Using Articles to display FAQs

Overview

Commerce Vision's Article system is great for displaying FAQs on the page with a user-controlled toggle. In this configuration, all questions are displayed on the page, with the answer hidden until the user deliberately clicks to expand it. This allows for a clean, streamlined display of your Help content, without intimidating the user with a wall of text.

1. Create an Article Type

Articles are grouped into types, and each type can be displayed by a widget. Before you begin creating questions and answers, you'll need an FAQ article type to keep your FAQ content under.   

1. In the CMS, navigate to Content → Articles. 
   
   
2. Click 'Add New Article Type'.
   
   
3. Assign your new group a Code, a Name, and an optional Icon (for display in the CMS).
   
   
   
   
4. Click 'Save'.

2. Add a Question

Once you've got a dedicated Article Type for your FAQs, you can begin adding questions.  

1. In the CMS, navigate to Content → Articles. 
   
   
2. Select your FAQ Article Type. 
   
   
3. Click 'Add New Article'. 
   
   
4. In the Description field, enter the Question exactly as you'd like it to display on the page.  
   
   
5. The SEO URL, Browser Page Title, and SEO Description will be auto-populated based on the value you enter here. You can leave the defaults, or override them if you wish. 
   
   
6. The Posted Date will auto-populate with today's date. If you wish, you can also enter Start & Expiry dates for questions you'd like to display on a schedule.   
   
   
7. Leave the images for the article blank.  
   
   
8. Enter the Answer in the Summary section.  
   
   
9. The Content section should be left blank. 
   
   
   
10. If this particular question is only applicable to a certain sub-set of your website users, you can enter Filter values based on the Customer, User, or Role. This FAQ will only display to those users who meet the criteria you set out in these article filters.  
    
    
11. Click  'Save & Exit', and continue adding the remainder of your FAQs by repeating the above steps. 

3. Display your FAQs with a widget

Now that you've got your FAQs loaded as Articles, you can display them on a page with a widget. 

1. If you've already got a dedicated FAQ page, navigate to it in the CMS now.
   Otherwise, create a new widget-based custom page and add it to a menu so it can be accessed.
   
   
2. Add an Article List widget to the page template. 
   
   
3. In the edit widget pop-up, set the Article Type Filter to the FAQ type you created earlier.
   
   
4. Untick the following options (which become redundant when the toggle is used): 
   
   • Show Read Article Button 
   • Enable Article Hyperlink
     
     
5. Tick to Enable Article Toggle.
   
   
   
6. Configure the other widget options as you see fit. You may need to experiment to get the look you're after. 
   For example, I like to leave the List Title and Icon fields blank on the article list widget, instead using a Page Title Widget which gives me the option of including a subtitle.
   
   
7. Save your changes.

Additional Information

You may require some style sheet updates in order to keep consistent with your website's style guide. If this is the case, please contact us for assistance.