Question 1

What are featured boxes and how can I use them?

Accepted Answer

Featured boxes are part of your hosted hub theme and are very flexible multi purpose content areas that appear on your hosted hub homepage (and also your FAQs only and Workflows only home if you are using those).

You can use them to link to content within your Malcolm! instance, for example a particular category, tag, FAQ or Workflow and you can also use them to link out to content or functionality you may have elsewhere. They can be a great tactical tool as well, for example if you've written an FAQ about your holiday opening hours and want to draw attention to it use a featured box!

On our own Malcolm! Help & Support Hub the "Using Malcolm! and need help?" and "What do you think of Malcolm?" are featured boxes.

Featured boxes on Malcolm!

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/Y5JjW8JNLu/screenshot-support.malcolm.support-2022.08.03-06_26_45.png (Featured boxes on Malcolm!)

Featured boxes on Malcolm!

Featured boxes are created and managed via your theme (Brand --> Themes).

Featured boxes management in MyMalcolm

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/btIcIfywWZ/screenshot-my.malcolm.app-2022.08.03-06_29_33.png (Featured boxes management in MyMalcolm)

Featured boxes management in MyMalcolm

You can place featured boxes in the header area and/or body area of the page and choose a display type by row or columns.

Arrange featured boxes by row or column

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/YYqGBI2Bcx/screenshot-my.malcolm.app-2022.08.03-06_42_25.png (Arrange featured boxes by row or column)

Arrange featured boxes by row or column

When creating a featured box you have various options such as uploading your own icons or choosing one of ours, plus configuring links

Adding a featured box in MyMalcolm

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/aYsKuoqfAg/screenshot-my.malcolm.app-2022.08.03-06_41_53.png (Adding a featured box in MyMalcolm)

Adding a featured box in MyMalcolm

Also see promos for similar functionality that enables you to create and manage content at the bottom of your hosted hub home page.

Question 2

Do I need to pay VAT?

Accepted Answer

Value Added Tax (VAT) is the sales tax in the United Kingdom where Malcolm! trades from. The current UK VAT rate is 20%. Our pricing is quoted excluding VAT.

The UK is no longer a member of the European Union (EU) however the VAT rules around UK companies trading with EU based businesses and EU based individuals continue to apply.

Whether VAT is applicable to your purchase of Malcolm! and how we apply it can be summarised as follows:

If you are a UK customer (individual or business): we charge VAT at 20%
If you are an EU Business and supply a valid VAT number (we check it): we will not charge you any VAT
If you are an individual in the EU: we will charge you VAT at your local country VAT - details here (PDF)
If you are a company or an individual not in the UK or in the EU (eg you are in the USA or Australia): we will not charge you any VAT

Question 3

Can I use two-factor (2FA) / multi-factor authentication (MFA) to secure my MyMalcolm account?

Accepted Answer

You can secure your MyMalcolm user account using two-factor authentication (2FA). To use this feature you will need a native MyMalcolm user account, that is you are not using Sign In with Google.

To turn 2FA on click the "Enable two-factor authentication" button in the Security tab of your profile. To access your profile click your name at the top of the screen where it says "Logged in as".

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/iermJcbNuB/screenshot-my.malcolm.app-2023.04.14-15_38_30.png (Enabling two-factor authentication in MyMalcolm)

You will then be shown a QR code you can scan in your choice of authenticator app. Alternatively there is also an option to be given a text code to enter into your authenticator app.

On the next screen, having added Malcolm! to your authenticator app, you will be asked to type in the current code. Once that code is accepted, as the final step of the process, you will be given some recovery codes which you should store safely and can be used to access your Malcolm! account if you are ever unable to use your authenticator app.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/6pXAu1iddP/screenshot-my.malcolm.app-2023.04.14-15_54_29.png (Recovery codes in MyMalcolm two-factor authentication setup)

Please note that if you lose access to your authenticator app and your recovery codes we will be unable to restore access to your account!

