Question 1

Can I stop or suppress certain FAQs and/or Workflows from contributing to dynamic listings?

Accepted Answer

Malcolm! auto generates certain listings of FAQs such as most helpful, most popular, recently added and trending. If an FAQ is hidden (see here for more info it won't be included in these listings but sometimes you may wish to exclude a regular non hidden FAQ from these listings.

You can do this via in MyMalcolm via the individual FAQ's visibility settings (FAQs / Library / Configure / Visibility):

Question 2

How do I build a Workflow?

Accepted Answer

You can build a Workflow quickly via the Workflow Builder in MyMalcolm.

To get started, first go to the Workflow section of MyMalcolm and then click "Create a Workflow" towards the top right of the screen.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/RksXtrNmao/screenshot-my.malcolm.app-2019.07.30-18_58_28.png (Workflows: How would you like to start?)

You can then choose whether to build a Workflow from scratch, start with one of our templates or - if you have already created some Workflows previously - clone one of those previously created Workflows.

You can then use our drag and drop builder to create your Workflow.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/NqeNJgmaNe/screenshot-my.malcolm.app-2019.07.30-18_54_43.png (Workflow Builder)

Our Workflow builder enables you to:

Drag and drop question elements onto your form
Customise those question elements
Configure Filters, Validators and Rules
Split forms over multiple pages
Customise page titles and progress bars
Customise thank you page

Once you have created the content of your form, you can to the Configure tab and configure various options including setting up email notifications or Integrations.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/6t3XACYIqr/screenshot-my.malcolm.app-2019.07.30-19_14_25.png (Configure your Workflow)

By default your Workflow is created as a web form that you access via a URL. But you can also surface that Workflow in a variety of other ways (including float it over page in a widget, via a modal/overlay launched by a button you place on a site, or via embeds or plugins) - take a look at the Share section of MyMalcolm to do this.

Watch a video guide to building a Workflow below.

Question 3

What is Malcolm?

Accepted Answer

Malcolm! is a super flexible set of tools that quickly helps you with your user interactions.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/g951PpANTK/fb-no-text-01%402x.png (Welcome to Malcolm!)

Tell me more!

If you are a business that has customers or other stakeholders (eg suppliers) you will almost certainly have to support and service these people. This often involves answering their questions and/or taking them through routine tasks or procedures.

For example

Customers may have questions about a product or service you sell
To process an order/booking/request or set up/modify your customer records you might need to collect certain information from a customer.

You could deal with these customer interactions face to face, over the phone or by email.

But the more customers you have the more time that takes up - and it can be never ending as more and more questions keep coming in every day.

With Malcolm! you can quickly digitise your Frequently Asked Questions and turn repetitive tasks or procedures into Workflows. Then direct customers to your website 24/7/365 where they can self serve.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/AyHgeEg6cX/fb-no-text-05%402x.png (Change your business or organisation for the better with Malcolm!)

Neat right?

There are also lots of cool features like customers being able to give feedback on answers, analytics so you know the most popular questions your customers are asking plus integrations with other software like Dropbox or Mailchimp (and over 1,500 other apps via Zapier) so you can automatically send the information you collect via Malcolm! into other systems. And that is just for starters - there are lots and lots of further powerful features.

Did we mention you can also easily style and brand everything to match your business branding? And use your own domain name?

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/Ixsmp4XOhV/fb-no-text-04%402x.png (Malcolm! At your service)

Find out more

Explore this Support Section which is itself running on Malcolm! to find out all the things you can do and how to do them. Or browse our main website for an overview of all the features and pricing.

Sign up for your free trial here.

And if you’ve any questions which aren’t answered in our Support section reach out to us anytime and we will be glad to help!

Question 4

How many free trials can I have?

Accepted Answer

Each new instance begins with a 14 day free trial. There is currently no limit to the number of instances you can create.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/UmVDibLTsZ/insta-05%402x.png (Malcolm! Free Trial)

We want people to to use Malcolm! as much as possible so encourage you to use trials to try out possible ideas or use cases for Malcolm! Setting up an instance with some content and branding can be a quick and effective way to demonstrate to your colleagues or other team members how useful Malcolm! can be!

