Include your Help Center directly in your mobile app, with Intercom Articles, and take advantage of the many flexible ways to present help content to your users. Get the right information to the right people, at the right time. 👌
For a fully integrated self-serve experience, you’ll need to install Intercom’s latest mobile SDK for each version of your app:
Once enabled, users will have access to exactly the right help content, shown in way that best suits your app:
The SDK’s “Presentation” methods let you launch articles in-line, or showcase specific articles or collections in different parts of your app.
Data methods let you build articles or collections into your own native UI.
Pro tip: No matter which of these methods you use to present your articles and collections, users remain within your app for a seamless experience. This includes links in outbound messages, or sent by your team in support conversations. Creating macros with links to your most useful collections, is a great way to guide users in the right direction. 👌
Read on to learn more about how these methods work, or find instructions to use them here in our developer documentation: iOS, Android or Cordova & Phonegap
Presentation methods
Calling a presentation method presents a new window with Intercom’s default UI (using your workspace’s Messenger color settings). The different methods allow you to show:
The entire Help Center.
All articles in a specific collection.
A filtered set of collections.
A specific article.
Tip: If you present the entire Help Center and it has only one collection, users will see the articles & sections within that collection.
Data methods
Calling a data method provides you with the raw data models for the Help Center and its articles. You choose how to render this data in your app. The available methods let you fetch:
A list of collections.
The sections and articles contained within a collection.
A list of articles in the Help Center, matching a search term you provide.
Note: The UI for an individual article is always rendered with the default Intercom UI. You will need to use the article presentation method and pass in the article_id.
Frequently asked questions
Is dark mode supported?
Dark mode is not currently supported by our SDKs.
Are multilingual articles supported?
Yes. Content is shown based on the device's language setting, or the language override if you use it. Mobile users are not able to select their own language.
Is the mobile Help Center WCAG compliant?
Certain accessibility features are supported in the mobile Help Center, but it doesn’t currently meet WCAG 2.1 criteria. We have plans to improve in this area, so watch this space. 😉
Troubleshooting
The UI is different on iOS 13
On Android and iOS devices running iOS 12 or lower the Help Center is fullscreen. On iOS 13 and above it is presented in a modal over your app.
Error: Intercom has been initialized incorrectly.
If you try to present the Help Center in your app before initializing Intercom, the following error is logged:
Error: Intercom has been initialized incorrectly. Please make sure the first Intercom method you call is initialize() and that you're passing in the correct app ID and API key.