CXone Expert Style Specifications

Content Structure in Expert

To ensure content is structured in the best way possible in Expert, follow these guidelines:

• Follow Expert's Guided Content Framework when structuring help content.
  • For guides, if you're only using the topic hierarchy, then under Page Settings, select Single for Guide listing display.
  • Add page summaries under Page Settings for categories, guides, and topics. Make sure Dekiscript code is on the category and guide so that the page description appears on the main category/guide page.
  • Content should live in articles (i.e., topics, references, how-to's).
• Expert's GenSearch and intelligent search algorithms depend on page titles, URLs, headers, page summaries, and tags. As users click a page, that page ranks higher in the search results. With this workflow in mind, use clear naming and add headers that may reflect common search terms.
  • As a best practice, wait to add tags until internal users and external users have organically ranked pages via clicks in the search algorithm.
• Once a page is officially published (internally or externally), complete the Why are you making this edit? field if you make edits (a simple brief description). This helps you and others to identify major changes when looking at the revision log.

General Formatting Content

• Do not apply bolding to CXone Expert's default header styles.
• If you need to reset a header, paragraph, or link color back to the standard, highlight the text and select Remove color from the font color drop-down.
• Use collapsible content for definitions and FAQs, if desired. Don't place important information in collapsible content in case the user never opens it to view the information.
  • Note that for tables that have sticky headers, the sticky headers don't work under the accordion collapsible content.
• Use banners to:
  • Call attention to important links (e.g., release note links, featured webinars or courses, etc.). (the Banner – Release template)
  • When differentiating user types or cycles (e.g., Time2Track users are listed in a banner for each page of content, a call-out to the DICAS 3.X versus 2.0 application is listed in a banner, etc.). (the Banner – T2T template)
  • When differentiating mobile versus web app functionality. (the Banner – Platform Version template)
• Confirm links have only one href link. You can do this by editing a page in HTML and searching for href. If a link has multiple href links, then remove all links and relink to the appropriate page.
• Confirm correct span and font code. You can do this by editing a page in HTML and searching for span and font. Code may be inserted mid-word, or may accidentally replace other formatting.
  • Example 1: some lines may look like a header, but in the HTML, it's actually a paragraph with span code. The line won't appear in the table of contents because the line doesn't have true header formatting.
  • Example 2: a different font size than the default may be applied to content. When the page is resized, the default font size will resize appropriately but any hard-coded font size will stay at the same size.
• Remove ARIA labels – this can cloud screen readers. See section508.gov's page on Accessibility.

Lists

For bulleted lists, use Expert's default formatting:

• Level one (disc)
  • Level two (circle)
    • Level three (square)

For numeric lists, use the following formatting:

1. Level one (decimal)
   1. Level two (lower alpha)
      1. Level three (lower Roman)

If you're combining numeric and bulleted lists, use a combo of the above, like so:

1. Step 1
   • Special note
2. Step 2
   1. Sub-step for 2
   2. Next sub-step for 2
3. Step 3

Hyperlinks

All hyperlinks must use clear and descriptive text to meet 508 compliance standards. Review this Section508.gov page for suggestions.

Expert offers several hyperlink options. Select the appropriate link option based on the hyperlinked source. Use Expert's default formatting for links.

1. Highlight the text that will become the link.
2. Under Elements, click Link or highlight the text and right-click to choose Link. You can also use Ctrl+K (for PC) or Cmd+K (for Mac).
3. Under Link to, enter the source URL.
4. Under Jump to anchor or section, select the header, if appropriate.
5. Select:
   • Default: for mailto: URLs and when linking to a header on the current page (i.e., "jumping" around the current page).
   • Open in new window: for external URLs (i.e., outside of Expert) and document attachments. If adding an external link, be sure to add conditional text for Admins underneath the header where the link is listed and include the last date the link was checked. You can use the Conditional Content – Links Last Checked template.
   • Open in contextual help overlay: for URLs within Expert (i.e., other articles or help centers).

Expert automatically truncates URLs. See Expert's help center if you want to remove truncation.

Graphic Elements

Table Headers

All tables must have a table header and be responsive. You also have the option to freeze the header so that it stays at the top of the table as users scroll through the table rows. Make sure all table headers are left-aligned. You can use the Table – Fixed Header or Table – Standard templates.

1. Right-click on the table and select Table properties.
2. Under Headings, click First row.
3. If you want to freeze the header as users scroll through the content, then under Stylesheet classes, enter stick-one.
4. Select the Make table responsive checkbox.
5. Click OK.

Conditional Text

Use conditional text to add internal notes for Liaison teams. For example, you can use conditional text for:

• Internal enhancements in release notes (the Conditional Content – Liaison Group template).
• Where content reuse is being used to and from (the Conditional Content – Admin Group template).
• When external links were last checked (the Conditional Content – Links Last Checked template).
• BRD activation instructions for Liaison teams.
• Additional internal notes to specific Liaison teams.

To add a preconfigured conditional text, use the stamp icon in the ribbon bar or under Elements, click Templates, then select the appropriate Conditional Content template.

To add a blank conditional text:

1. Under Style, click Conditional text (group only).
2. Enter your internal note and change the font color so that it's more obvious that this note is internal.
   • Use red font color (HEX #ff0000) for notes to the Admin Group (aka the E&K team) or other internal teams.
   • Use purple font color (HEX #9f2aa7) for internal enhancements in release notes and other internal comments.
3. Click the conditional content header and select the group you want to share it with.
   • Select Admin Group for the E&K team.
   • Select Liaison-only Group for internal enhancements in release notes.
   • Select other groups as appropriate (e.g., BRD Group (Liaison Internal) is used for the Activation Instructions stored within the BRD pages).

Content Reuse

The content reuse feature allows you to reuse the same content from one page to another. Review Expert's content reuse documentation for how-to's and best practices.

Some caveats:

• Expert currently doesn't have a report to identify where content reuse is being used to or from. For that reason, you must add conditional text to both the page/header content is being reused from and to.
• If you reuse content at a header level, you cannot use global variables in the source header.

Note: if you choose to copy instead of reuse content between pages, then add a conditional text with a note of where content is copied and reused to, so you know that you'll need to update it with any changes manually.

Global Variables

Proceed with Caution: a mistake in this section creates errors throughout the entire site. Contact Katie or Sarah if you need help adding/updating global variables.

Before creating global variables for a new help center, the new help center must be created first. Ensure all global variable commas, semicolons, curly brackets, and other punctuation are in the correct locations. Otherwise, an error will occur. Commas need to be at the end of every variable, except for the last one.

1. Under Site tools, click Dashboard.
2. Under Site Administration, click Global variables.
3. Click Edit.
4. Expand the Global Variables DekiScript block.
5. Copy an entire block of variables from a similar help center (e.g., if building a new CAS, copy an existing CAS's global variables. If building a new product, copy an existing product's global variables).
6. Paste the block in alphabetical order.
7. Update all variables with any product-specific information, including the string path.
8. Click Save.

Working with Code

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Permissions

About 80% of the content in Expert is public-facing. For the other 20%, we permission it out to Liaison staff, different groups within Ops, and for the BRDs, to clients. View the permission and privacy guidelines below.

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