You can quickly import your knowledge base articles into Front using a comma-delimited CSV file. Articles house the written content that users reference when browsing your knowledge base. Once you’ve imported your articles, you can continue managing the article content and settings directly in Front. Alternatively, you can use our URL importer for supported providers.

You must have Front company admin, Knowledge Base admin, or Knowledge Base content editor permissions to import articles.

You can download a CSV template here or on the import page. The following column headers are supported:

• You can upload up to 3000 rows (not including headers) in a single upload.

• For large batches of articles, you can break up your file into groups of 3000 articles per file. Files must be uploaded one at a time.

• Column headers are not case-sensitive; article_name will be treated the same as Article_name.

• The order of columns in your CSV does not matter.

• Empty rows and columns in your CSV will be ignored.

• The category_id, category_name, and category_url values should be in their own rows. They should not be in rows containing article data. See example here.

• If your knowledge base has multiple languages:

  • You must upload one language at a time.

  • If category IDs are missing when importing a new language (not the default), Front will not create translations for your categories. You can manually add translations for those categories. We only recommend adding category columns in your files if the values are present in all CSV files for all languages.

Step 0 (optional)

If you are migrating articles from another knowledge base provider into Front, you will first need to export your articles from your previous knowledge base into a CSV file, then follow the instructions in the Prepare your CSV file section to reformat your file for Front. 

Step 1

Click the Knowledge Base book icon in the top navigation bar, then click Content in the sidebar.

Step 2

Click Import, then select from CSV.

Step 3

Use the dropdown to select the language of your CSV content. See here for the list of supported languages. 

If your knowledge base has multiple languages, upload one language at a time.

Step 4

Drag and drop your CSV file into the page, or click Choose file and select the file from your computer.

Step 5 (optional)

You can manually map your CSV column headers to your Front Knowledge Base fields using the dropdowns.

Step 6

If there are any errors, you will see a red (critical error) or orange (warning error) box with instructions on how to resolve them. Resolve any errors and re-upload your CSV file if needed.

Step 7

Click Import. Once the import completes, a green success banner will appear at the bottom left corner of the screen.

Red: Critical errors. You will need to fix any errors in your knowledge base file and re-upload it to continue.

Orange: Warning errors. You can continue with the knowledge base import process without re-uploading your file. However, the import will skip all invalid values with errors.

Knowledge base imports require specific formatting to ensure your articles are imported into Front. If you hit an error, please check the following common issues and solutions.

You can still proceed with an import if a file contains the following errors, but the importer will skip all invalid values.

Front uses the article id field to create new articles or update existing articles.

If you upload a new CSV that may have articles that already exist in Front, the importer will use the following logic:

1. If a row contains an article id that does not match an existing article id, Front considers this a new article. The importer will create a new article.

2. If a row contains an article id that matches an existing article id, Front considers this the same article. The importer will create a new article revision and replace the existing article values with the new article values in the file. e.g. If article_name was provided in import 1, but blank in import 2, Front will create a new revision with a blank article title.

Front Knowledge Base is available on the following plans: 

• Latest Starter plan or above (May 2023)

• Any Scale plan or above

If you are on a legacy plan and don't have access to this feature, you can update to one of our latest plans in your Billing settings or contact your account manager.