About the Online Help Module
The Online Help Module provides contextual help documentation throughout the Magentrix portal, enabling administrators and authorized users to create comprehensive help content that appears directly within the context of specific portal pages. With integrated wiki-style content management, search functionality, and role-based access control, the Online Help Module ensures users can access relevant documentation exactly when and where they need it.
Contextual Help Integration
Inline Help Accessibility
Context-Sensitive Help Links: The Online Help Module displays "Help on this page" links throughout the portal interface, providing users with immediate access to relevant documentation without leaving their current workflow or navigating to separate help systems.
Page Key Architecture: Each portal page is assigned a unique Page Key that creates one-to-one relationships between portal functionality and help documentation. This ensures users receive precisely relevant help content based on their current location and task context.
Seamless User Experience: Help links integrate naturally into the portal interface, maintaining workflow continuity while providing comprehensive documentation support for complex business processes and system functionality.
Universal Help Portal Access
Browse-able Knowledge Base: Users can access the complete help documentation system by navigating to https://<yourportaldomain>/sys/help, providing a traditional knowledge base experience with full search and browsing capabilities independent of contextual help links.
Administrative Tab Integration: Administrators can create dedicated tabs within portal applications to provide direct access to the help documentation system, enabling users to browse help content as part of their regular portal navigation.
Cross-Platform Accessibility: The help portal maintains consistent branding and functionality across all user access methods, ensuring unified user experience whether accessing help contextually or through dedicated navigation.
Content Creation and Management
Rich Content Development
Advanced Text Editor: The Online Help Module provides comprehensive rich text editing capabilities including formatting tools, media embedding, hyperlink creation, and interactive content integration that supports professional documentation development.
Media and Resource Integration: Help content can include embedded images, videos, downloadable resources, and external links that enhance documentation effectiveness and provide multimedia learning experiences for users.
Professional Formatting Options: Content creators can utilize headers, lists, tables, code blocks, and other formatting elements to create well-structured, scannable documentation that follows professional technical writing standards.
Wiki-Style Organization
Hierarchical Category Structure: Help content is organized using a flexible category and subcategory system with unlimited nesting levels, enabling logical content organization that scales with organizational complexity and documentation needs.
Drag-and-Drop Management: Administrators can reorganize content structure, reorder categories, and adjust content hierarchy through intuitive drag-and-drop interfaces that simplify content management and maintain organizational logic.
Content Relationships: The wiki-style architecture supports cross-referencing, content linking, and relationship building that creates comprehensive knowledge networks and supports complex user navigation patterns.
Search and Discovery Features
Comprehensive Search Functionality
Full-Text Search Capabilities: The help system includes powerful search functionality that indexes all content, titles, categories, and metadata to provide accurate, relevant search results that help users quickly locate needed information.
Category-Based Browsing: Users can navigate help content through logical category structures, supporting both directed searches and exploratory browsing patterns that accommodate different learning and problem-solving styles.
Content Discovery Tools: The help system provides multiple discovery pathways including recent content, popular articles, and category-based navigation that help users find relevant information through various search and browsing strategies.
User-Friendly Navigation
Breadcrumb Navigation: Help pages include comprehensive breadcrumb navigation that shows users their current location within the content hierarchy and provides easy navigation back to higher-level categories or topics.
Cross-Reference Integration: Help articles can include links to related content, supporting comprehensive learning experiences and enabling users to explore connected topics and advanced functionality.
Print and Export Options: Users can print individual help articles or sections for offline reference, supporting diverse learning preferences and enabling documentation use in various work contexts.
Access Control and Security
Role-Based Content Management
Granular Permission Control: The Online Help Module integrates with Magentrix Security Role framework to provide precise control over who can view, create, edit, or delete help content based on organizational access policies and user responsibilities.
Employee User Capabilities: Users with Employee licenses and appropriate Security Role permissions can create, edit, and publish help content, enabling distributed content creation and collaborative documentation development across the organization.
Partner and Customer Access: Partner and Customer users can access help documentation through contextual links but cannot create or modify content, ensuring content integrity while providing comprehensive self-service support capabilities.
Entity-Level Help Control
Disable Inline Help Option: Each Magentrix entity includes a "Disable Inline Help" checkbox that allows administrators to control help availability at the entity level, providing flexible control over help system integration across different portal areas.
Default Help Availability: By default, help functionality is enabled for all entities, ensuring comprehensive help coverage while allowing administrators to disable help for specific entities where documentation is not needed or appropriate.
Custom Entity Integration: Both standard and custom entities support Online Help integration, ensuring that organizational customizations and extensions maintain consistent help system integration and user support capabilities.
