Customer portal
Enable a business portal with a built-in help center, custom pages, assets and your own domains.
A customer portal is a public website for one business. You can use Octocom's
built-in help center, publish your own HTML and JavaScript pages, or combine both.
Each business has a built-in address: https://<business-slug>.portal.octocom.ai.
Find the actual address in Business settings → Customer portal → Overview.
Enable and disable
The portal has three independent settings:
| Setting | What it controls |
|---|---|
Customer portal (enabled) | Master switch for the business's portal documents, custom assets, previews and public article APIs, on both its built-in address and connected custom domains. |
Help center (helpCenterEnabled) | Built-in home, article and category pages. Also enables public article APIs. |
Public article API for custom pages (publicArticlesEnabled) | Lets custom pages read public articles when the built-in help center is off. Find this in the Custom pages settings. |
The master switch must be on for either of the other settings to take effect. For example:
| Portal | Help center | Public article API | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Off | Any | Any | Portal content returns 404, including published custom pages. |
| On | On | Any | Built-in help center and public article APIs, plus custom pages at other paths. |
| On | Off | Off | Published custom pages only; no built-in help center or public article APIs. |
| On | Off | On | Published custom pages and public article APIs, without built-in help-center pages. |
Disabling a portal keeps its configuration, drafts, published pages, assets and domain connections. Re-enabling restores the applicable content. It does not unpublish or delete pages. Disabling only the help center leaves custom pages available; see path precedence.
Portal content is checked on each new request and is served without a delivery cache. Content already loaded or downloaded in a visitor's browser cannot be withdrawn. Shared application build files and the connection diagnostic endpoint are not customer content and can remain reachable.
Manage your portal
The Customer portal settings have five tabs:
- Overview: portal address, master switch and help-center enablement.
- Help center: enablement and automatically saved branding settings.
- Custom pages: drafts, published pages, code editing and previews; optional public article API access.
- Assets: upload files, copy their paths and inspect page usage.
- Domains: connect a hostname, get DNS instructions, check status and disconnect.
The same portal configuration, pages, assets and domains can be managed through MCP tools. Help-center branding is configured in the dashboard.
Start with the setup you need
- For an article-based support site, enable the portal and Help center, then mark the appropriate articles public.
- For a standalone site or form, enable the portal, leave the help center off and publish a custom page. Publish
/if you want a home page. - To use your own address, connect a custom domain. The built-in address continues to work.
Legacy portal
The new customer portal is separate from the older Azure-hosted portal at
portal.octocom.ai. Existing enabled help centers were migrated with the new
portal, help center and public article API enabled. New portal switches do not
change the legacy enablement flag or move legacy URLs automatically.
Legacy pages and customer-domain routing need a reviewed migration before they can be retired. Contact Octocom when moving an existing legacy customer domain.