Set default help value to GitLab docs site
Release notes
Problem to solve
Depending on if you're using self-managed GitLab or GitLab SaaS, your product documentation experience can be very different, based on how self-managed GitLab defaults to sending users to /help
for any documentation page requests.
Proposal
To ensure that GitLab users (regardless of their use of self-managed or SaaS) have a consistent product documentation experience, in the Admin Settings, the default value of Preferences > Sign-in and Help page > Documentation pages URL should be changed from blank to https://docs.gitlab.com
.
This change is only to set the default, and self-managed admins can continue to set the value of this field to another value (such as a locally hosted product documentation site, based on the instructions at https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/administration/docs_self_host.html ).
This proposal is based on work to replace the /help
experience for users, at: technical-writing#509 (closed)
Intended users
This change will primarily benefit self-managed users of GitLab, as it will ensure that by default visits to product documentation from within the application are sent to the GitLab Docs site, which has an improved interface, search, and consistent branding with other GitLab resources.
Metrics
Based on this change, we should see increased visited to the GitLab Docs site. This should help us better understand the most important product documentation pages, as we'll have a more expansive view of page visits by self-managed users.