## Overview

The **portal** is the public site of your Help Center: the home page, the categories, the articles
and the search your customers reach without logging in. Everything that defines how that site looks
and behaves lives in **Help Center → (portal) → Settings**, at the `.../portals/<slug>/settings`
route of the dashboard.

The screen has four vertical tabs:

| Tab | What it controls |
|---|---|
| **General** | Name, identifier (slug), page title, header text, color, logo, home page link and portal deletion |
| **Domain** | Custom domain, CNAME record, certificate status and e-mailing the instructions |
| **Appearance** | Layout (Classic or Documentation) and social network links |
| **Integrations** | Live chat widget and the analytics providers |

There is one more setting that does **not** live on that screen: the **recommended content**,
chosen **per locale** on the portal's **Locales** page.

## Prerequisites

- The **Help Center** feature (`help_center`) must be enabled on the account — it ships enabled by
  default. With the feature off, the public portal pages stop serving content and show an
  inactive-help-center notice instead.
- A portal already created on the account.
- To edit the **analytics** section you must be an **account administrator**. The restriction is
  enforced on both ends: the cards only render for administrators, and the API drops analytics
  fields sent by anyone who is not an administrator — even when their role may edit the other
  portal settings. The reason is stated in the code itself: analytics injects tracking scripts into
  **every** public page.
- For a custom domain, access to the domain's DNS panel.

## Step by step

1. Open **Help Center** in the sidebar and select the portal you want to configure.
2. Click **Settings**. The **General** tab opens first.
3. In **General**, adjust name, identifier, page title, header text, color and logo. The save
   button only enables once something changes.
4. In **Domain**, click **Add** (or **Edit**) and enter the custom domain. On save the platform
   opens the DNS dialog with the record ready to copy, in the form
   `your-domain CNAME <installation host>`. You can e-mail those instructions to whoever manages
   the DNS.
5. In **Appearance**, pick the layout and, on the **Documentation** layout, add the social links.
6. In **Integrations**, pick the live chat widget and fill in the analytics identifiers you want to
   use. Click **Save Changes**.
7. For recommended content, go back to the Help Center, open **Locales**, click the menu of the
   locale you want and choose **Select recommended content**.

## Settings & options

### Recommended content per locale

The **Recommended content** dialog lets you pin, **for each locale**, which categories and which
articles are featured on the home page:

- Up to **3 categories** and up to **6 articles**. The counter shows how many slots are left.
- **Order matters**: drag the items into the sequence visitors should see. The home page honors
  exactly that order.
- Article search runs on the server and only considers **published** articles of that locale.
- Saving with both lists empty **removes** the selection for that locale, and the portal falls back
  to the automatic defaults.

How the home page decides what to show:

| Block | With a recommendation | Without one — Classic layout | Without one — Documentation layout |
|---|---|---|---|
| Topic pills at the top | Your recommended categories, in your order | No pills at all: Classic builds no automatic list | The first 3 visible categories that already have a published article, by position |
| Featured articles block | Your recommended articles, in your order | The 6 most viewed articles inside visible categories, and the block only appears when there are at least 6 | The 6 most viewed articles of the locale, even if there are fewer than 6 |

Two rules avoid surprises: a **recommended category does not need published articles** to show up,
unlike the automatic list, which only considers categories with at least one published article.
**Visibility, though, is not negotiable** — categories and articles restricted to operators never
surface on the public portal, and items deleted after the pick simply drop out of the list.

### Layout

Two options, stored on the portal:

- **Classic** — a welcoming home page with search and featured topics.
- **Documentation** (marked *beta*) — side-by-side navigation that keeps every guide one click
  away.

Any value other than these two is treated as **Classic**. There is also an internal "plain"
variant (`?show_plain_layout=true`), used by the article preview inside the dashboard — it is not a
configuration option.

### Social links

The social links section appears **only when the layout is Documentation**, because it is that
layout's footer that renders the icons. There are eight networks, and you type only the handle —
the platform builds the full address:

| Network | Prefix applied |
|---|---|
| Facebook | `facebook.com/` |
| X | `x.com/` |
| Instagram | `instagram.com/` |
| LinkedIn | `linkedin.com/` |
| YouTube | `youtube.com/` |
| TikTok | `tiktok.com/` |
| GitHub | `github.com/` |
| WhatsApp | `wa.me/` |

Removing a link clears the stored handle. The footer disappears entirely when no network is filled
in and the platform signature is turned off — either by the account's whitelabel or by the
signature removal configured for the whole installation.

### Custom domain

- The domain is **unique across the whole installation**: two portals cannot point to the same
  address.
- The field only accepts a bare domain such as `help.yourcompany.com`. Pasting a full address,
  with `https://` or with a path, is refused in the dialog itself with a format error.
- The DNS dialog shows the CNAME record ready to go, with a copy button.
- E-mailing the instructions requires a valid address **and** a domain already configured on the
  portal — without that, the action is refused with a message explaining why.
- The **certificate status** (Live / Pending / Error) and the refresh-status button only appear on
  cloud-hosted accounts. On self-hosted installations the certificate is your infrastructure's
  responsibility.

