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How do I add a new answer to my site?

Environment:

Creating New Answers
Oracle B2C Service

Resolution:

Typically, when adding a new answer to your knowledgebase, you will use the major steps below:

1. Add a new non-public answer to your knowledgebase.
2. Edit and preview the answer.
3. Publish the answer to your end-user pages.

Creating a New Non-Published Answer

You can add an answer in several ways:

1. You can propose an answer from an existing incident.
2. You can add a stand-alone answer.
3. You can add a sibling answer to an existing answer (which share the same products and categories).
4. You can copy an existing answer. You can copy an answer to be a stand-alone answer or copy the answer to be a sibling.

Note: Sibling answers (options 3 and 4) are typically used only with privileged access and multi-language sites. Sibling answers allow you to group very highly related answers together. Basically, all of the sibling answers answer the same question, but the content of the information provided may differ depending on your audience -- either due to privileged access or a different language. Sibling answers reside in the same meta-answer and share common products and categories.  That is, if you change the product or category value for an answer, you also change the product and category for all sibling answers.

Option 1: Proposing an Answer from an Existing Incident 

To propose an answer from an existing incident, highlight the incident in a report and click the Propose button in the toolbar or right click on the incident and select Propose. Staff can also click Propose from an open incident.

In the pop-up window, staff can modify the Summary, Question, Answer, and Notes field as well as modify the product and category selections before clicking OK which creates the new answer. The new answer is created with a Proposed status and is unassigned. The first customer thread entry is entered in the Question field and the remainder of the thread populates the Answer field.

The incident is copied to the Answer Console as a new answer that has a Proposed status and is unassigned to a staff member. The entire incident thread is copied into the Question field.

See Answer ID 1034: Information copied when an incident is proposed as an answer for more information.

Option 2: Adding a New Stand-alone Answer 

You can also create new stand-alone answers directly to the application if your staff profile allows answers to be created and edited.  If your site does not use privileged access and supports only one language, all of your answers should be stand-alone answers that do not have siblings. This ensures that answers can be published and accessible independently of one another.

1. From the top toolbar, click New > Answer.  
   
   
2. Complete the Summary, Status, Access Level, Language, Content tab, Products/Categories tab, and Details tab. Note that the layout of tabs and fields when editing answers is defined by the answer workspace, which may be customized by an administrator.
   
   
3. Click Save.

Option 3: Adding or Sibling Answer to an Existing Answer 

Note: Sibling answers should only be used if your site uses privileged access or multiple language packs.

With privileged access and multi-language sites, multiple answers can be set up as siblings so that they are more closely related to one another and share the same product and category values.

For example, if you have an English and Spanish interface, you could have two sibling answers that are related -- one answer that is published to the English interface, the other published to the Spanish interface. If you were to add a French interface to your site, you could add a third sibling answer to each of your sibling groups (meta-answers). This allows you to keep the translations of each answer closely related.

Typically, if you are using privileged access, each sibling answer will have a unique access level. Similarly, if you are using multiple languages, each sibling answer will be assigned to a unique language.

You can have sibling answers that have the same access level and language combination, which means multiple sibling answers can be published to a single interface. 

To add a new sibling answer to an existing answer: use the steps below. When you add a sibling answer, the products and categories are pre-selected to match the values of the existing answer. Any changes you make to the products and categories affect ALL sibling answers for that group of siblings.

In order to add a sibling answer, the answer workspace must include the Answer Relationship item within the workspace. In addition, when you click on the Answer Relationship item, the SiblingVisible property must be set to True in order to see the siblings listed. In order to use the steps below, you may need to modify the answer workspace to enable the Sibling Visible property. 

1. Open the existing answer and click the Relationships tab. 
   
   
2. In Siblings Answer section, click Add > Add New or Add Existing.  If adding a new answer, add content and click OK. If adding an existing answer, search for the answer you want to add as a sibling (by Answer ID or by text) and click Select. In the Move Siblings pop-up specify which answer should be moved to the other answers sibling set.  If both answers are stand-alone answers, it does not matter which answer actually moves. 
   
   
3. When the sibling answer displays on the Relationships tab, save the original answer.

Another option is to copy the existing answer as a sibling and then modify the copy.

Option 4: Copying an Existing Answer 

You can copy an answer to either be a sibling answer to the answer that is copied or copy the answer to be a sibling of the answer being copied.

1. From a report that lists the answer to be copied, highlight the answer in the report and click Copy in the toolbar. Or right click on the answer and select Copy. 
   
   
2. In the pop-up window, set the status, access level and language of the new answer. If you wish to copy existing file attachments to the new answer, enable the Copy File Attachments box. 
   
   
3. To create a sibling answer, enable the Create Sibling Relationship checkbox. If clear, the new answer will be a stand-alone answer. 
   
   
4. The new answer opens in edit mode so that you can modify the content.  When finished, click Save.

For more information, refer to Answer ID 2162: Copying an answer.

Previewing Your Answer

To preview the answer, use the Search icon to search for the answer so that the answer is listed in the answer grid. Then right click on the answer and select Preview Answer, or highlight the answer and click the Preview icon in the top right corner. The answer will display in a new window.

Links to web pages (using the standard HTML link format with the "a href" tag) are active from the preview page. However, file attachments and links to other answers are disabled on the preview page.

Publishing Your Answer

To publish the answer, open the answer for editing. Set the status to be a public status type (i.e. Public), the access level to a value that is visible to the end-user pages for the interface (i.e. Everyone), and set the product and category (if enabled) to values that are visible to the end-user interface. For more information on publishing answers to your site, refer to Answer ID 1112: Publishing an answer to the end-user pages.

For more information on publishing answers, refer to the 'Process of Creating and Updating Answers' section in the Online Help User Guide documentation. To access Oracle B2C Service manuals and documentation online, refer to the Documentation for Oracle B2C Service Products.