Creating a user segment

A segment starts from one of two base types, Signed-in users or Staff, and what you can filter on differs between them.

A user segment defines who can see what. Every segment starts from one of two base types, Signed-in users or Staff, and what you can filter on differs between them, which is the part that catches people out.

Create one

1. In Knowledge admin, click User permissions in the sidebar.
2. On the User Segments page, click Add new.
3. Name it for who it contains.
4. Pick the base user type, then narrow it with conditions.
5. Save, then apply it to articles.

Only a Knowledge admin can do this.

The two base types filter on different things

Groups are available for staff and organizations for signed-in users, not the other way round. If you are trying to build a customer segment around a group, that is why it is not there.

Two segments already exist without you doing anything: Signed-in users and Agents and admins. Most requirements are met by one of those, and the cheapest segment is the one you did not create.

Tag conditions: all or any

You choose between Users and organizations matching ALL of these tags and Users and organizations matching ANY of these tags. All is an intersection and gets narrow quickly; any is a union and gets broad quickly.

Reading that choice back out loud is worth doing, because the two produce opposite results from the same tags.

Base it on something reliable

A segment built on an organisation tag only works if the tagging is right. Where a customer should see something and cannot, the cause is usually the underlying data rather than the segment. Check the tag is applied consistently before you build on it.

The ceilings, and the number you should aim for

Those are limits, not targets. Three or four segments is usually enough: everyone, signed-in users, staff, and perhaps one customer tier. Beyond that, work out whether the distinctions are real or whether you are modelling your org chart again, because every extra segment multiplies the ways an article can be invisible to somebody who should see it.

Name it for who, not for what

"Premium customers" tells the next admin who is in it. "Segment 2" and "restricted" do not, and after a year nobody dares change either.

Test with a real account

Not by reading the conditions. Sign in as somebody who should be in the segment, and as somebody who should not, and look.

See also

• Who sees what: user segments explained
• Finding where a user segment is applied
• Tags on users and organisations