Question 5

How do I set the time zone of my Instance?

Accepted Answer

You can choose the time zone your Malcolm! instance runs in MyMalcolm via Settings / Instance / General.

When you select times/dates in MyMalcolm eg for things like scheduled publishing these should reflect the time zone of the instance rather than your local time zone (which might be different). Similarly when you export data and receive email alerts from Malcolm! these will reflect the instance time zone.

Question 6

Can I mix different billing plans across my instances?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Billing belongs to the instance rather than the user and we currently offer 3 different types of price plan.

Your Malcolm! user account is personal to you and can be attached to any type of Instance. So it's perfectly possible for a user to be attached to variety of instances some of which may be on different price plans.

Question 7

How do drafts, versions, publishing and approvals of FAQs work?

Accepted Answer

Malcolm! has an inbuilt versioning system and optional scheduled publishing and approval functionality.

Versions can be useful if you change the answer to a question but at a later date want to revert the answer back to a previous version.

They can also be useful for compliance and regulatory reasons, eg in the future you might want to review what your FAQ answer was at a certain point in time.

Versions also enable you to "prep" updated content ahead of it going live. For example if you are revising your product or service you might need to update your FAQ content. But you might not want that new updated content to go live until your the changes to your product or service also go live.

How Versioning Works

When you first create an FAQ you are creating a draft. When you have finished editing you publish that draft into a version. When you make a version live that version is then what your customers see.

You can choose which version of content is live via the publishing section of an FAQ. To get to this browse to FAQ via the Library, then once selected go into the Publishing section.

You can also start a new draft based on a published version.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/VB6EF763Ha/screenshot-my.malcolm.app-2019.08.06-19_15_24.png (Versions in MyMalcolm)

How Scheduled Publishing Works

As well as choosing to make a version live immediately you can also choose to make a version live at a certain date and time in the future. You may only want a version to be live for a certain period of time so you may wish to set an end date. You may also want different versions live at different times. You can set this up and manage and edit upcoming schedules in the publishing section of an FAQ.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/6R9cFykdG0/screenshot-my.malcolm.app-2019.08.06-19_30_00.png (Scheduled Publishing in MyMalcolm)

How Approvals Work

The Approval functionality adds a stage between turning a draft into a published version - the draft has to be approved. This functionality can be useful if you work in an organisation where a legal or compliance department wants to review any changes to customer facing communications. It can also be useful if one team member, for example a manager or editor, wants to ensure they personally review all content changes submitted by staff members (or perhaps freelancers) before those changes are allowed to go live.

Approvals functionality is off by default. To turn it on go to the Settings section, General settings, Content approval.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/drOJxuIL5V/screenshot-my.malcolm.app-2020.06.29-17_43_05.png (Enable Approvals in MyMalcolm)

Although you can technically approve your own content the approval functionality makes most sense when you have several team members on an Instance. So it tends to be used by instances that are on our Team or Enterprise plan. You can choose which users on your instance have the approval privilege via the Team section.

Notes can be added to each draft you put forward for approval.

If you are waiting for your content to be approved, or you are a user with the approval privilege you can access your options in the Publishing section. This can be accessed globally (ie showing activity and options across all FAQs) within the first level of FAQ or via an individual FAQ where just activity and options for that individual FAQ is shown. )

Question 8

Can you help me create content for Malcolm?

Accepted Answer

Yes, we can help you create content for Malcolm! and general customer support and customer service content via "Malcolm Agency Services".

See here for further details and to get a quote.

Question 9

Can I clear sort options in the Library area of MyMalcolm?

Accepted Answer

Within the Library of FAQs and Workflows in MyMalcolm you can click certain column headings to sort by that column. The first two clicks will vary the sort direction (ascending or descending) and the last click will clear your sort!

Question 10

What are Categories in FAQs?

Accepted Answer

Categories offer a way of organising your FAQs around similar areas. For example you may wish to group some of FAQs into a "pre sales" category and others into a "post sales" category. Or if you sell many different types of product you might want to create categories for each product and categorise your FAQs in this way.

Customers may choose to browse FAQs by category as well as searching.

An FAQ can exist in more than 1 category and you can also create sub categories within categories.