How to add attachments to Published KB Articles using delivered Attachments API

[mgilbert42]

We are trying to leverage the out of the box attachment APIs ("Attachment API" or "CSM Attachment API") to post attachment files to Knowledge Articles.  Some details about our setup:

• Knowledge versioning is turned ON
• ACLs are blocking changes to Knowledge Articles that are in Published state
• We use custom KB article template tables that extend Knowledge (kb_knowledge) and inherit the ACL rules of Knowledge
• Instance is on Utah release

By what I understand, the behavior we're seeing is expected as the checkout process is required to edit an article after it has been published.  Has anyone had experience with using the out of the box APIs to post attachments to articles that have been published?

We're hoping to avoid using a Scripted API solution if possible.  We have tried to use a before business rule to capture changes to the attachments table but ACLs appear to trigger ahead of the business rule, blocking the rule from ever running.  Is this possible?

Screenshots of the API errors we receive when posting to a published article.  Thank you!

[Maik Skoddow]

Hi @mgilbert42 

it doesn't matter which API you are using or which approach (Business Rule). At the end the ACLs are the last defense against unauthorized changes. This is what we all are expecting from a high secure, enterprise product like ServiceNow, right? Imagine it would be possible what you try to achieve: In that case we don't need a publish process for KB articles anymore and can save ourselves the whole issue of quality assurance.

So everything works as designed/intended. Of course, you could break up the ACLs, but I don't know whether the risk of breaking functionalities is worth the whole thing.

Maik

[mgilbert42]

Hello Maik,

You are correct, we do not wish to subvert the ACLs else we risk the problems you mention.  We were hoping there would be an out of the box solution for this specific scenario and the good news is we did find that as designed for the KB tables.   I'm going to post a reply to the overall thread shortly with the solution and close it out.

Thanks you!

[mgilbert42 · Accepted solution]

The resolution to our issue was activating the system property for Minor Edits on Knowledge Articles, we added the following two sys_property entries.  This ensures we do not alter the out of the box functionality related to ACL and Business Rules for Knowledge Versioning.

Property Name	Value
glide.knowman.versioning.enable_minor_edits	true
glide.knowman.versioning.minor_edit_fields	attachments

Knowledge Versioning documentation: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/vancouver-servicenow-platform/page/product/knowledge-management/c...

Versioning system property documentation:

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/vancouver-servicenow-platform/page/product/knowledge-management/r...