Importing and exporting a knowledge base

You can move a whole knowledge base in and out of Structurell as a single JSON file. Exporting gives you a copy of every category and article, for a backup or to reuse elsewhere. Importing lets you create and update many categories and articles at once, in the same knowledge base or a different one. Both are on the knowledge base's Import and export tab, under Enable → Knowledge → Knowledge Bases.

Before you start

• The knowledge base must already exist and have been saved. See Creating a knowledge base.
• To export, you need permission to view knowledge bases. To import, you need permission to change them. Publishing articles during an import, and removing articles, need their own permissions; if you can't see those options, ask a subscription administrator. See Users, teams, groups and permissions.

Exporting a knowledge base

1. Go to Enable → Knowledge → Knowledge Bases and open the knowledge base.
2. Open the Import and export tab.
3. Select Export.

Your browser downloads a JSON file named after the knowledge base, containing every category and article with their translations. Articles are marked as published or draft in the file, depending on whether they're published now.

Importing from a file

Imports use the same file format as exports. Categories and articles are matched by their URL (slug): new ones are created, and changed ones are saved as new versions. Anything that hasn't changed is left alone.

1. Open the knowledge base and go to the Import and export tab.
2. Under Export file (.json), choose the file. Structurell checks it straight away and shows how many categories and articles it contains.
3. Optionally, tick Publish articles marked Published to publish those articles as part of the import.
4. Optionally, tick Remove articles not in the file to delete every article in this knowledge base that isn't in the file.
5. Select Import and confirm.

When the import finishes, you'll see Knowledge base import finished. and an Import result table. It shows, for categories and articles, how many were Created, Updated, Unchanged, Deleted and Published, and how many had errors. Any article that couldn't be imported is listed under Articles with errors with the reason.

What an import changes

• If an article is already published and the import changes it, the change is saved as a draft. Readers keep seeing the published version until you publish the article again, or you import with Publish articles marked Published ticked.
• Articles that aren't published stay unpublished unless you tick Publish articles marked Published and the file marks them as published.
• Publishing during an import follows the usual rules, so an article with translations that still need review isn't published. See Writing and publishing articles.
• Remove articles not in the file deletes articles permanently and removes them from the public site. You're asked to confirm with Import and delete. It can't be used with a file that has no articles.

Limits and checks

A file can be up to 10 MB, with up to 500 categories and 1,000 articles. Files that break these limits, or that aren't a knowledge base export, are refused before anything is uploaded.

If the file is refused after upload, you'll see The file was not imported. Nothing was changed. with the problems listed, for example a category whose parent isn't in the file or the knowledge base.

Troubleshooting

• "This is not a Structurell knowledge base export file." Choose a file that was exported from a knowledge base, or one built in the same format.
• "This export file uses an unsupported format version." The file was made for a different version of the format. Export a fresh copy and try again.
• "The file is larger than the 10 MB import limit." Split the content into smaller files and import them one after another.
• An article shows under Articles with errors. Read the reason, fix that article in the file, and import again. Articles that were imported successfully are shown as Unchanged the second time.