that there are no new sections or articles being created in Zendesk.
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Use the blue checkboxes on the left of the list to choose which categories, sections, and articles are going to be published.
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Select Publish document to publish your content.
Paligo will then publish your content to Zendesk. From this point on, the topics in Paligo are mapped to the sections and articles in Zendesk. So if you make a change to a topic in Paligo, and publish to Zendesk, the matching article will also have the change.
To find out about using Zendesk Preflight for publishing to Zendesk, see Customize Paligo-to-Zendesk Mapping.