How can I show different content for different users?

QUESTION:

Is it possible to create "user areas"?
We would like our customer A to see all our general documentation plus articles specific to company A, customer B to see all general documentation plus articles specific to company B (but not A) and so on.

ANSWER:

Yes, this is possible. You do it using roles and private categories.

Set up roles and categories

First, create roles for the each company:

• Create a role called Company A and assign all users from company A to this role
• Create a second role called Company B and assign all users from company B to this role.

Next, create private categories:

• Create a category specifically for Company A. Let's call it Company A documents.
• For the Private field, check Read (note that there is a second option here, Write. This controls who can edit an article)
• This brings up a new option, Access for selected roles. Select Company A

• Select other options required for this category and then Save to complete
• Do the same for Company B

Create a general category:

• Create another category -- let's call it it User Manual -- that users in both companies can look at. Do not assign a role this time.

Create your articles

Everything is now set up.

• When you create articles, assign them to the appropriate category - User Manual category if you want all users to read it, Company A if you only want users from Company A to read it, and Company B if you only want users from Company B to read it.

What users see

Once this is done, users from Company A can log on and read all User Manual articles, plus all Company A articles.

While a user from Company B sees: