Learn how to initiate a Help Center Audit to identify content gaps and improve your knowledge base.
Overview
Creating a Help Center Audit allows Fern to analyze your support conversations and provide actionable recommendations to enhance your help center. This process helps you proactively address common user queries and reduce support volume.
Prerequisites
Connected support platforms (e.g., HelpScout, Zendesk)
Sufficient audit credits (Ferndesk includes a free weekly audit that analyzes up to 1,000 tickets per month)
Ferndesk includes a free weekly audit that analyzes up to 1,000 tickets per month. If you need to analyze more conversations, you can purchase additional credits at any time.
Steps to Create a Help Center Audit
Navigate to the Audits section in the left sidebar.
On the Audits page, click the Create audit button.
On the "Start an audit" page, select the Support platforms you wish Fern to scan for support conversations.
If you have not connected any support platforms, you will be prompted to connect your first platform before proceeding.
Under Time period, choose a preset that defines the conversation range for the audit. Options include:
Since last audit
Last week
Last 2 weeks
Last month
Last quarter
Last year
Last 5 years
We recommend selecting a time period that reflects recent user questions and feedback to ensure the most relevant recommendations.
Review the audit summary, including any notes about your remaining ticket analysis quota.
Click the Start your audit button.
Once the audit begins, you'll see a toast notification: "Audit started. You'll be notified when it's done." You can watch the progress on the audit detail page.
Reviewing Audit Results
When your audit is complete, you can review the results:
From the Audits page, find your completed audit and click on it.
Review the key metrics:
Conversations analyzed: Support conversations analyzed by Fern
Recommendations: Suggestions from Fern to review
Coverage: Questions covered by existing articles
Check the Recommendations tab to see suggestions grouped by impact:
High impact
Medium impact
Low impact
Click on any recommendation to review details and decide whether to:
Reject the recommendation
Assign to Fern to create an article
Scheduling Recurring Audits
To ensure your help center stays up-to-date with evolving user needs, you can schedule recurring audits:
From the Audits page, locate the "Fern can run audits for you on a schedule" box.
Click the Create schedule button.
On the "Create audit schedule" page, choose how often you want Fern to run audits (Daily, Weekly (recommended), Monthly, or Quarterly).
Click Create schedule or Update schedule to save your preference.
If you run out of support conversation credits, your scheduled audits will pause automatically. You can purchase more credits at any time from your billing page.
What's Next
After creating your audit, learn how to interpret Help Center Audit results and implement the recommendations to improve your documentation.