Question 4

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 5

Is there a limit to the amount of media I can upload? How much media space will I need?

Accepted Answer

Each instance of Malcolm! initially comes with a 0.5GB allocation of file storage space.

Because a web bowser will download all content on a page it's good practice (for page loading speed and also SEO purposes) to try and keep each image on your page under 2MB and not include too many images on any one page. Squarespace have a good general guide here.

Video files should not be uploaded to Malcolm! - instead use YouTube or Vimeo and embed your content - see here for more info.. This offers a much better experience for your users (they get a device/speed appropriate stream) and your page download speed will not be compromised.

If you wish to make large documents available for download consider using a dedicated file hosting service (eg Dropbox, Google Drive, WeTransfer etc) and linking to that from your FAQs. This is better user experience because your user will be made aware of the file size before starting the download.

Remember in particular your mobile users who may be viewing your content via significantly slower connections!

If you do find yourself nearing the limit of your initial allocation contact us to request a higher allocation and we can provision this for you - there is no extra charge for this.

Question 6

How can I change my Hosted Hub URL?

Accepted Answer

You can change the URL of your Hosted Hub via the Settings Section of MyMalcolm. Go to Custom Domains and you choose a new URL on malcolm.support or malcolm.app here. The URL must be available ie not being used by another customer.

You can also configure your own external domain or sub domain in this area as well.

If you want to change the part of the URL after your domain please see this article.

Question 7

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 8

Do you support anchor links?

Accepted Answer

We support the ability to scroll the user to certain parts of your content on the same page via anchor (or "jump") links.

To insert an anchor click the anchor icon in the markdown editor. Type a name for your anchor in the dialog and hit insert (Malcolm! will make your text lower case and replace any spaces with a dash)

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/oCqoO1obU2/Insert%20anchor.png (Insert anchor dialog)

To link to the anchor use the create link dialog and find your anchor from the drop down list.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/7oI1UVxRhF/Target%20link%20to%20anchor.png (Target link to anchor)

Malcolm! will then add markdown to your content, you can see an example below

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/TkGY25Md9d/Anchor%20and%20target%20in%20markdown.png (Anchor and target in markdown)

Alternatively you can create your anchors and links directly in markdown, the syntax is as follows

To define your anchor

To link to your anchor

See the video below for a walkthrough of this feature

Question 9

How do I pay for Malcolm?

Accepted Answer

Malcolm! billing is based on Instances. You can read more about Instances here.

You can see our pricing here.

You can read more about VAT and how we apply it here.

We currently bill in UK Pound Sterling and US Dollars.

At the time of writing we accept Visa and Mastercard. We also accept Paypal through which you can use American Express. We don't currently accept Bitcoin :-)

Plans are paid monthly in advance. When you trial ends (or if you end your trial early and remove the restrictions) we'll ask for your card details and every month we will automatically take payment unless you cancel. If your card expires or the payment fails we will send you a number of automated emails to ask you to update your details. If no action is taken after a grace period we will stop serving your content (ie your FAQ's and Workflows) and after a further grace period we will delete your Instance.

Enterprise plans are more bespoke in nature and are negotiated on a per client basis. These can also be paid by credit or debit card but it's more typical for clients to pay quarterly or annually via invoice and bank transfers.

Question 10

How do I delete feedback on an FAQ or Workflow?

Accepted Answer

Feedback collected via Malcolm! can only be seen by suitability authorised team members on your instance but there may be situations where you want to delete it, for example if it contains personally identifiable information and your organisation has a policy that you only want to store this for a certain period of time.

To delete feedback for an individual FAQ select the "Delete data" option in the Analyse section of the FAQ.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/HwJyEPPI3q/resources/IK3fsFzNON/Delete%20FAQ%20Data%20in%20MyMalcolm.png (Delete FAQ Data in MyMalcolm)

To delete feedback for an individual Workflow select the "Delete data" option in the Analyse section of the Workflow and then select either "Delete feedback data" or "Delete all data" (which will also delete all your completion data)