Question 1

Do I have to pay extra to brand or customise the look and feel of Malcolm?

Accepted Answer

No - all plans include extensive branding options. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to integrate Malcolm! and reflect the existing look and feel of your business.

Some of the branding options include:

Upload your logo
Change fonts
Change colours
Change favicon
Configure header and background images
Choose from a range of icons or upload your own
Show / hide / configure page elements
Configure excerpts
Configure suggested search
Change button labels
Configure number of search results returned per page
Configure filters
Featured Box and Promo management
Footer management
Configure 404 page
Choose different Workflow layouts
Configure SEO options
....and lots more!

If you need a hand creating logos, headers or other graphical assets we do offer a service that can help - see here for more information.

Question 2

How do I set up my Hosted Hub?

Accepted Answer

Every instance of Malcolm! comes complete with a Hosted Hub that you can configure and customise.

You can find out more about the Hosted Hub here and if you want to turn if off you can find out how to do that here.

In MyMalcolm if you click "View Live" towards the top the screen you'll see what your Hosted Hub currently looks like.

The two things you are probably most likely to want to change are the URL the Hub is on and the Hub's look, feel and content. Here is how to configure each of those areas.

1. Configure the URL

In MyMalcolm, go to the Settings section, then select "Custom Domains" from the vertical left hand menu. In this area you can change the URL your Hosted Hub will use. It's possible (and no extra charge) to use your own external domain or sub-domain.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/VKQ7z1JBXW/screenshot-my.malcolm.app-2019.08.12-17_01_54.png (Customise your domains in MyMalcolm)

2. Change your Hub's look, feel and content

You can extensively customise your Hosted Hub to suit your own requirements. To do this, go to the Brand section of MyMalcolm, clone an existing theme, then choose the edit icon on your cloned theme.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/cO3r3O1RbL/screenshot-my.malcolm.app-2019.08.12-17_03_00.png (Theme management in MyMalcolm)

In the edit theme area use the left hand vertical navigation to see all the custom options you have.

Question 3

Can I remove the Malcolm! branding?

Accepted Answer

It is quick and easy to remove the Malcolm! branding and - if you want - replace it with your own. Here is how:

Hosted Hub

By default your Hosted Hub is Malcolm! branded. To change that:

In MyMalcolm go to the Brand section.
Click "Themes" on the black sub navigation.
The default Malcolm! theme will be selected. Click the "duplicate" icon (two squares overlapping). This will create a copy of the default theme called "Default copy".
Select the Default copy theme by clicking on it. Then click the "edit" icon (a pencil).
This brings up the edit theme interface. There are a huge amount of things you can change here. Use the left hand vertical navigation to browse all the possibilities.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/6ACEG5RrGl/screenshot-my.malcolm.app-2019.08.05-10_46_38.png (MyMalcolm Theme Editing Options)

Footer

Be default a "powered by Malcolm!" badge appears at the bottom of content. You can turn this off (and also add other footer content such as copyright notices etc) in the "Footer" section of the edit theme interface referenced above.

Embeds

You can turn off the "powered by Malcolm!" badge in your embeds by turning off the footer. You do this via the style section of your embed configuration.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/m6Pb8R7IbC/screenshot-my.malcolm.app-2020.05.26-11_42_48.png (Style controls in an Embed in MyMalcolm)

Emails

Malcolm! can send emails to your customers/users in the following situations:

Email this answer functionality on an FAQ
Sending the resume later Workflow link
Payment confirmation email

To change the branding of these emails see this article.

To change the sender name and email address see this article.

Domain

Finally don't forget you can easily configure Malcolm! to use your own domain or sub-domain. For further details see this article.

Question 4

Could I use Malcolm! as a publishing platform?

Accepted Answer

Malcolm! has primarily been designed around service interactions with users (eg answering their questions and taking them through a process) but we do have users who use Malcolm! in a more "marketing" or "content" based way eg to host content and/or take their users through forms to download content or register for something.

