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Alterra Zendesk Help Center Search

Alterra Search is a cognitive search engine for Zendesk Help Center (Guide). It replaces native search with a modern AI-powered engine that interprets user queries based on meaning – not just keywords.

Alterra pulls information directly from your existing Zendesk knowledge base and displays search results in your Help Center (*).

Set up Alterra to crawl your Zendesk Help Center

To configure Alterra search engine to pull information from your Zendesk Guide:

  1. Create an Alterra account
  2. Open FAQ Editor
  3. Go to Settings > Integrations > Zendesk Help Center Search.
  4. Enter your Zendesk Guide subdomain (e.g. myguide.zendesk.com) and click Link.

Your Zendesk Help Center articles will be imported into your Alterra account and will appear in the FAQ Editor.

Please note that this will be a one-way pull, from Zendesk to Alterra. If you want to make changes to your Guide / Help Center / Knowledge Base please make the edits in Zendesk.

Synchronize your Zendesk Help Center with Alterra

There is an option to automatically synchronize Alterra and Zendesk on a daily basis. To use it, set the Daily Sync toggle to on.

You can also manually force the synchronization by clicking the Force Sync button.

If you no longer want to keep your Alterra account in sync with Zendesk Help Center set the Daily Sync toggle to off.

Articles imported from Zendesk Help Center will be left intact in Alterra account but will no longer synchronize with your Zendesk Help Center changes.

Embed Alterra Search in your Help Center

To replace the default search feature with Alterra search you have to update your Help Center theme as follows:

Open the Document Head template in the Theme Editor:

  1. Head to your Zendesk Help Center
  2. Click Guide admin in the top bar
  3. In the left sidebar click on Customize design button
  4. Select your theme by clicking on it
  5. Click Edit code
  6. In the list on the left side choose your Document Head file (e.g. document_head.hbs)

Copy the JavaScript code and Publish changes:

  1. Paste the code from the Zendesk Help Center Search settings tab to the end of the template.
  2. Click Save and make sure that everything works fine using the preview on the right.
  3. Click Publish Changes

This will replace the default search results with Alterra’s while preserving the look and feel of your Help Center.

(*) Due to restrictions imposed by Zendesk, this integration is available only with “Guide Professional” or “Enterprise” plan.