5. Manage phpMyFAQ

The administration of phpMyFAQ is completely browser-based. The admin area can be found under this URL:

http://www.example.com/faq/admin/index.php

You can also log in the public frontend, and after the successful login you'll see a link to administration backend, too.

If you've lost your password, you can reset it. A new random password will be generated and sent to you via email. Please change it after your successful login with the generated password.

After entering your username and password, you can log into the system. On the dashboard page you can see the following cards:

  • some statistics about visits, entries, news and comments
  • the latest current number fetched from phpmyfaq.de
  • a nice diagram with the number of visitors of the last 30 days
  • a list on inactive FAQs
  • a button to verify the integrity of the phpMyFAQ installation. Then clicking on the button phpMyFAQ calculates a SHA-1 hash for all files and checks it against a web service provided on phpmyfaq.de. With this service, it's possible to see if someone changed files.

You can switch the current language in the administration backend, and you have an info box about the session timeout.

5.1 Users and Groups

5.1.1 User Administration

phpMyFAQ offers flexible management of privileges (or rights) for different users in the admin area. To search for a certain user, start typing the username in the input form, and you'll get a list of hits for usernames. It is possible to assign different privileges to real people (represented by the term users). Those privileges are very detailed and specific, so that you could allow a certain user to edit but not to delete an entry. It is crucial to contemplate which user shall get which privileges. You could edit an entry by completely deleting all content, which would be equivalent to deleting the whole entry. The number of possible users is not limited by phpMyFAQ.

Keep in mind that new users have no privileges at all; you will have to assign them by editing the user's profile.

A super admin can set users as super admins as well, then the given permissions aren't evaluated, so please be careful with setting this option.

A user without any permission in the admin section can still get read access to categories and records. You can set the permissions on categories and records in the category and record administration frontend.

If you enable LDAP or Microsoft Entra ID authentication, you can't edit the user's profile in the admin area. The users will be created automatically when they log in the first time.

5.1.2 Group Administration

phpMyFAQ also offers flexible management of privileges (or rights) for different groups in the admin area. You can set permissions for groups in the same way as for users described in the topic above.

Please note that the permissions for a group are higher rated than the permissions on a user. To enable the group permissions, please set the permission level from basic to medium in the main configuration.

5.2 Content

5.2.1 Category Administration

phpMyFAQ lets you create different categories and nested subcategories for your FAQs. You can re-arrange your categories in a different order and create nested ones with drag'n'drop. It is possible to use various languages per category, too; there's also a frontend to view all translated categories. For accessibility and SEO reasons, you should add a small description for every category. You can add an image for every category, which will be shown even on the start page if you flag this category with this configuration. If you add a new category, you can set the permissions for users and groups, and you can bind an administrator to new category. This is quite nice if you want to share the work in your FAQ between various admin users.

If you display category images, they are saved as separate files in /content/user/images/ as follows:

  • category-1-de.ext
  • category-2-de.ext
  • category-3-de.ext
  • etc.

For SEO reasons (reduced file size), you may want to display the exact same file as a background image multiple times. To do this, enter the same file name for each entry in your database, "faqcategories" table, image field.

5.2.2 FAQ Administration

You can create entries directly in the admin area. Created entries aren't published by default. All available FAQs are listed on the page "Edit FAQs". By clicking on them, the same interface that lets you create records will open up, this time with all the relevant data of the specific entry. The meaning of the fields is as follows:

  • Category The place in the FAQ hierarchy where this entry will be published depends on these settings. You can choose one or more categories where to store the entry. If you want to add a FAQ record to more than one category, you have to select the categories with your mouse and press the CTRL key.

  • Question This is the question or headline of your entry.

  • Answer The content is an answer to the question or a solution for a problem. The content can be edited with the included WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor when JavaScript is enabled. You can place images where you want with the integrated image manager. The Editor can be disabled in the configuration if you want.

  • Language You can select the language of your FAQ. By default, the selected language saved in the configuration will be chosen. You can create entries in multiple languages like this: Write an article in English (or any other language) and save it. Now choose Edit FAQs and edit your English FAQ record. Change the question, answer and keywords and change language to, let's say Brazilian Portuguese. Save the FAQ record. Now you can, when you click edit records, see both FAQs in your list, having the same id, yet different languages.

  • Attachments You can add attachments like PDFs or any other binary data using the Add attachment button. If you click on the button, a popup opens, and you can upload an attachment. Please keep in mind that the PHP configuration about upload size will be checked.

  • Keywords Keywords are relevant for searching through the database. In case you didn't include a specific word in the FAQ itself, but it is closely related to the content you may wish to include it as a keyword, so the FAQ will come up as a search result. It is also possible to use non-related keywords so that a wrongly entered search will also lead to the right results.

  • Tags You can add some tags about the current FAQ here. An auto-completion method helps you while typing your tags.

  • Author It is possible to specify an author for your FAQ.

  • Email It is possible to specify the author's email for your FAQ, but the email address won't be shown in the frontend.

  • Solution ID Every FAQ generates automatically a so-called solution ID. All records can be accessed directly by putting this ID into the search box.

  • Active? If a FAQ is "active" it is visible in the public area and will be included in searches. Is it "deactivated" it will be invisible. Suggested FAQs are deactivated by default to prevent any abuse.

  • Sticky? If a FAQ is "sticky" it is a crucial FAQ record and will always be shown on all pages on the right column. You should mark records as sticky if they're crucial for your whole FAQ. Sticky records also appear at the top positions of the lists of FAQ entries.

  • Comments? If you don't want to allow public comments for this FAQ you can disable the feature here.

  • Revision Like a wiki, phpMyFAQ supports revisions of every entry. New revisions won't be created automatically, but you can create a new one if you click on "yes". The old revision will be stored in the database, and the new current revision will be displayed in the public frontend. You can also bring back old revisions into the frontend if you select an old revision and save them as a new one.

  • Date You have three options for the FAQ creation date. You can choose to refresh the date of the FAQ entry for every update, or you can keep the date, or you can set an individual date for the FAQ entry.

  • Permissions If you add or edit a new entry, you can set the permissions for users and groups. Please note that the permissions of the chosen category override the permissions of the FAQ itself.

  • Date Date of the last change.

  • Changed? This field is reserved for comments that can reflect what changes have been applied to a certain entry. This helps multiple admins to keep track of what happened to the entry over time. Any information entered here will remain invisible in the public area.

  • Changelog The changelog lists all previous changes, including user and date of change.

You can edit and delete all records as well. Please note that old revisions won't be deleted until the whole FAQ is deleted.

phpMyFAQ lets visitors contribute to the FAQ by asking questions. Every visitor is able to view these open questions in the public area, and may give an answer. If you wish to get rid of open questions, you can do so using this section. Alternatively, you can take over a question and answer it yourself and hereby add it to the FAQ.

5.2.3 Sticky FAQs

You can arrange the order of the sticky FAQs by drag'n'drop. The order of the sticky FAQs will be the same in the public frontend.

5.2.4 Comment Administration

In this frontend, you can see all comments that'd been posted in the FAQs and the news. You can't edit comments, but you can delete them with one easy click.

5.2.5 Open Questions

On the "Open Questions" page, you can see all open questions that visitors have posted. You can answer them directly or, if they are not visible due to your configuration in the public area, you can activate them. Additionally, you can delete them, too.

5.2.6 Glossary

A glossary is a list of terms in a particular domain of knowledge with the definitions for those terms. You can add, edit and delete glossary items here. The items will be automatically displayed in tags in the frontend.

5.2.7 News Administration

phpMyFAQ offers the ability to post news on the starting page of your FAQ. In the administration area, you can create new news, edit existing news or delete them.

5.2.8 Attachment Administration

In the attachment administration, you can see an overview of all attachments with their filename, file size, language and MIME type. You can delete them, too.

