The ACT! by Sage Journal

As someone who probably uses the knowledge base more than most, I must say I've really noticed (and appreciated) that the guys (especially Greig Hollister) have started listening to the Submit Rating messages over the past 6-12 months and have actually been responding and updating the articles with suggested improvements.

 There are still a couple of areas that could be improved:
1. A lot of the ACT! 6 articles still refer to the old itDomino links
2. There are still a lot of links in the KB that refer to articles that require a login that users can't access
3. When you submit a rating, you get an email with a link to add more information... it doesn't work as it requires a login that users can't access
4. The search engine needs improving - a lot of the time, I can find answers that users and ACCs have not been able to, simply because I've figured out some of the tricks.
5. An RSS feed with New/Updated  articles that consultants and administrators could subscribe to would be REALLY useful

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist

Mike, thanks for sharing your experience with the knowledgebase!

 

We focus most of our energy on creating new & updated content for supported products.  However, I agree that we need to remove or fix broken links.    Unfortunately, they are hard to find without reviewing & trying each of the links embedded in +1,800 documents.  We will take a closer look at this project in the next few weeks.  In the short term, if you run across a broken link please continue to submit reminders through rating comments.

 

Your additional suggestions will be considered as we continue our journey toward improved knowledgebase solutions for ACT!.

 

Kevin

 

 

 

I'm much to lazy to suggest that much manual work :-)

 

Depending on the back-end data store, it should be reletively simple to create some code to check the articles for broken links and links requiring a logon. This could then be run regularly and generate a report for management.

 

After the first run and updates, it shouldn't generate many errors going forward... but would be usful when domains change or updates/downloads are moved or Articles  removed as part of updates

 

Another idea that should be easy to implement and was really useful in the old itdomino KB was making the Article ID a hyperlink to the shortened URL with direct access to the article... much easier than the log URLs the KB search creates. EG - each Article ID would have a hyperlink to:

http://kb.sagesoftwareonline.com/cgi-bin/sagesoftwareonline.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=<ArticleID>

 

PS: Please thank Greig for me... his fast responses to errors I've found has helped make the KB much more useful.

 

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist

Hi Mike,

 

RSS feed is now available in the knowledgebase and works with IE 7.  The link should display to the right of your search results.   If you want to include only ACT! KB's in your feed, first search using the product filter.

 

Sample screen display:

 

 

Please let me know how this works for you.

 

Thanks for your feedback regarding your experience with Greig.

 

Kevin

The RSS only pulls down the headers for the items on the page (ie your example above will get about 20, not 722).

 

Also, it only has the headers, not a full feed.

 

I'd really love a full feed (even if it was a hidden selecion)... a fully local searchable copy being updated via RSS would be really useful for those with the hardware to host it.

 

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist 

BTW: Is there a way to create an RSS feed for New or Updated articles?

 

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist  

Hi Kevin,

 

This issue has been asked again here:

http://community.act.com/t5/The-ACT-by-Sage-Journal/Are-you-looking-for-a-quick-solution/ba-p/38374

 

I was just wondering if you've been able to look into it?

 

Regards,

Mike Lazarus

Hi Mike,

 

We can't provide the full RSS feed you are requesting.   I will make certain that this remains on our list as we evaluate tools going forward.

 

Kevin

 

How about an RSS feed for new/updated items?