Editing and managing content blocks

Editing a block updates every published article that uses it, without republishing any of them and without changing their status.

Editing a block updates every published article that uses it, without republishing any of them and without changing their status. That is the feature and the risk in one sentence, which is why the list of affected articles is worth opening first.

Edit a block

1. In Knowledge admin, click Manage articles in the sidebar.
2. Under Content objects, click Content blocks.
3. Click the block to open the editor. The pane at right lists the articles that contain it.
4. Make your changes and click Update.

Agents can do this only where a Knowledge admin has switched on Allow agents to update content blocks. It is off unless somebody turned it on, and without it updating a block is not available to an agent at all. Creating and inserting one always is.

You can also edit one from where you found it: open the article in edit mode, click the block, select the Edit icon, and click Update.

Read the list before you save

The content blocks list shows each block, when it was last edited, and in how many articles it is used. That last number is the one to look at. A block written for one article and since reused in eight reads differently in each, and an edit that is right where you are looking can be wrong in the other seven.

Open one or two of them from the pane at right and check the block still fits.

Three ways to take a block out, and they differ

Why Delete is often missing

The Delete option sits behind the arrow next to Update, and it only appears when the block is used in no articles at all. If it is used anywhere, you have to remove it from each of those articles first.

So the failure people expect here cannot happen: deleting a block cannot silently leave holes in articles, because a block still in use cannot be deleted. The confusion is the other way round, someone hunting for a Delete option that the product is deliberately withholding.

Unlink is the answer to a block that no longer fits

The pattern to avoid is a block edited to suit one article, edited back by someone else, then forked into two nearly identical blocks. At that point you have the duplication you were avoiding, with extra steps.

When one article needs to say something different, unlink it there. That article keeps the text as its own and you can edit it freely, while every other article carries on with the shared block.

See also

• Creating and inserting a content block
• Letting agents update content blocks