If you want to use Malcolm! in this way it's worth remembering that you have full branding control (more info here) and can even rename things like FAQ's and Workflows (more info here). You can also change your base URL. See more information in this article.

By default we do mark up FAQs content using https://schema.org/FAQPage so if your content doesn't follow a question and answer format and you allow that content to be indexed by search engines you may wish to change the schema to https://schema.org/WebPage. You can see how to do this here.

The Examples section on our website may give you some further ideas on how you could use Malcolm!

If you want to go even further you might want to consider contacting us and having a chat. We do offer enterprise packages and bespoke development on top of the Malcolm! Platform.

Question 5

Can I change the branding in the emails Malcolm! sends my customers?

Accepted Answer

Malcolm! can send emails to your customers/users in the following situations:

Workflow email answers where you have configured the email answer to be sent to the email address specified in the Workflow
Email this answer functionality on an FAQ
Sending the resume later Workflow link
Payment confirmation email

You can now change the look and feel of those emails via the Brand area. Look for email themes.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/0D5dCKZING/screenshot-my.malcolm.app-2022.01.02-19_19_53.png (Editing Email themes in MyMalcolm 1)

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/yf8EflQ8bg/screenshot-my.malcolm.app-2022.01.02-19_20_16.png (Editing Email themes in MyMalcolm 2)

By default the emails will come from "Malcolm!" with the email address noreply@malcolm.app but you can change this - see this FAQ for further details.

Please note you cannot change the look and feel nor the sender of the system alert emails that Malcolm! sends to the instance owner and your instance team members.

See a video walkthrough below:

Question 6

Can I change the sender and email address in the emails Malcolm! sends my customers?

Accepted Answer

Malcolm! can send emails to your customers/users in the following situations:

Workflow email answers where you have configured the email answer to be sent to the email address specified in the Workflow
Email this answer functionality on an FAQ
Sending the resume later Workflow link
Payment confirmation email

By default these emails come from the sender "Malcolm!" with the email address noreply@malcolm.app

To do this, goto Settings --> Instance --> Emails and toggle Custom email sending to be active. You can then supply your Mailgun or SendGrid credentials and specify your desired sender name and email address.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/3dFvKHsdpC/screenshot-my.malcolm.app-2022.01.02-18_57_32.png (Adding MailGun or SendGrid credentials in MyMalcolm)

You can also change the look and feel of these emails - please see this FAQ for further details.

Question 7

How can I style my embeds?

Accepted Answer

You can now style your embeds via Embed Themes which are managed via the Brand section of MyMalcolm. Inside each Embed Theme you can customise elements like colours, icons and fonts.

Don't forget you also have further visual options on the "Style" tab of the individual embed in question.

Question 8

Can I change the fonts Malcolm! uses?

Accepted Answer

You can change the font that Malcolm! uses in your hosted hub and your embeds via theme management in the Brand section of MyMalcolm.

We support the following fonts:

Arial
Arimo
Helvetica
Helvetica Neue
Lato
Lora
Montserrat
Merriweather
Merriweather Sans
Muli
Noto Sans
Noto Serif
Nunito
Nunito Sans
Open Sans
Oswald
Playfair Display
Poppins
PT Sans
PT Serif
Raleway
Roboto
Roboto Mono
Roboto Slab
Source Sans Pro
Source Serif Pro
Tahoma
Ubuntu
Ubuntu Mono

Question 9

Can I have a different logo on FAQ / Workflow pages?

Accepted Answer

Sometimes you might want to use a different logo on your hosted hub homepage to the rest of your hosted hub. If you are using a header image on the hosted hub homepage for example you might want to use a reversed or alternate logo that works well on top of that image.

You can specify a secondary logo inside the header section of your theme.

Question 10

Can I change where the logo on my hosted hub and hosted pages links to?

Accepted Answer

If you add a logo to your theme it will by default link to your hosted hub home page. Sometimes you might prefer to have your logo link back to your main website, or another destination.

You can change where the logo links to and whether that link opens in a new window or not in the header section of your theme.