You can create custom templates for the search page at the departmental, topic, and subtopic levels. This allows departments to serve exclusively their FAQ content within the departmental web site in a layout that has the look of the overall site.

However, a search page appears in its custom template only if the user enters that page exclusively. For example, if a custom template is defined for the department "A," a FAQ search that begins on the departmental level will be displayed in the departmental template. Even if you have a custom template defined for department A, however, if you enter the search page at the University-wide search page, you won't see the custom template.

This means that the links you create to take your users to the FAQ system must use the correct parameters. The same principle applies to the topic and subtopic levels. A full description of all available parameters can be found in the Admin Help for linking to the FAQ search page.

The screen shot above is taken from the departmental template page. Open a browser window and find your HTML template file in your web site. You will not see the graphics at this time. Highlight the full web address in the browser's location bar and copy it to the clipboard. Paste the copied web address into the input box.

Upon submission of the page, the FAQ system will check that the specified file exists. The template files should reside on the www.bu.edu server. If your site does not reside on the www.bu.edu server, or if you do not have a subdirectory in the /web/ directory of the Boston University AFS file system, you can request that your template is hosted by Networked Information Systems (NIS).

The FAQ search template requires specific form elements and will always contain part of the Tree control and the results areas. NIS will assist you in incorporating the necessary fields and placeholders in your template. Please contact WebCentral to ask for assistance.

The Custom radio button allows you to enable the template selected in the Template Web Address field. When the Template Web Address field is empty the button has no effect even if selected.

Remember that only users who enter the FAQ search page at the level for which you have defined a custom template will see the custom template. This means that the links you create to take your users to the FAQ system must use the correct parameters. Read a full description of all available parameters in the Admin Help for linking to the FAQ search page.

When the Standard radio button is selected the FAQ system's default template will be used.

The topic and subtopic templates default according to the following principle:

If the FAQ search is restricted to a specific subtopic and no subtopic template is specified, it will try to use the topic template. If no topic template is specified, the departmental template is used. If no departmental template is defined, the FAQ system's default template will be used.