### Live chat

The **Live chat with ConversaLabs** card connects a **website widget inbox** to the portal, so the
visitor can talk to the team while reading the articles. The list only shows website widget
inboxes; picking **No widget** disconnects the portal from any widget.

### Analytics providers

Seven providers, each with its identifier and a format validated before saving:

| Provider | Field | Accepted format | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Tag Manager | `gtm_container_id` | `GTM-` followed by uppercase letters and digits | `GTM-XXXXXXX` |
| Google Analytics 4 | `ga4_measurement_id` | `G-` followed by uppercase letters and digits | `G-XXXXXXXXXX` |
| Hotjar | `hotjar_site_id` | digits only | `1234567` |
| Plausible | `plausible_domain` | a domain (letters, digits, dot and hyphen) | `example.com` |
| Amplitude | `amplitude_api_key` | letters and digits | `0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef` |
| Microsoft Clarity | `clarity_project_id` | letters and digits | `abcd1234ef` |
| Meta Pixel | `meta_pixel_id` | digits only | `123456789012345` |

How this is injected into the portal:

- The script block goes into the `<head>` of **every** public portal page — except the internal
  article preview (plain layout), precisely so the preview does not count as a visit.
- **Google Tag Manager** and **Meta Pixel** also get their `noscript` version (iframe and image
  pixel) right at the start of the `<body>`, for browsers with JavaScript disabled.
- The Meta Pixel fires `PageView` on every internal portal navigation, not only on the first load.
- **Leaving a field blank disables that provider**: empty values are dropped on submit.

## Use cases

- **Product launch**: pin the new product's category to the top pills and the 6 getting-started
  articles as recommended, in the target audience's locale.
- **Multilingual Help Center**: choose different recommendations per locale — the Spanish audience
  sees the Spanish guides featured, with no effect on Portuguese.
- **Technical knowledge base**: use the **Documentation** layout, with side navigation and social
  links in the footer.
- **Your own brand**: publish the Help Center at `help.yourcompany.com` with a custom domain and
  logo.
- **Content measurement**: connect GA4 to measure traffic and Microsoft Clarity to see heatmaps of
  which articles stall the visitor.
- **Advertising**: use the Meta Pixel to measure conversions and build audiences from people who
  read the Help Center.

## Tips, limits & best practices

- The **3 categories** and **6 articles** limits are hard. If you try to store more than that
  through the API, only the first items of the list are considered.
- Prefer **one** Google Tag Manager container over several loose scripts: you can swap tags without
  going back to the dashboard.
- Do not run GTM and GA4 for the **same** property at once — that double-counts visits.
- Treat analytics identifiers as high-impact configuration: they add third-party scripts to public
  pages, which affects performance and privacy. Review your cookie policy before turning on
  heatmaps and session recordings.
- Revisit your recommendations after archiving or deleting articles: the item disappears from the
  portal, but the list keeps a slot occupied until you edit it.
- Two people can save different tabs at the same time without wiping each other's work — the
  platform locks the record while saving and merges onto the latest version.
- The portal's default locale **cannot** be marked as a draft.

## Troubleshooting

**"Invalid analytics configuration"** — the request carried an analytics field that does not exist
or a value that is not text. Use only the seven fields in the table above.

**A message says an analytics field is invalid** — the value does not match the expected format.
Check the prefix (`GTM-`, `G-`) and the character type: Hotjar and Meta Pixel accept **digits
only**. The dashboard also flags the field in red and blocks the save button before submitting.

**The Save button is disabled** — either nothing has changed since the last save, or some field has
an invalid format, or a save is still in flight.

**I cannot see the analytics cards** — they are exclusive to account administrators.

**Events do not show up when I open the article preview from the dashboard** — that is the expected
behavior: the internal preview does not load analytics scripts, so your metrics are not polluted by
your own team's traffic.

**A recommended article does not appear on the home page** — check that it is published, that it is
public (not operator-only), that it belongs to the **same locale** as the recommendation, and that
it was not deleted after the pick.

**The featured articles block does not appear on the Classic layout** — without recommended
content, that block needs at least 6 published articles inside visible categories of the locale;
below that it stays hidden. Picking recommended articles shows the block at any count.

**I set up the social links and the footer still has no icons** — social links are only rendered on
the **Documentation** layout.

**The certificate status does not appear** — it is only shown on cloud accounts; on a self-hosted
installation, check the certificate in your own infrastructure.

**The DNS instructions are not sent** — confirm the portal already has a custom domain saved and
that the e-mail address you entered is valid.

## See also

- [Integrations](/hc/ajuda/articles/administration-integracoes-en)
- [Custom Scripts: injecting JS/CSS into the dashboard, portal and widget](/hc/ajuda/articles/administration-custom-scripts-en)
- [Whitelabel](/hc/ajuda/articles/administration-whitelabel-en)
- [Website channel (widget)](/hc/ajuda/articles/inboxes-channels-canal-site-widget-en)