Finally! Put Get Satisfaction on your own site.
Along with our announcement about Overheard this morning, we're also releasing something potentially even bigger -- Help Center. Help Center is a set of PHP templates we've been working on the last six months that you can use to recreate an entire Help section for your site that runs on top of our API. Just download and install (like using Wordpress,) and your customers can ask questions, report problems, share ideas, and start discussions all in within the context of your own site. Since it's run on top of our API, the same content and the same conversations will work just fine whether people are talking on your site or talking on ours.
Here are a few companies already using Help Center: Skitch, Joby, makers of the Gorillapod, and MyBlogLog, a Yahoo! company. You can also see a default install of it running against our very own Get Satisfaction support area.
We've also thrown up a couple of example sites of our own, just to show you how extensible it is, using a few of our more active Get Satisfaction companies: Twitter, Timbuk2, and PBWiki.
We've worked hard to make using this as simple as possible (for example, we got all three of the above sites up and running in less than a day, even with the design changes.) But if you have any issues getting started or ideas for what to make better, this is the place for them, so let us know.
Here are a few companies already using Help Center: Skitch, Joby, makers of the Gorillapod, and MyBlogLog, a Yahoo! company. You can also see a default install of it running against our very own Get Satisfaction support area.
We've also thrown up a couple of example sites of our own, just to show you how extensible it is, using a few of our more active Get Satisfaction companies: Twitter, Timbuk2, and PBWiki.
We've worked hard to make using this as simple as possible (for example, we got all three of the above sites up and running in less than a day, even with the design changes.) But if you have any issues getting started or ideas for what to make better, this is the place for them, so let us know.
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Inappropriate?Also, MyBlogLog is a great example of a company that took the code and extended/modified it to make it work seamlessly on their own site. Because it's written in PHP, it can be hacked to do just about anything you need it to.
In fact, Help Center is actually an open source application hosted on Google Code under the MIT license, so if one of your modifications really rocks, share it back with us and we'll add it back into the mix. -
Inappropriate?I was at the Help Center version of this topic and had clicked on the "Login to reply link"
I was taken to a page that had this text:
We need your approval!
Hello mdy,
Sprinkles Test Installation would like you to grant them the ability to use your Get Satisfaction account on their website. Giving this authorization will allow you to post Get Satisfaction topics and replies on Sprinkles Test Installation's site, as well as change your Get Satisfaction profile settings via them.
Agreeing to this means allowing Sprinkles Test Installation to access your private Get Satisfaction data for the purposes of posting to their site, so only allow access to sites you know and trust!
I remember seeing the Sprinkles Test company earlier but I'm not sure why that's the company asking for my authorization. Shouldn't it be GSFN?
Edited to add:
I'm taken to the same authorization page when I click on the "login to view your dashboard" link in the upper right corner of the GSFN Help Center.
I’m sure it will all get sorted out
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Inappropriate?hi, mdy. yeah, all the example sites (help, twitter, timbuk2, pbwiki) were all set up using a temporary internal account -- "Sprinkles Test Installation." (Sprinkles was our code name for the project.) You make a good point, we should rename it to "Get Satisfaction" or similar.
You'll see when you log in on a site like Joby's at http://joby.com/support/ , it's Joby that requests your permission, not the test installation account. -
Ah, that makes sense! For some reason, I didn't expect that GSFN's own Help Center would be a sample site. Thanks for clearing that up for me. 8-) -
Inappropriate?Hi, if we start off using Get Satisfaction on your hosted getsatisfaction.com site but later on want to host the Help Center ourselves, is it possible to import all the questions / discussions about our company from your site to our own hosted version?
I’m indifferent
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Inappropriate?Beth, you won't have to import because the content will be mirrored on our site. So, it will appear in both places. Hope this helps.
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I think so - just to confirm - if there is already content on getsatisfaction.com and then we later create our own Help Center installation on our own server, the content will be the same and our Help Center won't be empty? I just don't quite get how a new installation of ours will have the same content if it is using a fresh database on our servers and we haven't imported anything from your servers...? -
You are correct. I think Ted described it well. -
Inappropriate?Help Center actually uses our API, so all the data is written to our servers.
So If I post a topic on your help center it shows up on both your site and getsatisfaction.com.
Help Center was created for companies to keep their customer service experience on their own site, while still contributing to the Get Satisfaction community.
Hope that helps.
I’m happy
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Ah OK that makes sense. Now I understand that Help Center is just for templating for branding purposes but uses the same getsatisfaction.com database for the content itself. -
Inappropriate?I guess Beth says: One day she might decide to end her connection with Get Satisfaction. Is it then possible to export all comments from Get Satisfaction and to import them in another standard local commenting system?
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I don't think that's what she's saying, actually. I believe she wants to use Help Center at some point and wants to know if there will be an import process to go through, which there won't. I could be wrong, but that is my understanding of her question. -
JackH: There is also a bit more info on our TOS and the API and how all that works here, if you're interested: http://getsatisfaction.com/satisfacti... -
Inappropriate?I'm usually OK at installing stuff (I use Bluehhost and then link to my main site) but this is just waay over my head - anyone around who would do it for a fee?
I’m confused
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I'm not sure there's anyone providing support services for helpcenter at the moment. -
is this in reply to my question about, about ruby? -
Just a joke. given the API was used to build the first helpcenter, any intrepid soul should be able to hack it up in ruby.
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