---
title: "Help centre import"
description: "Import the published articles of your Zendesk or Intercom help centre by section, with the connection you already have. Restricted articles stay for Team agents."
source: https://hiy.ai/docs/help-centre
---

# Help centre import

If you already keep your answers in a Zendesk or Intercom help centre, you do not have to paste them again. hiy reads the **published** articles with the connection you already made for [handover tickets](/docs/handover#ticket-on-handover), shows what it found by section, and adds only what you tick.

## Import one

**Note:** Connect [Zendesk or Intercom](/docs/connectors) first. Right after you connect, a card asks **Also import your help centre into Knowledge?**

1. Open **Knowledge → Add a source → Help centre** (or press **Import articles** on that card) and press **Choose a help centre**.
2. Press **Use your Zendesk connection** (or Intercom). If it says **Connect Zendesk first** or **Reconnect Zendesk first**, that is the one thing to do before it can read.
3. hiy reads the help centre: “Reading your help centre… 212 articles so far”. A large one can take a few minutes, and it keeps reading if you close the sheet.
4. It says what it found, for example “212 articles · 9 sections · 14 internal”. Public sections are ticked; tick or untick sections and choose which agents use them.
5. Press **Import**. The articles reach your agents at the next [train](/docs/training), like any other source. **Ask it something from your help centre** opens the test chat, and **Train** starts one.

Reading uses no AI. The articles are learned at the next train, which is where a source is counted.

## What is read, and what is not

| | How it is handled |
| --- | --- |
| **Published articles** | Read. Drafts and unpublished articles are never imported. |
| **Restricted articles (Zendesk)** | An article that needs a sign-in or is limited to a user segment is imported as **internal**: **Team agents only, never shown to visitors**. On a Support Agent or a public agent those sections are greyed out and the article cannot be added, because visitors can reach those agents. |
| **Restricted articles (Intercom)** | Intercom does not report who an article is for, so every published Intercom article that has a public address is treated as public. One with no public address is imported as **internal**. If part of your Intercom help centre is limited to an audience, import it into a Team agent only. |
| **Intercom internal articles** | Not read. They live in a separate part of Intercom. |
| **Languages** | The default language only. |
| **More than one help centre** | One help centre for each Zendesk or Intercom connection. |
| **Links** | A public article is cited with its own address. An internal one is cited by its title only. |

## Kept in step

- **Checked daily**, an hour before the nightly train, and whenever you press **Re-check now** (Integrations → Zendesk or Intercom → Knowledge).
- **New articles are offered, never added.** A new article shows up as new in its section; nothing joins an agent until you tick it, even in a section you already imported.
- An article you change is updated at the next check and reaches your agents at the next train. Until then they keep answering from the older text.
- An article that is deleted upstream leaves your agents at the next check. If a check would remove more than half of what you imported, hiy holds it for you to confirm, so a glitch at the provider cannot empty an agent.

## One connection, two uses

The help centre borrows the access you gave for tickets, so there is no second token to paste.

- On **Integrations**, a connection that does both says **Tickets · Knowledge**. Its chip is the worse of the two: if either use needs a Reconnect, the card says **Reconnect**, and one Reconnect fixes both.
- **Remove from Knowledge** removes the articles from your agents and keeps tickets working. **Disconnect** is refused until the help centre is removed, and says so: “Remove the help centre from Knowledge first.”

## What it needs

- **Guide access.** The Zendesk user whose token you gave must be able to read your Help Center. A dedicated agent user for hiy is the safest choice. If it cannot, the card says it can't read the help centre.
- **A plan with connected agents.** Attaching an agent to the import counts toward the connected agents your plan includes, as for any connection. An agent can pull up to 2,000 articles at once, so tick fewer sections for a larger help centre.