How to customize your help center layout
Last updated October 13, 2026
Overview
The Help Center settings page controls how your public knowledge base works, who can see it and how it looks. From one page you set your public URL and custom domain, choose which customer segments can view the help center, brand it with your favicon, logo and colors, add navigation and footer links, enable the chat widget and session recording, and collect article feedback.
These settings are global: an Admin configures them once for the workspace, and they apply to every visitor of your help center.
Key Features
- Public URL and custom domain: Share your help center's public URL, or serve it from your own domain with a CNAME record.
- Segment-based visibility: Choose which customer segments can view your entire help center.
- Templates and layouts: Choose a "Standard" or "Light" template and, for Standard, a "Grid", "Condensed" or "Horizontal" category layout.
- Branding: Set a favicon, page title, header title, interface theme, logo, primary color, background color or background image. Atlas derives accents, section headers and highlights from your primary color.
- Navigation and footer links: Add links to the help center's top bar, and social links to the footer with icons, labels or both.
- Reading aids: Show a table of contents built from your article headings, show related articles in the sidebar, and redirect broken links to your home page instead of a 404 page.
- Chat and session recording: Let customers, and optionally visitors, start a chat from any article, and see how customers move through your help center.
- Article feedback: Let customers vote on articles and get notified by email, Slack or both.
How to configure your help center
All sections are on the same page. Changes are applied only when you click "Save" at the bottom of the page.
- Click the main menu in the top left corner, select "App Configuration" and then "Help Center" .
- Configure the "General" section:
- Public URL: Your help center's address. Click the copy icon to share it with customers.
- Custom domain (optional): Enter your own domain, for example help.acme.com.
- Viewable by: Open the dropdown and check the customer segments that can view your entire help center, for example "Customers". Click outside the list to close it. "Everyone" is selected by default.
- Redirect to home instead of 404 page: Turn on the toggle so customers who follow an old or broken link land on your home page.
- Default language: Select the language Atlas shows visitors first, for example "English".
- Configure the "Layout" section:
- Template: Select "Standard" (knowledge base with category cards) or "Light" (guide with a side navigation). Click "Preview" to see each one.
- Category layout: With the "Standard" template, choose how categories appear on the home page: "Grid", "Condensed" or "Horizontal".
- Table of contents: Turn it on to show a table of contents on the right side of your articles.
- Configure the "Style" section:
- Favicon: Click the image and upload a file from your device or select "Link (URL)" to use an image that is already online. Recommended size is 32x32px.
- Page title: The "Name on browser tab".
- Header title: Used in the header of all help center pages. Keep it short and recognizable.
- Interface theme: Select "Light", "Dark" or "System preference".
- Logo for light mode: Click the image and upload a high-contrast logo suitable for light mode.
- Primary color: Used for highlighted content, section headers and accents. Other colors are derived from it.
- Background color: Background for help center articles. Softer tones keep readers focused on the content.
- Background image (optional): Add an image behind your articles instead of a solid color.
- Configure the "Links" section (optional):
- Click "Add link".
- Enter the "URL" customers will land on and the "Label" shown in the navigation bar.
- Check "Show arrow icon next to the link" to show a small arrow hinting that the link leads somewhere new.
- Click "Create link".
- Turn on "Show related articles in the sidebar of the page" so readers see other articles that might help.
- Configure the "Footer" section (optional):
- Open "Links appearance" and choose how footer links are displayed: "Hidden", "Only icons", "Only labels" or "Icons and labels".
- Under "Links", click "Add link" to add a social link.
- Enter the "Site address" of your social profile and a "Label".
- Atlas shows a matching icon for the link (for example, the Instagram icon). Click the icon if you want to upload a custom icon instead.
- Click "Create link".
- Configure the "Apps" section (optional):
- Enable chat widget in Help Center: Customers can start a conversation without leaving the article they are reading.
- Chat for visitors: Lets visitors chat too, including people who have not signed in as customers.
- Enable session recording in Help Center: Shows you how customers move through your help center, so you can spot where they get stuck.
- Configure the "Customer feedback" section (optional):
- Enable customer feedback: Customers vote on whether an article is helpful by clicking thumbs up or thumbs down at the bottom of each article. Select "Always visible", "Hide results" or "Never show".
- Feedback notification: Select "Email notification", "Slack notification" or both.
- Select email addresses: For email notifications, check each teammate who should receive an alert.
- Select slack channel: For Slack notifications, select the channel where alerts are posted, for example a support channel.
- Click "Save".
Atlas displays the "Updated settings." message.
How to edit or delete a navigation or footer link
- Go to "App Configuration > Help Center" .
- Locate the link, click the actions menu (ellipsis icon) at the end of its row and select the edit or delete option.
- Click "Save".
FAQs & Troubleshooting
My changes are not showing in the help center. Why?
Make sure you clicked "Save" at the bottom of the page and saw the "Updated settings." message. Then reload your help center using its public URL.
Why can't a customer see my help center?
Check "Viewable by". When you select specific segments, only customers in those segments can see the help center. Verify that the customer belongs to one of the selected segments.
Why doesn't my custom domain work?
Verify that you set up a CNAME record for your domain pointing to custom.atlas-kb.com, and that you saved the domain in "Custom domain".
Why is my table of contents empty?
Only headings that use Header 2 or Header 3 in your articles appear in the table of contents.
How do I create or organize help center articles?
See How to create and manage articles and How to manage categories.
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