FAQs and Expandable Content

FAQ components are used to help answer questions for visitors in a quick and concise format. FAQs do not necessarily have to contain "questions" and "answers," and can be used as a template to display a large amount of text without taking up too much real estate on the page.

• Content that uses the FAQ format but is not Questions and Answers is called Expandable Content.

The following instructions will provide information on how to create and insert Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and other Expandable Content into your page.

Table of Contents

Creating FAQ Components

The first step in creating FAQs or Expandable Content is to create the individual FAQ components:

Open

In the Building Blocks folder of your respective website, click New Component (highlighted in blue above) in the Create tab (highlighted in yellow above) of the navigation bar.

You will be taken to a new page for creating the component (shown below):

Open

There are a few important steps to creating an individual FAQ component:

1. Name the FAQ component

2. Choose FAQ from the Schema drop down menu (highlighted in yellow above).

3. Enter the appropriate text for the Question and Answer fields.

   • FAQs do not always need to be in a question/answer format, but the component is most suitable for this format.

4. When you're done entering text into these fields, hit Save & Close in the Home tab (highlighted in blue above).

Once you have saved your first FAQ component, you must repeat this whole process for each question you want in your FAQs before you can add the list to a page.

Inserting FAQ Component(s) Into a List Component

Once all of your FAQ components have been completed, you must create a List component.

• This component will house all of your FAQs, then you can add the List to a page.

In the Building Blocks folder of your respective website, click New Component in the Create tab of the navigation bar.

You will be taken to a new page for creating the component (shown below):

At this stage, you must label the component a List component before you can add your FAQs to it.

1. Choose List from the Schema drop down menu (highlighted in yellow above).

2. Do not enter any text in the Display title field.

3. In the List element field, click on the folder/magnifying glass button (highlighted in blue above).

A window will pop up that shows you the Building Blocks folder:

To add your individual FAQ components to the List component:

1. Select a FAQ component you've just created.

2. Click Insert (highlighted in yellow above).

3. Back in the window for your List component, click on the green + icon (highlighted in yellow below).

The pop up for the Building Blocks folder will appear again, and you can enter your remaining FAQ components by selecting them and using the Insert button, like you did before.

When you have multiple FAQ components in the list, you can sort them by dragging the sort icons (highlighted in yellow above) or delete them using the trashcan icons (highlighted in red above).

Once your list is complete, click Save & Close in the Home tab (highlighted in blue above).

Inserting Your List Component Onto a Page

To actually put the FAQs onto a web page, you must navigate to the desired page in the root folder and open it.

• Click Insert in the Component Presentations tab, which will open up the pop up with the Building Blocks folder in it (shown below):

Select the List component you created, then choose FAQ from the Component Template drop down menu (highlighted in yellow above).

Once you have chosen FAQ, click Insert to add the component to your page.

Back in the window for your page, you’ll see that your FAQ List component is there.

When you are happy with your page, click Save and Close and you are ready to Publish (see Publishing for more information).

Example of a FAQ List on a Web Page

Below is an example of the FAQ List Component we created in the above instructions, as it lives on a web page (highlighted in yellow):

List of FAQs Components

If you have a large amount of FAQs or a large quantity of expandable content, it is a good idea to sort the individual questions into groups or categories.

• This helps to display a large amount of text without taking up too much real estate on the page.

This can be accomplished in Tridion by taking the groups and making List components out of each group of individual FAQ components (as described previously in these instructions), then making a List of FAQs component out of the List components.

• This process (described below) is basically the same thing as creating a List component, but you are doing it with List components instead of individual FAQ components.

To get started, organize your FAQs into groups or categories, so that questions or information that is related appears together in the same section. Then you can start creating the building blocks for a List of FAQs component:

1. Follow the process detailed above in these instructions to create a List component out of one of the groups of FAQ components.

2. Repeat this process until you have made List components out of each of your groups of FAQ components.

Once you have created your List components, you can proceed with creating a List of FAQs component:

In the Building Blocks folder, you can see individual FAQ components and multiple List components (highlighted in green above).

To create your List of FAQs component, click New Component (highlighted in blue above) in the Create tab (highlighted in yellow above) of the navigation bar.

You will be taken to a new page for creating the component:

1. Create a new List component using your List components made from the groups of FAQs (see above in these instructions for information on creating a List component).

2. Click Save and Close.

Once you’ve created your List of FAQ List components, navigate to the page you want to add the List of FAQs component to in the root folder.

In the Component Presentations tab of the page, click Insert and the window below showing the Building Blocks folder will pop up (shown below):

From the Building Blocks folder, select your List of List FAQs component and choose List of FAQs from the Component Template drop down menu (highlighted in yellow above).

• Then click Insert (highlighted in blue above) to add the component to your page.

Back in the window for your page, click Save and Close and you are ready to Publish.

Example of a List of FAQs Component on a Web Page

Below is an example of the List of FAQs component we created in the above instructions, as it lives on a web page:

There are several important elements to point out in the above example:

1. The Display Title for the List of FAQs component is highlighted in yellow.

2. The individual FAQs with their questions and answers are highlighted in red.

3. The Display Titles for the List components made up of individual FAQs are highlighted in green and blue.

   • Not only do these display titles appear at the top of each section of questions, they are the labels for the quick links (blue) that will take you directly to that section of questions if you click on it.