Publishing and Workflow Management
Content Lifecycle Management
Draft and Published Status: Each help article includes draft and published status options, enabling content development workflows where articles can be prepared, reviewed, and published according to organizational content management processes.
Immediate Publication: Content publishing is immediate without scheduling capabilities, supporting responsive documentation updates and real-time content management that keeps help information current with system changes.
Version Control Integration: The help system maintains content history and enables content updates without losing previous versions, supporting content evolution and enabling rollback capabilities when needed.
Content Quality Assurance
Review and Approval Workflows: Organizations can implement content review processes where Employee users with appropriate permissions can create and edit content while maintaining quality control through structured approval processes.
Content Validation: The help system supports content validation processes that ensure accuracy, completeness, and consistency across all help documentation, maintaining professional standards and user experience quality.
Ongoing Content Maintenance: The system enables regular content updates, accuracy reviews, and relevance assessments that keep help documentation current with evolving system functionality and organizational processes.
Integration with Portal Ecosystem
Branding and Customization
Portal Branding Integration: Help documentation automatically inherits portal branding including logos, color schemes, typography, and visual identity elements, ensuring consistent brand experience across all user touchpoints.
Responsive Design: Help content automatically adapts to different devices and screen sizes, providing optimal user experience whether users access help through desktop computers, tablets, or mobile devices.
Theme Consistency: Help pages maintain visual consistency with the broader portal interface, ensuring seamless user experience and professional presentation that reinforces organizational brand identity.
Module Integration
Universal Module Support: Any Magentrix module that includes "Help on this page" functionality can leverage the Online Help Module, providing consistent help system integration across diverse platform functionality and user workflows.
Context-Aware Help: Help content can be specifically tailored to module functionality, user roles, and business processes, ensuring that help information is relevant, actionable, and directly applicable to user needs and responsibilities.
Cross-Module Navigation: Help content can reference and link to functionality across different portal modules, supporting comprehensive user education and enabling users to understand complex multi-module workflows and integrations.
Common Use Cases
Organizational Training and Onboarding
New User Documentation: Create comprehensive onboarding documentation that guides new users through portal functionality, business processes, and organizational procedures, reducing training time and improving user adoption rates.
Role-Specific Training: Develop help content tailored to specific user roles, responsibilities, and access levels, ensuring users receive relevant information that supports their specific job functions and business objectives.
Process Documentation: Document complex business workflows, approval processes, and organizational procedures that span multiple portal areas, providing users with comprehensive guidance for completing important business tasks.
Technical Support and Self-Service
Troubleshooting Guides: Create detailed troubleshooting documentation that helps users resolve common issues independently, reducing support ticket volume and enabling faster problem resolution.
Feature Documentation: Provide comprehensive documentation for portal features, functionality, and capabilities that enables users to maximize their use of available tools and improve productivity.
Best Practices Guidance: Share organizational best practices, usage guidelines, and optimization strategies through help documentation that improves user effectiveness and supports consistent portal usage.
Compliance and Governance
Policy Documentation: Use help system to distribute and maintain organizational policies, compliance requirements, and governance guidelines that users can access contextually when needed.
Audit Trail Support: Help system content can support audit requirements by providing documentation of processes, procedures, and compliance measures that demonstrate organizational commitment to proper governance.
Change Management: Document system changes, feature updates, and process modifications through help system that keeps users informed about evolving portal functionality and organizational requirements.
Best Practices and Recommendations
Content Development Strategy
User-Centered Design: Develop help content based on actual user needs, common questions, and workflow patterns rather than system features, ensuring documentation provides practical value and addresses real user challenges.
Clear Information Architecture: Organize help content using logical categories and hierarchies that match user mental models and business process flows, making information easy to find and navigate.
Regular Content Updates: Establish processes for keeping help content current with system changes, feature updates, and evolving organizational procedures, maintaining accuracy and relevance over time.
Content Quality Standards
Professional Writing Standards: Use clear, concise language with consistent terminology and formatting that provides professional user experience and supports effective knowledge transfer.
Visual Content Integration: Include screenshots, diagrams, and multimedia content that enhances understanding and provides visual context for complex procedures and system functionality.
Accessibility Considerations: Ensure help content meets accessibility standards including proper heading structure, alt text for images, and clear navigation that supports users with diverse needs and capabilities.
Maintenance and Governance
Content Ownership: Assign clear ownership and responsibility for help content maintenance, ensuring that documentation remains accurate and current as systems and processes evolve.
User Feedback Integration: Establish mechanisms for collecting user feedback on help content effectiveness and use that feedback to improve documentation quality and usefulness.
Performance Monitoring: Monitor help system usage patterns, search queries, and user behavior to identify content gaps and optimization opportunities that improve user experience and support effectiveness.
Online Help Setup Checklist >>