The definitions are very similar.
One notable difference is a help center is customizable while a portal is not. I can't figure out why they both exist. What am I missing?
What is a help center?
A help center is one of the request channels in Jira Service Management--a centralised hub where your customers can go to get information and raise requests.
What is a portal?
In Jira Service Management, a portal is the customer-facing website of every service project. It helps teams set up relevant help resources for their customers and collect and manage customer requests.
Hi @Marcie Talbot
There is ootb only one help center and each JSM project has a portal, if you have multiple JSM project, they will all appear on the Help Center as tiles.
There is one default help center but you can create many customizable help centers.
I guess my question is why not make the portal customizable? I still don't see the logic. It's probably something that's just not registering with my brain.
A help center can contain multiple portals, extra help centers is only a premium/enterprise function, free and standard plans don't haave this functon.
My product plan is premium. I selected that when I posted this question.
Essentially a help center is like a splash page or directory for the portals and then each individual portal = a different JSM project.
An example where the Help Center's existence makes sense is with enterprise service management, where HR, IT, Finance all have their own portal/project and the Help Center provides the 1st level in the directory for users to navigate. This is just a simple example like you said you can have a number of help centers where you can have a Developers Help Center, or Sales Team Help Center, where only relevant projects/portals are listed for the audience.
Hopefully that helps!
Hmmm...I think I need to rephrase and try to clarify this.
There is a DEFAULT help center where the non-customizable portals live. (atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portals)
In addition to that, I can create many different customizable help centers (which is GREAT)...BUT I cannot add these help centers to my DEFAULT help center (which is NOT great), I can only add the non-customizable portals.
Unless I'm missing something, it seems to me this help center feature is half-baked.
Hi @Marcie Talbot , the default help center can be customized
If you're looking to hide portals from your default help center you can do it here
If you're looking to create a directory of your help centers then maybe you can create that in Confluence and direct your customers there
Yeah, thanks I know all of that.
I just want to add my help centers to my default help center. It's that simple but there is no easy way to do that.
I mean I could easily create links TO my help centers, but that's not what I want. I want a widget that adds help centers just like you add (and hide) portals.
Thank you anyway. I appreciate your time and you helped me clarify what I'm looking for so that's helpful!
I found the answer using AI:
Jira Service Management Cloud currently does not support adding "customized help centers" into your default help center as if they were additional portals. Each help center is a separate entity, and you can only display or hide the portals (service projects) linked to that specific help center.
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