How to Control Answer Visibility

Answers can be either public or private, as well as have specific visibility settings for each interface or for contacts based on access levels defined in their service level agreements (SLAs).

When you publish answers, you make them available to the public on your customer portal. Whether answers are visible on your customer portal is determined by what you specify in certain fields. The key fields and functions that determine how and where answers are presented are Answer Status, Answer Access Level, Language, Products and Categories, and conditional sections.

In order for answers to appear on the customer portal, the Status, Access Level, Language, Product, and Category fields must be set to a visibility that allows access by customers. If even one field does not allow visibility, the answer will not be available on the customer portal. In addition, if you have sections within an answer with restricted visibility, that section must be assigned an access level associated with the answer. The five fields that control answer visibility are described in detail below.

Answer status—The primary factor that determines the visibility of answers is answer status. There can be many custom answer statuses, but all must be either a Public or Private status type, which is determined when the custom status is created. Answers set to a status that has a Private status type can never be viewed on the customer portal, regardless of their access or language assignment. Public answers may be viewable through the customer portal, depending on the other fields selected. Two of the default answer statuses are Review and Proposed, both of which have a Private status type. When agents propose an incident to become an answer, it is copied and set to the Proposed status with an access level of Everyone. Since the Proposed status is a Private status type, the answer will not be visible to customers. An answer changes to the Review status when its solved count reaches zero, or when the date specified when adding or editing an answer is reached. The Review status will automatically remove the answer from the customer portal. See Add or Edit an Answer Status.
Answer access level—Access levels determine whether customers can view answers on a per-interface basis. If an answer is set to an access level that has customer visibility on one of the interfaces, then that answer is viewable by everyone on that interface, provided the remaining fields also allow visibility. If an access level does not provide visibility to customers for a certain interface, access can still be given to specific contacts by assigning them SLAs that allow privileged access. One of the default access levels for answers is Everyone. This access level allows all customers to have access to the answer on all interfaces. See Add or Edit an Answer Access Level.
Language—Answer visibility is also determined by the language assigned to it. If assigned to a specific language, an answer will only be visible on the interfaces using that language, as long as the answer status and access level also allow visibility.
Products and categories—The visibility settings for the products and categories associated with the answer will also affect the visibility. If the answer is assigned to a product or category that is not visible to customers on a particular interface, the answer will also not be visible to customers, unless it is assigned to another product or category that is visible on the interface. In other words, if you have an answer that is assigned to two products, and one of the products is not visible on the interface, but the other product is, your answer will appear on the interface. However, if the answer is assigned to two products, and neither product is visible on the interface, your answer will not appear on the interface under any circumstances. See Search Optimization Using Products, Categories, and Dispositions.
Conditional sections—Conditional sections help control visibility of certain sections within an answer. If a section of the answer is assigned an access level that is not visible to customers on a particular interface, but the answer is visible, then customers are able to view the answer but not the conditional section. For more information about conditional sections in answers, see Insert a Conditional Section.