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I have copied the same answer to display for our different interfaces. Is there a way to update them all at the same time?

Environment:

Answers, Analytics

Resolution:

When you update an answer, your edits are not automatically updated into the sibling answers that you copied from it. Each individual answer must be edited separately in order to update the content across your copied answers.

If the content of the multiple answers is identical and each answer is merely displayed in different interfaces: You can configure your site so that the one answer will display to the multiple interfaces instead of creating multiple answers. That way, when you update the individual answer, the update will display in all of the interfaces where the answer is published.

You can do this by assigning the single answer to multiple products, categories and/or access levels that are enabled for visibility on the interfaces you wish to publish the answer to. That is, the answer must be assigned to at least one product and category that is visible to interface 1 and at least one product and category that is visible to interface 2. If different access levels are used, you can save the answer to multiple access levels, so you would save the answer to both of the access levels for interface 1 and interface 2.

When publishing answers, five conditions must be met in order for the answer to appear on the end-user pages of a particular interface:

• The Product, Category, and Access Level must be enabled for end-user visibility for the interface. 
   
• The Language field of the answer must be the same as the language used for the interface. 
   
• The Status must be a public status type.

Therefore, with multiple interfaces, you can save the answer to multiple products and categories and to multiple access levels so that the answer will display on the different interfaces.

If the answer must contain different information for different interfaces, or be presented in a different format: You can use meta-answers as the container for these similar answers. When you copy an answer, the copy can be created as a sibling answer.

Sibling answers share the same meta-answer. As a result, the meta-answer / sibling relationship groups the different versions of the same answer together. In this case, if you update one of the answers, it will only update the content of that individual answer. You would then need to separately edit the other answers to update that content as well.

To find answer related to the same meta-answer: You can create an answer report using the meta-answers and answers tables. In addition, sibling answers that belong to the same meta-answer are listed on the Relationships tab when editing answer. This allows you to easily see which answers you need to evaluate based on your edits.