5.2.9 Tags Administration

You can edit existing tags, and if you need to, you can delete the tag.

5.3 Statistics

5.3.1 Ratings

Below every FAQ, a visitor has the chance to rate the overall quality of a FAQ by giving ratings from one to five (whereas 1 is the worst, 5 the best rating). In the statistics, the average rating and number of votes becomes visible for every rated FAQ. To give you a quick overview, FAQs with an average rating of two or worse are displayed in red, an average above 4 results in a green number.

5.3.2 View sessions

This function lets you keep track of your visitors. Every visitor is assigned an ID when coming to your starting page, that identifies a user during his whole visit. Using the information gathered here, you could reconstruct the way visitors use your FAQ and make the necessary adjustments to your categories, content or keywords.

5.3.3 View Admin log

The admin log allows you to track any actions taken by users in the admin area of phpMyFAQ. If you feel you have an intruder in the system, you can find out for sure by checking the admin log.

5.3.4 Search statistics

On the search statistics page, you'll get a report about which keywords and how often your users are searching. This information is split into keywords, the number of searches for this term, the language and the overall percentage.

5.3.5 Reports

On the report page, you can select various data columns to generate a report about content and usage of your FAQ installation. You can export the report then as a CSV file.

5.4 Imports & Exports

5.4.1 Imports

You can import faqs from a csv file. Further, you find an example of such a csv file:

[!IMPORTANT] It is not allowed to have the first line of the following example file containing the headers in the uploaded file as well. Otherwise, the import will fail.

category-Id question answer keywords language code author email address of author active sticky
1 What's the answer? This one is the answer question,answer en Thorsten thorsten@phpmyfaq.de true false
1 Can you buy me an ice cream? Strawberry or chocolate is available. ice,strawberry,chocolate en Thorsten thorsten@phpmyfaq.de true true

[!NOTE] All cells are required except for the keywords. Additionally, you are able to use several keywords that are seperated with commas.

5.4.2 Exports

You can export your contents of your whole FAQ or just some selected categories into two formats:

  • a JSON file
  • a PDF file with a table of contents

5.4.3 Batch upload via phpMyAdmin

[!NOTE] You should have a table ready with the data you want to import. The titles of your new FAQ's in one column, the HTML-formatted content in the next and the keywords in a third column.

You should have access to phpMyAdmin via your web host.

You should have already created a few entries manually in your phpMyFAQ.

This guide is intentionally extensive, but the individual steps can be completed quite quickly once you understand them. It is important that you don't make any mistakes when uploading to your DB, so take your time the first time you try it.

5.4.3.1 Export the necessary tables

Open phpMyAdmin, first check whether the correct database is displayed. You can switch to a different database at the top left. At the top left you can see the name of your database and below that the names of the individual tables. From this list, select the following five tables (one after the other) and click on them once to select them:

  • faqdata
  • faqdata_tags
  • faqcategoryrelations
  • faqdata_user
  • faqdata_groups

Screenshot of choosing DB and tables in phpmyadmin.

As soon as you have selected one of the five tables, the contents will be displayed on the right. Now click on the Export menu item at the top.

Screenshot of nav bar in phpmyadmin

Select CSV as the format. Make sure that Dump all rows is selected. Then click Export at the bottom.

Screenshot of export dialog in phpmyadmin

Save all 5 CSV-Files in a separate folder on your computer. Then you can close phpMyAdmin for the moment.

5.4.3.2 Edit the tables

Open the first CSV file faqdata.csv with the spreadsheet program of your choice. (You can use LibreOffice, OpenOffice or Excel, for example.) Look at the table BEFORE you make any changes. Pay attention to the column headings and the contents of the individual fields. DO NOT change the column headings. Because the database does not like errors, you should handle it carefully.

