Link Only Access to Article
under review
Michelle Reeves
Have the ability to easily "hide" an article in the public knowledge base so it is not available in search or TOC; only available if you have the direct link to the article.
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Ed Hawco
Another user asked about this ability, and I answered there with a suggestion for how this could be implemented. I'll copy that here, because I think it's a good way to do it since this is marked as "under review."
The best way would be to create a new type of status, called "Unlisted." An unlisted article could be seen if the user has the URL, but it is not listed in the table of contents, and not included in the search.
The idea is to keep the current "Hidden" status as-is, for legacy reasons and because that status is still useful for some.
To recap:
NORMAL = published, listed in navigation and search, visible with URL.
UNLISTED = published, but not listed in navigation and search, visible with URL.
HIDDEN = published, not listed in navigation and search, not visible even with URL.
Stuart Bierig
There is a workaround for this:
- Create a Main Category (e.g. "Internal Use Only").
- Contact support and they will provide custom JavaScript to add to your settings that will hide the category in the TOC. I am not sure if this hides from search.
David Schultz
I have done what Stuart describes here and it works, but it does not hide the item from search. To hide a specific article from search, you can go to the desired article, then open Article Settings > SEO and select "Exclude from documentation search."
Ed Hawco
I would also find this useful. We have some information that we consider "semi-public" in that it is not strictly confidential, but we don't want people to be able to find it by searching Google or through Document360 search. The info should only be visible thought direct link (i.e., our support team sends a direct link to the article via email). No password or special access controls needed.
Caroline Tabach
This is also something I have requested
An article that can only be accessed by sending a direct link to a person
Caroline Tabach
I recevied java script from support - but this would be comlex when you get more articles
Michelle Reeves
Yes, that is correct.
Shakeer Hussain S
under review
Shakeer Hussain S
Hi Michelle - Thank you for providing this information. If I've grasped your request accurately, you're seeking a way for users to access hidden articles through a direct link, without encountering a 404 error message. Meanwhile, these hidden articles should remain unsearchable. Have I captured your requirements correctly?
Ambuj Lal
Shakeer Hussain S: Yes, exactly. This feature would help a plenty of people who do not want to go the private (login based) documentation portal path.
David Schultz
Shakeer Hussain S:
My company's use case for this is when we are developing a new feature for our product, and we recruit a few of our customers as early testers. We want to give them access to documentation to help them use the new feature, but this documentation should not be available to our general customer-base, as the feature is not generally available yet.
It would be possible to do this by creating a private folder with limited permissions, but then we would have to manage individual reader's access to that particular folder, which could be tedious and difficult. We're not concerned about the security of these docs - we just want them to not be findable via the navigation tree or the search results.
We were able to accomplish this with javascript to hide the specific folder, but I agree it would be very nice to make this a simple feature of the product.