Knowledge Base — Customer Portal — User Guide

Module: HSE (Health, Safety & Environment)
Audience: Customer contacts (client portal users)
Version: 1.0.0
Last updated: 2026-07-22

Overview

The HSE Knowledge Base (customer portal) is where logged-in contacts browse safety articles published by your organisation — policies, procedures, and guidance grouped by category (Health, Safety, Environment, and any custom groups).

This is separate from the main CRM Knowledge Base menu item (if shown in your portal). HSE articles live at a dedicated address beginning with /hse/kb.

Important: You must be logged in as a contact to use the HSE Knowledge Base. If you are not logged in, you will be redirected to the login page and returned to the article you requested after signing in.

Prerequisites

Staff members who open HSE KB links while logged into the admin area may see a preview warning — that view is for staff checking content, not the normal customer experience.

How to open the HSE Knowledge Base

There is typically no sidebar link to the HSE Knowledge Base in the customer portal. Use one of these:

1. Direct link shared by your organisation (for example https://your-domain/hse/kb)
2. Link from an email or document pointing to a specific article (/hse/kb/article/...)
3. Preview link from an HSE administrator (from the article editor in the admin area)

If you use the generic Knowledge Base item in the portal menu, that opens the core CRM knowledge base, not HSE safety articles.

Browsing by category

1. Log in to the customer portal as a contact.
2. Go to /hse/kb (or follow a link provided by your organisation).

Expected:

• A search bar labelled for HSE article search
• A list of categories (groups), each showing the number of articles
• Short description text under each category name

3. Click a category name to see all articles in that group.

Expected:

• Article titles as links
• Published date beside each title
• Short excerpt (first part of the article text)

Searching articles

1. On the HSE Knowledge Base home or category page, type your question or keywords in the search field.
2. Click Search (or submit the form).

Expected:

• Page title indicates you are viewing search results
• Matching articles grouped under their category headings
• If nothing matches: a message that no articles were found

Search looks at article titles and body text.

Reading an article

1. Click an article title from a category list or search results (or open a direct article link).

Expected:

• Full article title and rich-text content
• Search bar at the top (same as other KB pages)
• Related articles in a side column when other articles exist in the same category
• Question: Did you find this answer useful? with Yes and No buttons

2. Optionally click Yes or No to send feedback.

Expected: A thank-you or rate-limit message appears below the buttons. You can only submit one vote per article per day from the same connection.

Note: If feedback does not appear to save, contact your administrator — a known integration issue may route feedback to the wrong endpoint until fixed.

What you will not see

Staff preview (for administrators testing content)

If a staff member opens /hse/kb while logged into the admin backend (without a contact session), the page may still load but shows a warning that the knowledge base is for logged-in contacts and they are viewing as staff for preview only.

In preview mode, internal articles may appear in lists — this is not what customers see. Always verify with a contact login before go-live.

Common issues

Related features

• KB Articles (admin) — how staff create and publish content: kb-articles.md
• KB Groups (admin) — how categories are managed (separate guide when available)
• Incident management — report workplace incidents: incident-management.md

Test execution sign-off (QA)

Record Pass/Fail per section when executing QA.