The id column contains an ascending number that is assigned once and identifies each post. So for a new post you only need to count one further. This also applies to the solution_id, which can be used later to access individual FAQs. The keywords for the respective post should be entered in the keywords column, separated by commas. In the topic column you enter the question or the title of your post. The HTML-formatted content of the post should be entered in the content column. For the remaining columns, use the existing entries as a guide. Check everything you have entered again. It's better to look at it once too often at the beginning until it becomes easier for you later. Save the table in exactly the same format as a CSV file, then you can close it.

In order for the data from this first table to be displayed, the exact right values in the other three tables are also required. Only then will it work and your data will also be displayed.

You've probably already assigned some important tags to your existing posts, otherwise please do that now from within phpMyFAQ before we continue. It's best to just use one tag per post.

So now let's take the second table faqdata_tags. On the left is the record_id, which matches the unique id from the previous table, but just is named differently. So for a new post, you have to increment one here too. REMEMBER that this number refers to the exact post whose data you have already entered the faqdata table! In the right-hand column, there is a number that identifies the assigned tag.

Within the Tags section of phpMyFAQ you can hover your mose over the red trash can, and your browser will now show you a link at the bottom left that ends with our tag number. You should note down the tags and their numbers in a text file to have them at Hand later. With this knowledge, we can now enter the desired tags in the table for our new posts. Check again and you can close the table.

We continue with the third table, called faqcategoryrelations, and this is now about the categories. The number in the first column category_id identifies the category in which the new post should be sorted. You can assign the number to the category in exactly the same way as you did with the tags. So make a quick note in your text file! You can now enter the numbers so that the posts end up in the right category. On the right at record_id we have the unique ID that identifies the post. Once you have entered everything, save and close.

The fourth file called faqdata_user.csv is straightforward. Put in the unique id of your new entries at the left and -1 at the right. Save and close. Same for the fifth file faqdata_groups. Add the unique id and -1.

5.4.3.3 Upload the finished tables

Now we have all the data ready to import. So we open phpMyAdmin again. Select the correct table on the left. Click on Import at the top. Select the correct one of our 4 CSV tables out of your folder. For Skip number of queries, select 1 so that our column headings are not created as a post. The format must be CSV. Check also update data when duplicate keys found on import. Otherwise, changes to existing entries won't be saved. Else everything should be fine. Now click on Import.

Screenshot of import dialog in phpmyadmin

We'll do that four more times with our other files.

Now go to your phpMyFAQ and check your new entries.

5.5 Backup

Using the backup function, it is possible to create a copy of the database to a single file. This makes it possible to restore the FAQ after a possible "crash" or to move the FAQ from one server to another. It is recommended to create regular backups of your FAQ.

  • backup data A backup of all data will include all entries, users, comments, etc.
  • backup logs The sessions of visits and the admin log will be saved (i.e. all log files). This information is not necessary for running phpMyFAQ, they serve only statistical purposes.

During the backup process, phpMyFAQ generates a hash on the whole backup file and stores this information. The hashes of backups will be verified during the process of restoring. If a backup can't be verified, the admin can't use the backup file for restore.

To back up the whole data located on your web server, you can run our simple backup script located in the folder /scripts.

5.6 Configuration

5.6.1 Main configuration

Here you can edit the general, FAQ specific, search, spam protection, spam control center, SEO related, layout settings, Mail setup for SMTP, API settings, online update settings, and if enabled, LDAP configuration of phpMyFAQ.

5.6.2 FAQ Multi-sites

You can see a list of all multisite installations, and you're able to add new ones.

To host several distinct installations (with different configs, different templates and most importantly, different database credentials), but only want to update once, you need to follow these steps:

  • Make sure you have the multisite/ directory in your document root and multisite.php in it
  • For every installation, there needs to be a subdirectory of multisite/ named exactly like the hostname of the separate installation.

