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Akash15
Akash15
August 29, 2023
Question

Open the web widget directly to a help desk article

  • August 29, 2023
  • 4 replies
  • 72 views

Is there a way to open the web widget with a help center article loaded? Right now I have a link in my app that opens a help center article in a new tab, and I would like to keep them in-app by opening it in the web widget instead. I know that there are ways to open the widget with a search query or filter but I would like to just immediately open the article inside the widget.

    4 replies

    C
    Christopher53Employee
    Employee
    September 6, 2023
    Hi Akash,
     
    There isn't a way to directly open the article within the widget.  Though you can come close to this using the filtering options you referenced.  Applying specific labels to articles can help you narrow the expected search result when using the widget API to return the articles.
    S
    Scott66
    February 17, 2024

    Please consider adding this feature. Lots of applications have a context sensitive help button where you click a button and help for that feature shows up. That concept has been standard for decades. 

    This has prevented us from using the guide feature at all. We would upgrade to a different subscription to get this in the new web widget if necessary. It's just so un-user friendly and unnecessary to make them click to open the widget, then click again to select the article..

    You could do this by either just automatically showing the article when you set a setSuggestions to to a label that only returns one record, or add an article: option to the set suggestions. If only one article is returned by a setSuggestions, there's really no reason to ever show the returned single article as a list to click rather than actually showing the article.

    It seems like something that would be really simple to update - probably just a few lines of javascript in your web widget (classic) or new to implement this. 

    It's a really gaping hole in usability, not supporting traditional context-sensitive help with a single click.

     

    Greg K
    Greg KEmployee
    Employee
    February 20, 2024

    Hi Scott! The best way to get this feedback to the right team would be to share that in this forum. That will ensure that the correct team has eyes on this and can follow up with you with any questions that they may have.

    B
    Barrow96
    April 19, 2026

    Scott nailed it — context-sensitive help has been a standard for decades and the standard Zendesk widget still can't do it cleanly.

    We built Enhanced Zendesk Widget (Zendesk Marketplace) specifically to close this gap. On our Enterprise tier, you configure URL-based rules so the widget automatically surfaces specific articles depending on which page the customer is on. If they're on your billing page, they see billing articles. On your onboarding flow, they see onboarding content. One click to open the widget, the right article is already there.

    Articles open and render inside the widget — no redirect to a separate Help Center URL.

    🌐 https://ibamsolutions.com/apps

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