For example, if you want to use faq.example.org and beta.faq.example.org, it needs to look like this:

.
|-- [...]
|-- content
|   |-- core
|   |   |-- config
|   |   |   |-- constants.php
|   |   |   `-- database.php
`-- multisite
    |-- multisite.php
    `-- beta.faq.example.org
        |-- constants.php
        `-- database.php

5.6.3 Stop Words configuration

We need stop words for the smart answering feature and the related answers. If a user is adding a new question to your FAQ the words will be checked against all FAQs in your database but without the stop words. Stop words are words with a very low relevance like the English word the.

5.6.4 phpMyFAQ Update (Experimental feature)

If you're running phpMyFAQ 4.0.0 or later, you can use the built-in automatic upgrade feature. You can click through the update wizard:

  1. Check for System Health: this checks if your system is ready for the upgrade
  2. Check for Updates: this checks if there is a new version of phpMyFAQ available
  3. Download of phpMyFAQ: this downloads the latest version of phpMyFAQ in the background, this can take some seconds
  4. Extracting phpMyFAQ: this extracts the downloaded archive, this can take a while
  5. Install downloaded package: first, it creates a backup of your current installation, then it copies the downloaded files into your installation and in the end, the database is updated

5.6.5 Elasticsearch configuration

Here you can create and drop the Elasticsearch index, and you can run a full import of all data from your database into the Elasticsearch index. You can also see some Elasticsearch relevant usage data. This page is only available if Elasticsearch is enabled.

5.6.6 System information

On this page, phpMyFAQ displays some relevant system information like PHP version, database version or session path. Please use this information when reporting bugs.

5.7 Using Microsoft Entra ID

You can use our experimental Microsoft Entra ID support for user authentication as well. App Registrations in Azure are used to integrate applications with Microsoft Azure services, allowing them to authenticate and access resources securely. Follow these steps to create an App Registration in Microsoft Azure:

Prerequisites:

  • Azure account with appropriate permissions.

Step 1: Sign in to Azure Portal

  1. Open your web browser and navigate to the Azure Portal.
  2. Sign in with your Azure account credentials.

Step 2: Create a New App Registration

  1. In the Azure Portal, click on "Entra ID" in the left-hand navigation pane.
  2. Under "Entra ID," click on "App registrations."

Step 3: Register a New App

  1. Click the "+ New registration" button.

Step 4: Configure the App Registration

  1. In the "Name" field, provide a name for your App Registration, e.g. "phpMyFAQ".
  2. Choose the supported account types that your application will authenticate: "Accounts in this organizational directory only"
  3. In the "Redirect URI" section, specify the redirect URI where Entra ID will send authentication responses: http://www.example.com/faq/services/azure/callback.php
  4. Click the "Register" button to create the App Registration.

Step 5: Configure Authentication

  1. After the registration is created, go to the "Authentication" tab in the App Registration settings.
  2. Under "Platform configurations," select the appropriate redirect URI type: Web
  3. Configure the Redirect URIs as needed for your application.
  4. Save the changes.

Step 6: Note Application Details

  1. Make note of the "Application (client) ID." This is your application's unique identifier.
  2. If your application requires client secrets, go to the "Certificates & secrets" tab to create and manage client secrets.

Step 7: Create Azure config file

  1. Copy the file ./config/azure.php.original and name it ./config/azure.php
  2. Add the Tenant ID, the client ID and the secret from Step 7 and save the file
  3. Then, activate Microsoft Entra ID support in the administration under "Security"

5.8 Troubleshooting

5.8.1 Hard password reset

If you can't log into your phpMyFAQ installation, and your password reset doesn't work, you can reset your password on this page: [Password Hash Generator Tool for phpMyFAQ]{https://password.phpmyfaq.de) You need your phpMyFAQ salt (from the table faqconfig in the database) and the username you used to log in, usually admin. You can choose a new password, and the tool will generate a new password hash for you. Copy the hash and paste it into the pass field in the faquserlogin table in the database for the user "admin". Then you can log in with the new password.

For transparency reasons, the whole code base is available on GitHub. You can find the code here: https://github.com/phpMyFAQ/password.phpmyfaq.de